This yr is a vital time for celebrating how Jewish tales are being advised in theater.
It’s hardly breaking information that the variety of antisemitic incidents have escalated over latest years. Within the U.S. alone, reported incidents of violence and vandalism in opposition to Jewish folks rose 36% in 2022, in accordance with the Anti-Defamation League. The report tracked 3,697 incidents of harassment, vandalism and assault concentrating on Jewish communities in that calendar yr. And whereas that rise stems from numerous inflection factors – political figures like former president Donald Trump taking part in host to identified neo-Nazis like Nick Fuentes absolutely performed a task – the case of Kanye West, specifically, had a famous impression. The rapper’s amplification of antisemitic rhetoric alone instantly induced over 30 prejudiced assaults and incidents of vandalism concentrating on Jewish folks, per the Anti-Defamation League’s report.
All of this to say: Now could be a second to have a good time how the humanities group has responded to such hate and proved stronger than ever.
Going into Sunday’s 76th annual Tony Awards – a ceremony that’s transferring ahead after considerate negotiation with the Writers Guild of America reversed a union choice to picket Broadway’s largest night time – Tom Stoppard’s Holocaust drama “Leopoldstadt” will probably win Finest Play and is the playwright’s personal story of discovering his true faith and why it was saved from him for thus lengthy.
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A prime contender on the Finest Musical Revival aspect additionally facilities on a historic Jewish story with “Parade,” which tells the heartbreaking true story of Leo Frank, a Jewish man who was lynched in 1915 for against the law he didn’t commit. Come Sunday, its profitable will probably be a decent horse race between the brand new manufacturing of “Sweeney Todd” from musical theater maestro Stephen Sondheim, who himself was Jewish. The previous has undoubtedly caught the emotional second.
Sean Hayes, in the meantime, might win Finest Actor for portraying pianist Oscar Levant, who was not solely Jewish however one with a biting humor; he made maybe the filthiest (and funniest) joke ever about Marilyn Monroe’s personal conversion to Judaism in 1956.
Elsewhere on New York levels, “The Wanderers” by Anna Ziegler, starred Sarah Cooper and Katie Holmes and handled two {couples} of very totally different Jewish experiences. David Strathairn additionally introduced his one-man present a few historic Holocaust witness, “Bear in mind This,” to Brooklyn. And taking part in a distinctly Jewish character in “The Sign up Sidney Brustein’s Window,” reverse “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” star Rachel Brosnahan, is Oscar Isaac. And let’s not neglect “Humorous Woman,” a few Jewish woman named Fanny.
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Subsequent, Alex Edelman, one of many nation’s quickest rising stand-up comedians, brings his one-man present, “Simply For Us,” again to the town quickly. It charts the stranger-than-fiction story of how Edelman responded to antisemitic threats made on-line by going straight to the supply and covertly attending a gathering of white nationalists. And simply opening Off Broadway is “The Rock & Roll Man,” about Jewish DJ and Rock and Roll Corridor of Famer Alan Freed.
Past the nation’s theater capitol, the topic of Jewish historical past and reminiscence might be discovered on levels everywhere in the nation this final yr. In Los Angeles, the Fountain Theatre in Hollywood had an prolonged run of “If I Neglect,” a robust household story centered on a liberal Jewish research professor. The Braid, an L.A.-based firm identified for “creating, curating, producing and preserving tales grounded in Jewish tradition and expertise,” has persistently provided sturdy materials. And L.A. Theatre Works is presenting the world premiere of “Exodus: The Shanghai Jews,” an audio docudrama by Kate McAll, on June 23.
In Minneapolis, the Youngsters’s Theater Firm is staging an adaptation of the animated film “An American Tail” by way of June 18. This story facilities on the Mousekewitzes, a Russian-Jewish household of mice in a transferring allegory for turn-of-the-century immigration and the American Dream. And first launched in 2018 by Rochester Jewish Group Middle, and primarily based on precise interviews with Holocaust survivors, Wendy Kout’s play “Survivors” is being achieved in faculties, museums and theaters across the U.S. – plus a movie model was lately shot.
In fact, the topic continues in all types of media. At New York’s 92 Road Y all this month, Annette Insdorf – creator of “Indelible Shadow: Movie and the Holocaust” – will talk about the chances and limitations of cinematic illustration of the Holocaust by way of 4 movie viewings. And on the just-concluded Cannes Movie Competition, the Grand Prix was given to Jonathan Glazer’s chilling Holocaust drama, “The Zone of Curiosity.”
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By way of these works and extra, younger folks, whose information of the Holocaust is turning into shockingly scant, are being concurrently entertained and educated – and at a time when antisemitic rhetoric and abuses proceed to rise nationwide, no much less.
In Might 2020, I wrote a bit for TheWrap about how Jewish theater corporations across the nation have been struggling in warmth of the COVID pandemic. Checking in right this moment, they’ve all survived – after which some. The Alliance for Jewish Theatre, the umbrella group, has lots of of members and continues with annual occasions together with main audio system like Anne Kaufman (who directed “Sidney Brustein”) and “Dangerous Jews” author Josh Harmon, whose most up-to-date work, “Prayer for the French Republic,” strikes to Broadway subsequent season.
The stimulus for the Alliance’s survival – and, actually, a lot of the awakening – was absolutely the violence at synagogues and rallies that proved antisemitism was alive and brewing in america. Even “Parade” was picketed by a gaggle of neo-Nazis on its opening night time in February. Audiences, creatives and critics alike proceed standing sturdy within the face of it.
Talking with TheWrap at a press occasion for the Drama Desk Awards earlier this month, “Parade” composer Jason Robert Brown spoke to the matter: “Jewish expertise and spirit have at all times been the lifeblood of Broadway. But it surely was at all times kind of below the floor, ready to bubble up,” he stated. “With what’s been happening on the planet, now that lifeblood has risen.”
Michele Willens covers theater and stories “Stage Proper… or Not” for an NPR affiliate.
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