A week-long seminar about Jews and performance in New York City, August 4-11, 2013.
Participants will meet actors, playwrights, and directors, and attend several current theatrical productions, Off-Broadway and elsewhere. You will, at the same time, be reading and discussing classics of the American stage with Andrea Most (U of Toronto), an award-winning scholar of theater and Jewish culture.
Sample Day:
- 9am-12pm Morning session at LaMama Experimental Theater: Action and Acting: The Jewish roots of American Popular Culture
- 12pm-3pm Lunch, reading and development of group project
- 3pm-5pm Q&A with Tony Kushner, author of Angels in America and The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures
- 6:30pm Dinner: Jezebel
- 8pm Far From Heaven at Playwrights Horizons
You will visit celebrated sites of Jewish performance (including a Friday-night service at New York's B’nai Jeshurun synagogue), and explore the roles of Jewish performers, writers, producers, and critics such as Lee Strasberg, George S. Kaufman, Irving Berlin, the Marx Brothers, Sid Caesar, Woody Allen and Barbra Streisand in shaping contemporary American theater.
If required, lodging will be provided; most meals will be provided. Participants are responsible for their own transportation to and from New York.
The kinds of things we’ll be doing:
- At LaMama Experimental Theater, table read a classic Broadway hit like Abie’s Irish Rose or Awake and Sing!
- Meet Tony Award winner Bill Finn, March of the Falsettos
- Have an intimate discussion with playwright Tony Kushner
- Workshop a contemporary rendition of a traditional Yiddish production with Target Margin Theater
- Explore the history of Jews in creating the American theatrical tradition
- Investigate the world of cutting edge Jewish performance at Fringe NYC
- See Old Jews Telling Jokes and go to a different performance every night of the week
- Take a backstage tour of a legendary New York theater
The Theater application deadline has passed. To sign up for our mailing list and to receive information about 2014 Tent programs contact us or call (413) 256-4900. x103.
