Jewish theater artists in the three alternate magazine covers:
Clockwise from left: Jesse Eisenberg, Matthew Broderick, Sam Gold, Amy Herzog, Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer and Joel Grey.
Harvey Fierstein, Liev Schreiber, Ethan Slater, Idina Menzel and Tina Landau.
Paula Vogel, Brandon Uranowitz, David Cromer, Micaela Diamond and Tony Kushner
“The theater, which for many Jews was a major way of becoming American in the first place, seems unable to acknowledge that the danger that American Jews face is not just historical, and not just onstage,” New York Times theater critic Jesse Green writes in a T magazine article, entitled “Let Us Tell You A Story: How Jewish people built the American theater as we know it.”
The article is more wide-ranging than just the history of Jews in theater. Green is clearly inspired by the recent surge in antisemitism and the justifiable fear Jews have for their safety. He talks about the downside of assimilation, and implies a lack of reciprocal allyship among non-Jews. He also touches on such theater-related issues as the relative lack of Jewish-related content created by Jewish artists, on the elevation of Jewish trauma on stage to the exclusion of any other aspects of Jewish life (“Jews are unlikely to be Jewish onstage unless they are endangered”), and on the frequent practice of casting non-Jews in Jewish roles.
The Jewish artists’ contribution to theater was in part to “cross over into new understandings of otherness,” and reach for the universal, writes Green, who contrasts that with the recent tendency of some (presumably non-Jewish) artists to focus “more overtly and exclusively on ever finer slices of themselves, speaking first to those in precise demographic alignment and only secondarily, if at all, to interested others. (As the chief theater critic for The New York Times, I have been asked not to review certain plays that creative teams apparently felt I, as a white man, could not appreciate.)”
The article is illustrated by a fashion photoshoot of a large gathering of Jewish theater artists, which is somewhat bizarre, since it includes the price of some of what they’re wearing.
In any case, consider this a gift for Hanukkah, which begins this week.
Preview Guides:
December 2023 New York Theater Openings
Holiday Shows in NYC 2023
Broadway Spring 2024 Preview Guide
Theater Quiz for November 2023: A month of crises, and Barbra
The Week in New York Theater Reviews
Spain
Jen Silverman’s foggy, talky, untrustworthy play purports to tell the cloak-and-dagger backstory of the making of a film about the Spanish Civil War.
Book review: Here in the Dark by Alexis Soloski
Alexis Soloski, a theater critic for the New York Times, has written a novel about a theater critic, but if that’s the lure, beware: “Here in the Dark” (Flatiron Books, 256 pages) is more Dashiell Hammett than Dorothy Parker, the central character as much Sam Spade as Addison DeWitt….Yet, for all the twists and turns of a typical crime novel — involving a private eye, a distrustful cop, the missing man’s distraught Russian fiancé and her fat gangster father, a hidden flash-drive, a secret mastermind, and a reasonably clever if highly improbable resolution — “Here in the Dark” is awash in the critical profession and the theatrical arts.
The Week in New York Theater News
Vineyard will simulcast the final four performances of “Scene Partners” by John J. Caswell Jr. starring Dianne Wiest (Dec 15-17) via the League of Live Stream Theater, which did the same for MTC and Second Stage.
Tony Awards eligibility meeting, the first for the 77th annual Tony Awards, discussed ten shows. The most noteworthy decisions: Merrily We Roll Along’s Daniel Radcliffe and Lindsay Mendez and Back to the Future’s Roger Bart will compete in the featured categories, not the lead; and the video designers Finn Ross and Nina Dunn will each be considered eligible Best Scenic Design of a Musical category for, respectively, Back to the Future: The Musical, and The Shark is Broken, along with the actual scenic designers for those shows – because the Tonys (unlike other theater awards) have no award category for projection design.
The Tony Awards eligibility cut-off date for the 2023-2024 season is Thursday, April 25, 2024 for all Broadway productions which meet all other eligibility requirements. Nominations for the 2024 Tony Awards will be announced on Tuesday, April 30, 2024.
New cast of “Six” beginning tomorrow: Bottom row: (l-r)Jasmine Forsberg(Jane Seymour),Gabriela Carrillo(Catherine Parr), &Didi Romero(Katherine Howard). Middle row: (l-r)Olivia Donalson(Anna of Cleves)&Khaila Wilcoxon(Catherine of Aragon). Top row:Storm Lever(Anne Boleyn)
Indie Theater Matters
IndieSpace handed out $1000 grant checks at a ceremony at Chelsea Factory to 60 recipients of their annual Pay Your People Grants. Grantees were chosen by lottery from 291 eligible applicants. It’s worth listing the grantees, simply to point to how vigorous the indie (aka Off-Off Broadway) scene is in New York, despite all the challenges:
Boomerang Theatre Company, Broadway Inspirational Voices, Danza Espana, International Culture Lab, and Untitled Theater Company No. 61 were recipients of the Deep Roots Grant, which is awarded to companies that have been working in indie theater for more than 25 years.
Indie Theater Venue Grants were awarded to 14Y Theater, 16 Cowries Space, 3am Theater, El Barrio’s Artspace PS 109, Episcopal Actors’ Guild (EAG), FRIGID New York, Greenhouse Arts Center, IRT Theater, Latin American Intercultural Alliance, and WOW Cafe Theater.
Additional grants were awarded to After Work Theater, Ali Keller LLC, AnomalousCo, Brooklyn Tavern Theater, Dance Visions NY, Divine Riot, EPIC PLAYERS INC, Fresh Ground Pepper, Good Light Productions, H+ | The Hip-Hop Dance Conservatory, Hamlet Isn’t Dead, Hit The Lights! Co., Home’s Kitchen, Kitchen Sink Theatre Company, KPC – Keeping People Connected, Last Minute Applicant, Latinx Performance Ensemble, Lone Star Media, Meta-Phys Ed., Midnight Cowboy Radio, Mind The Gap Theatre, Monli International Company LLC, Moxie Arts NYC, Naked Angels Theater Company, New York Neo-Futurists, Okaeri Productions, LLC, Parity Productions, Permafrost Theatre Collective, Quail Bell, Quick Silver Theater Company, RadioHole, Random Access Theatre, Recent Cutbacks, Retro Productions, SheNYC Arts, Soft Brain Theatre Company, Sparklet Productions, STAGE AURORA NY, The Bailey Williams Self-Produced Productions Company, The Hess Collective, The Living Orchid, The Other Side of Silence (TOSOS), Trusty Sidekick Theater Company, Village Playwrights, and White Horse Theater Company.
The Billy Rose Theatre Division celebrates five decades of one of Broadway’s most brilliant actors, André De Shields, in person and with video clips, Monday December 11 at 6 p.m. RSVP to attend for free.
“In all my plays, I’m trying to figure out how someone who feels marginalized, invisible, can at the same time be powerful and self-possessed. My characters are fighting to be seen in a world that fundamentally doesn’t want to recognize their power.” – Lynn Nottage, Interviewed in Paris Review
“I wanted to be on Broadway. When I told my parents when I was 9 or 10, they were so disappointed. They said ‘Honey, you’re so much smarter than that.'” – Natalie Portman’s character in the film “May December”
In Memoriam
Frances Sternhagen, 93, a familiar face on TV (Cheers, Sex and the City) but she thrived on stage — veteran of 27 (!) plays on Broadway, and almost as many Off Broadway, winner of two Tony Awards, for The Heiress and the Good Doctor
