The 2017 Tony Award nominations have been announced and that’s good news for Israeli politics, Yiddish theater, Leo Tolstoy and Bette Midler. The nomination leaders were “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812,” Dave Malloy’s loosey-goosey adaptation of a portion of “War and Peace,” (12 nominations) and “Hello, Dolly!” (10 nominations including Bette Midler…
The opening moments of “Indecent” are breathtaking. As you enter the Cort Theatre, where this Yiddish-theater drama-within-a-drama opened tonight, the cast is waiting, sitting quietly in an upstage row of chairs, dressed in early-20th-century clothes, valises at their sides. When the play begins, they stand and make their way onto the raised stage in front…
On a Manhattan Monday, in an airy rehearsal studio far enough west of Times Square to make a grumbling city-dweller breathe with freedom, a group of journalists greeted each other forlornly. “There’s no food,” one photographer grumbled to another, affixing various implements to his camera. To his left, a journalist clutching a notepad and elderly…
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. The classic Yiddish writer, Sholem Asch, whose serialized stories once graced the pages of the Forverts, has become a familiar name as of late, thanks to the new theatrical production of his novel about a Jewish brothel owner, “God of Vengeance” and Paula Vogel‘s acclaimed drama about…
In May I left a preview for “Indecent” at Manhattan’s Vineyard Theater uncharacteristically silent. The play was advertised as a tale about Sholem Asch’s “God of Vengeance,” a Yiddish play that famously closed after one night on Broadway, with its entire cast arrested on charges of obscenity. “Indecent,” co-created by playwright Paula Vogel and director…
Fans of Paula Vogel, Yiddish Theater, and equality in the arts rejoice: Vogel’s play “Indecent,” which made its New York debut off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theater last April, will be hitting Broadway this coming spring. On Wednesday, producers Daryl Roth, Elizabeth Ireland McCann and Cody Lassen announced that, starting in April 2017, “Indecent,” which Vogel…
Indecent By Paula Vogel Created by Paula Vogel & Rebecca Taichman Directed by Rebecca Taichman Music composed by Lisa Gutkin & Aaron Halva From the moment of its inception in 1906, Yiddish writer Sholem Asch’s play “God of Vengeance” was an object of controversy. Set in a Jewish brothel, the plot revolves around a love…
A Montreal man accused of exposing himself to Jewish girls was arrested by police and members of Chaverim, an Orthodox emergency responders organization. The arrest followed months of complaints received by Chaverim about a man who would allegedly call Orthodox Jewish girls over to his pick-up truck, sometimes under the pretense of needing directions, and…
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