Woody Guthrie sang of America’s “redwood forests” and “gulf stream waters.” The traveling troubadour and American folk poet electrified a nation with his paeans to America’s indomitable spirit and beauty. Oklahoma-born and Texas-raised, he also ignited mighty debates with songs and writings that took on the establishment and sought to elevate the working masses. His…
A small yet vocal group seems to be holding the artistic and ethical sensibilities of the Jewish community of Washington, D.C. hostage, leading Theatre J to scale back its planned production of ‘The Admission’ by Motti Lerner. Theatre, like all arts, is meant to create dialogue as well as delight, foster intellectual discourse for new…
In an apparent bow to the right in the Jewish culture wars, Theater J, a celebrated theatrical group housed at Washington’s DC Jewish Community Center, will not produce a play set to open this spring that has been denounced by critics as anti-Israel. The troupe will instead run a workshop on the play and a…
Playwright Ari Roth stumbles sometimes when discussing the characters in “Andy and the Shadows,” his family drama that opens this week at Washington, D.C.’s Theater J. In fact, when Roth discusses Nate, the patriarch in the work, he slips, saying, “my father.” It’s undestandable, for Roth, long-time artistic director of Washington D.C. JCC-based theater, has…
Kevyn Morrow and Johnny Ramey in Centerstage’s production of The Whipping Man. Photo by Richard Anderson. “The Whipping Man,” a taut Civil War drama about a wounded Jewish confederate soldier and his encounter with the Jewish slaves owned by his father, has been on a nationwide roll since its world premiere in 2006. With more…
Despite a title that sounds like a grad school dissertation, and pontifications that would make a third-year philosophy major proud, “New Jerusalem: The Interrogation of Baruch de Spinoza” keeps theatergoers surprisingly engaged. In fact, the opening night audience at Theater J took in the fast-paced courtroom-style drama with at times audible gasps and guffaws. Theater…
Elizabeth Rich as Rosalind Franklin in ‘Photograph 51.’ Photo by Stan Barouh. Watching the current production at Washington D.C.’s Theater J of Anna Ziegler’s “Photograph 51,” which tells the tragic tale of Jewish scientist and almost Nobel laureate Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958), I was reminded of Walt Whitman’s poem “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” (1900)….
In the first of a two-part series, Lisa Traiger traces the growth of Israeli folk dancing from one dance — “Hora Agadati” in 1924 — to 4,678 in 2005. Jordana Horn surveys the career of the remarkable Moroccan-Israel actress Ronit Elkabetz, who was recently honored by the New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival. Philologos is,…
100% of profits support our journalism
