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Corona, the angel of death, could not stop any of Philadelphia’s many holiday concerts: 6 reviews

12/30/2020

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By Henrik Eger
Picture
Festively decorated Christmas tree in front of City Hall, Philadelphia.
Corona, the angel of death, killed not only a third of a million Americans and many more worldwide, but also brought to an end most cultural events, especially concerts and theater shows. To my surprise and delight, some of the most beloved choruses and orchestras in the Philadelphia area, instead of canceling, became creative in entertaining audiences in safe and often unexpected ways via virtual performances.
 
The reviews below, jointly published by Phindie and Drama Around the Globe, present two aspects:
1. A History and short overview of the achievements of each musical group.
2. My Observations of their concerts.
 
Let’s hope that we can visit theaters and concert halls again next year. In this spirit:
Have a Happy, creative, and Covid-free New Year. 
​THE ORPHEUS CLUB: Oldest men’s singing club in the U.S.
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The Orpheus Club Philadelphia presents, "We need a little Christmas."
History: “The Orpheus Club is a men's singing club based in Philadelphia, and is the oldest of its kind in the United States. It was founded in 1872, when 22 members performed at the Musical Fund Hall on Locust Street.
 
“The Orpheus club performs its Christmas, winter and spring concerts at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia and at the Kimmel Center. Its Twelfth Night Revels performance is held at the Orpheus clubhouse on South Van Pelt Street each January.” (Wikipedia)
 
Henrik Eger: Orpheus Club of Philadelphia Virtual Christmas Concert 2020: The quality of the voices, the originality of the videos—which even juxtaposes singers each wearing a mask with a photo of the same singer without a mask, and the blending in of songs performed at the elegant Academy of Music in the past where thousands of people were singing along—created one of the most joyful choral holiday experiences. 
MENDELSSOHN CHORUS: A new name, a new artistic director, and A Slice of Pie
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Mendelssohn Chorus world-premieres composer Melissa Dunphy's A slice of pie.
History: Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia, one of the most popular choruses with high standards, formerly known as the “Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia is a music institution in Philadelphia, [. . .] founded in 1874 by William Wallace Gilchrist, a major figure in the 19th century music of Philadelphia. The chorus is currently under the direction of Dominick DiOrio (2020- ). It was previously directed by Paul Rardin from 2015-2020, chair of the department of choral conducting at Temple University. Prior to Rardin's appointment, the chorus was led by Alan Harler from 1988–2015.” (Wikipedia)
 
Henrik: A Slice of Pie: Music by Melissa Dunphy, Poetry by Feminista Jones: One of Australia’s greatest gifts for Philadelphia is Melissa Dunphy, the composer of the Gonzales Cantata, the musical equivalent to The Investigation by Peter Weiss, based on the transcripts of the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials. Dunphy took the entire transcript of the Gonzales hearings and turned them into an equally eye-opening trial on stage.
 
She used strong Baroque elements for her music in the Gonzales Cantata, wrote many other pieces, quite a few in a more academic, abstract style, but for this Christmas concert, she used a mixture of American jazz and dream choirs, sung magnificently by the newly named Mendelssohn Chorus. My fear that I would hear atonal music which I usually only can stomach when performed by modern ballet dancers dissipated within seconds: This music made me want not only to eat more pies, but more importantly listen to sounds which made me feel at home, but also lyrics that made me think.
 
Adding to the down-to-earthness of this musical gem, this witty recording of her Slice of Pie, actually includes Dunphy herself preparing a pie, and mother proudly taking it out of the oven, followed by other people who are eating various forms of baked goods.
 
Given that way too many older folks have died of Covid-19 infections, I was moved when I saw an elderly couple eating a homemade pie--clearly relishing the joint experience. I appreciated that Dunphy and her lyricists, together with the chorus, the musicians, and the videographers, managed to make me think without being confronted by an angry manifesto. Rather, Dunphy manages to let us experience the joy of the holidays, but also gifts us with the awareness of what can happen to large numbers of people if we allow ignorance, greed, and exploitation to rule a country.
 
It was the first time that I saw the brilliant new conductor, Dominick DiOrio, wearing a festive red jacket, conducting over 70 singers, and the three musicians—Eric Schweingruber on the trumpet, Nathan Pence on bass, and Travis Goffredo on drums—leading to one of the most joyful holiday choral experiences.
PHILADELPHIA GAY MEN’S CHORUS: A cultural fixture in the city of brotherly love
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Legs up with a Holiday Can-Can: The PGMC conductor merrily joins the toy soldiers. Still from PGMC's holiday concert.
​History: This year’s Christmas concert by the popular Philadelphia Gay Men’s Chorus, founded in 1981, presents an upbeat, one hour free virtual program: “Home With Bells On—A virtual holiday concert.” Joseph J. Buches, the artistic director, expresses the hope that next year the crisis might be over. He then starts conducting a wide range of songs, accompanied by Baker Purdon. As always, ASL interpreter Brian Morrison gives us a chance to experience music in new ways
 
Henrik: What makes this program unique is not just the music and the joy the PGMC singers bring to the audience, but the mixture of highlights from previous holiday concerts with new Zoom recordings. We see close ups of all the participants singing beautifully in their own homes, identified by their first name, and with the lyrics being projected onto the screen. I also liked the rendition of Ma’oz Tzur, the Hanukkah song, presented by one member in Hebrew with great dignity.
 
When two singers sang “Grown-up Christmas List,” supported by the chorus, I was pretty moved, aware of the violence that surrounds us, and yet hope living on: “Do you remember me?/I sat upon your knee/ I wrote to you/With childhood fantasies.// [. . .] My grown-up Christmas list/Not for myself/But for a world in need.//No more lives torn apart/That wars would never start/And time would heal all hearts.//And everyone would have a friend/And right would always win/And love would never end.//”
 
Of all the many Christmas concerts I have seen, I never witnessed a conductor, dressed in his black tails, joining eight guardsmen, dressed in red uniforms, jointly performing “Favorite One” with some pretty complex choreographed movements by Sean Toczydlowski with their hands and arms, even their legs and feet moving rapidly in unison—a feat that brought down the house.
 
For the record, this concert may be the only one where the producers gave themselves permission to earn some urgently needed funds by including commercials by a vodka company. Purists may not like it, but a chorus must survive, not only artistically but also financially, given the many expenses. 
PHILLY POPS: The official Pops Orchestra of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ​
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Philly Pops musicians rehearse behind large protective Plexiglas dividers for a recording. Photo by Jessica Griffin.
​History: “The Philly Pops is an orchestra based in Philadelphia, PA. Founded by presenter and producer, Moe Septee, and conducted for 35 years by two-time Grammy Award-winning pianist Peter Nero, who, with the Philly Pops played orchestral versions of popular jazz, swing, Broadway songs and blues. In 1999, the Philly Pops was designated the official pops orchestra of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.” (Wikipedia)
 
Henrik: A Philly POPS Christmas: Spectacular Sounds of the Season: Of all the groups which I saw perform this season, the beloved Philly POPS conducted by David Charles Abell, made sure that the violinists, all wearing masks, sitting in the middle of the stage, were protected by large Plexiglas walls from their colleagues who played wind instruments (“Blasinstrumente” in German = blowing instruments)—a realistic reminder of how musicians, including singers, are almost as endangered as medical staff at hospitals.
 
The care that went into this production confirmed again the professionalism of the Philly POPS, including the protection of their guest singer, Broadway’s Mandy Gonzalez, and the members of the orchestra, who not only looked classy with their black tuxedos and cheerful bow ties and/or elegant long black dresses. The chorus took the deadly Covid threat seriously, so much so, that when the orchestra played, accompanied by the large POPS Festival Chorus, and with the conductor inviting us to sing along traditional carols, I almost went ashen when I saw their production of the most famous of all Christmas songs, Austria’s “Stille Nacht”—“Silent Night”:
 
Nothing hit me as hard about the seriousness of life as their version of the holiest of Christmas songs when nothing appeared on the screen but a flickering candle, before we saw the happy-looking singers cheering us up with their carols, but within seconds the colors of their faces and outfits faded into stark black and white images. These dark figures reminded me of the people of all ages who had already gone from this life and that this version confirmed the reality of the brevity of all our lives—but this concert also invited us to make every moment count.
 
We wouldn’t be in America if it weren’t for the next song wishing all of us a “Merry Christmas” with the conductor suddenly showing up from behind a window, wearing reindeer antlers and singing like an overenthusiastic reindeer, which made me laugh and forget the sadness I experienced with the eye-opening black and white scene.
 
The concert included a guest performance by Seattle’s pianist Charlie Albright; an unusual jazz version of “Amazing Grace” played on the trumpet by the Philly POPS artistic director of jazz, Terell Stafford; and continued with many more songs and a special performance by the Gospel Choir of the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas (founded in 1792), directed by Walter Blocker, who sang “Hark! The Herald, Christ is Born,” with great enthusiasm with the women dressed in African dresses and headgear, more colorful and exuberant than anything the elite in Britain wears at the annual Ascot Racecourse.
 
The concert ends with a jubilant performance of Handel’s “Hallelujah,” presented by the Philly POPS Festival Chorus, the St. Thomas Gospel Choir, and the Philadelphia Boys Choir. To my amazement, the director took the risk of conducting the orchestra live while the recorded video of all the performers—put together with great care by Austin Berner, the sound editor, and spliced together with split-second accuracy by videographer Jeffrey Masino—was running in sync with the Philly POPS.
 
What a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s concert, filled to brim with surprises, both funny and serious.
PHILADELPHIA BOYS CHOIR & CHORALE: "America's Ambassadors of Song" ​
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Philadelphia Boys Choir members, recording all songs at home, Christmas 2020. Photo by CBS3.
History: Philadelphia Boys Choir & Chorale is a boys' choir and men's chorale based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, “[. . .] founded in 1961 by Dr. Carlton Jones Lake [. . .] currently under the direction of Jeffrey R. Smith. They are known as "America's Ambassadors of Song" and are considered to be one of the best boys choirs in the world. They have performed in concert venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Sydney Opera House, the Kimmel Center, Notre Dame de Paris, King's College Cathedral, and Philadelphia's Academy of Music. [. . .]
 
“Riccardo Muti hailed the boys as a "gem" at the performance of the concert version of Puccini's Tosca with internationally acclaimed soloists. [. . .] During the 1990s, the Choir added Benjamin Britten's War Requiem to its repertoire under the baton of Wolfgang Sawallisch. [. . .] Each year, the Pennsylvania Ballet hosts the Choir as part of their seasonal favorite, The Nutcracker. Internationally, the Choir singers have performed for the Royal Families of Sweden, Denmark, England, Thailand and in over 30 countries around the world. [. . .] They have also sung at the White House for four presidents.” (Wikipedia)
 
Henrik:
Philadelphia Boys Choir & Chorale Winter Concert 2020: Jeffrey R. Smith, the conductor, describes in detail how he and a team of experts manage to get over 100 boys to sing at home without being able to hear anyone other than a recorded music track and seeing their artistic director conduct a virtual, non-visible chorus—before, after many days of splicing everything together we get this chorus sing in harmony. I have never seen anyone who explained this process so well that I understood the complexity of this time-consuming task. Alas, the overabundance of Christian graphics tend to distract from the overall high quality of this program.
 
However, seeing little boys reciting passages from the Christmas story in between musical numbers with great joy, added to the video. A Jewish boy, sitting next to a menorah, introduces “Ocho Kandelikas” (“Eight Candles” in Ladino), a lively Sephardic Jewish Hanukkah and New Year’s song with the English translation of the original lyrics projected onto the screen—one of the best Hanukkah song renditions I have ever heard. The scene of a little black boy in front of a tree in his neighborhood enthusiastically talking about Christmas made me think of a 10 year old Martin Luther King, Jr. in his neighborhood in Atlanta reaching out to the world in 1939—the outbreak of World War II—with a message of hope.
 
“When you believe” from The Prince of Egypt brings together both the Philadelphia Boys Choir and the Philadelphia Girls Choir—a joyful ending with over 300 voices.
​PHILADELPHIA GIRLS CHOIR: “A legend in the making”—with a surprise ending
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Philadelphia Girls Choir Christmas concert 2020 where the young performers sang in the open with at least a 6 ft. distance.
History: “Established in 2012, the Philadelphia Girls Choir provides an unequaled experience for girls 7 and older, taking a holistic approach to choral music that relates musicianship and performance to the broader human experience designed to instill confidence, responsibility and achievement through music.
 
“Cultural diversity and personal development are essential elements of our program. Ensembles of the Choir are invited to sing at public performances at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Pennsylvania Ballet’s Nutcracker and the National Constitution Center. The Concerto ensemble also travels and performs internationally for a yearly summer tour.” (Philadelphia Girls Choir website)
 
Henrik: Philadelphia Girls Choir Holiday Concert 2020: For this virtual concert, the choir also invited the American Boychoir from Princeton, NJ, the Princeton Girls Choir, and sang one piece with the Philadelphia Boys Choir. I particularly appreciated the graphics which showed beautiful scenes in nature in between numbers to which religious and non-religious people can relate, and I valued the international Christmas and New Year’s songs in Hebrew and Icelandic in their holiday repertoire.
 
This concert comes to a joyful close with all the girls slowly walking through a field next to a barn, all keeping a distance of more than six feet from each other, slowly moving forward, singing, each picking up a gift box—except a very young little girl with braids, who walks around unable to find her gift. The Philadelphia Girls Choir concert ends with a charming surprise. 
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"This is how we'll sing next year," Mendelssohn Chorus, 2020-2021.
TAGS: Corona, Philadelphia, Christmas concerts, Henrik Eger, The Orpheus Club, Musical Fund Hall, Academy of Music, Kimmel Center, Twelfth Night Revels, Orpheus clubhouse, Mendelssohn Chorus, A Slice of Pie, Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, William Wallace Gilchrist, Dominick DiOrio, Paul Rardin, Temple University, Alan Harler, Melissa Dunphy, Feminista Jones, Gonzales Cantata, The Investigation, Peter Weiss, Frankfurt Auschwitz trials, Eric Schweingruber, Nathan Pence, Travis Goffredo, Philadelphia Gay Men’s Chorus, Home With Bells On—A virtual holiday concert, Joseph J. Buches, Baker Purdon, Brian Morrison, PGMC, Ma’oz Tzur, Hanukkah song, Grown-up Christmas List, Favorite One, Sean Toczydlowski, Philly POPS, Peter Nero, Moe Septee, A Philly POPS Christmas: Spectacular Sounds of the Season, David Charles Abell, Silent Night, Mandy Gonzalez, Charlie Albright, Amazing Grace, Terell Stafford, Gospel Choir of the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, Walter Blocker, Hark! The Herald, Christ is Born, Ascot Racecourse, Handel, Hallelujah, Philly POPS Festival Chorus, Austin Berner, Jeffrey Masino, Philadelphia Boys Choir & Chorale, Carlton Jones Lake, Jeffrey R. Smith, Carnegie Hall, the Sydney Opera House, Notre Dame de Paris, King's College Cathedral, Riccardo Muti, Puccini, Tosca, Benjamin Britten, War Requiem, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Pennsylvania Ballet, The Nutcracker, Philadelphia Boys Choir & Chorale Winter Concert 2020, Ocho Kandelikas, Martin Luther King, Jr., When you believe, The Prince of Egypt, Philadelphia Girls Choir, National Constitution Center, Philadelphia Girls Choir Holiday Concert 2020, American Boychoir, the Princeton Girls Choir,

This review is published jointly by Phindie and Drama Around The Globe​. 
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BEAUTY and TERROR, seen through the kaleidoscope of Jewish Theater: 14 years later

11/11/2020

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​International aspects of the World Congress of Jewish Theaters, Vienna, Austria, March 2007

by Henrik Eger
Picture
Jewish gravestones in Vienna, hidden from the Nazis, dug up and restored in the 1980s. For more details click the photo above.
1. PROLOGUE: “To Jews and non-Jews in the audience . . .”
“To Jews and non-Jews in the audience, we must show not just a rosy picture, glossing over blemishes, but a picture as close and sometimes as painful to the truth as we can come.” 

Theodore Bikel’s (Austria/USA) advice from his important keynote address for the members of the Association for Jewish Theatre (AJT)—now the Alliance for Jewish Theatre--and many other theater groups around the world, organized by Warren and Sonja Rosenzweig, founders of the Jewish Theatre of Austria.

Bikel's address represents one of the many powerful images in our constantly changing conference kaleidoscope where theater people from around the globe contributed beautiful, thought-provoking, and sometimes even terrifying aspects of life, showing the strength and tremendous range of Jewish theatre worldwide.
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Theodore Bikel, Austrian-born keynote speaker at the AJT Conference in Vienna, 2007.
Looking into our conference kaleidoscope from an international perspective, I vividly recall dramatic beads, pebbles, and shards of many different colors, impressions, and emotions that terrified, challenged, but also nurtured me.
2. TERRIFYING SCENES
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An unidentified boy raises his arms as German soldiers capture Polish Jews during the Warsaw ghetto uprising,
sometime between April 19 and May 16, 1943.

Haunting Holocaust puppet theater for children, ​counteracting the relentless attack on “the Jews"
​Dutch Puppeteer Coby Omvlee (Netherlands/Norway) presented Teater Fusentast’s educational outreach to Scandinavian, Dutch, and immigrant audiences, including children from Africa and the Islamic world—a puppet-sized step toward counterbalancing the often vicious, relentless, and threatening verbal attacks on “the Jew” hammered into the children in many madrasahs around the world on an almost daily basis. Coby describes two of the scenes:
 
“Acting as a Nazi with an SS collar, I take one of the hand-sized paper puppets, Willem—whom the audience has grown to know quite well—set him on fire, and throw him into an “oven.” Later, without any expression of anger or hate, I take the remaining characters out of the family portrait and throw them away, except Hetty, the main character—the only one left. She then tries to find out if there are any family members left and reads from the lists of the deported and murdered on the miniature Red Cross building. During those scenes, both children and adults tend to sit in an edgy silence."
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ABOVE LEFT: Dutch Puppeteer Coby Omvlee presented Fusentast Theatre, Norway, describing a scene where she,
wearing an SS collar, burned Jewish paper dolls for kids. AJT World Congress of Jewish Theater, Vienna, 2007.


​ABOVE RIGHT: The multi-linguistic Coby Omvlee, together with her husband Jaap den Hertog, run a well-known puppet theater in Trondheim, Norway, but they also perform in many other countries in various languages. ​
Tashmadada, the Jewish Theater Down Under: Medea--Kaddish for the Children
Turning the kaleidoscope by 180 degrees, some conference participants lucked out and reached Tashmadada, the Jewish Theater Down Under, temporarily transplanted to the residence of the Australian Ambassador in Austria who had invited us and Deborah Leiser-Moore (Australia) to present aspects of her physical theater. 

In 2019, Australians experienced Medea: Kaddish for the Children, a re-imagining of one of the most iconic and tragic figures, Medea—played by Deborah Leiser-Moore.
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Deborah Leiser-Moore as Medea, Kaddish for the Children, Tashmadada, Melbourne, Australia, 2019.
Theater of Genocide (USA) and Maurice Ravel’s Kaddisch (France) 
​At the end of the Theater of Genocide presentation by Robert Skloot (USA), Susan Salms-Moss (USA and Germany), an American opera singer who has performed in Germany for the past 25 years, sang Maurice Ravel’s Kaddisch with a God-given voice that went under my skin as if it had been sung in a forgotten concentration camp—the last song of the last surviving Jewish woman on earth. 
​
[Kaddisch performed via the link above by Nikola Hillebrand (soprano) & Alexander Fleischer (piano) in Heidelberg, Germany, 2019.] 
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KADDISH, a 13th century Aramaic prayer for the dead— Kaddish Yatom or Mourner's Kaddish (literally, "Orphan's Kaddish")--
is said during every traditional Jewish prayer service, including funerals and memorials.

Jewish Theater of Austria and Die Judenstadt (USA/Austria)
Having secured the Bishop’s permission to perform in Vienna’s Votivkirche, one of the most important Neo-Gothic religious architectural sites in the world, our host Warren Rosenzweig (USA/Austria), founding artistic director of the Jüdisches Theater Austria (Jewish Theater of Austria), and his international cast presented his dramatic epic Die Judenstadt [The Jewish City].
 
Centered around Theodor Herzl in the months before he conceived the Zionist manifesto Der Judenstaat (The State of the Jews), the play follows the psychological journey of Herzl, a frustrated bourgeois playwright, as he faces down his inner demons and, in particular, his self-hatred, to emerge at last with a grand vision of himself as redeemer of the Jewish people.
 
The performance of Rosenzweig’s play on the Jewish city and the Jewish state—an extraordinary event—was held in a sacred Christian place. Three generations ago, such a Jewish performance would not have been allowed, and if it had taken place in secret, would have led to most audience members being carted off to Theresienstadt (Terezin)—coming from Germany, this scenario colored and haunted my perception of the entire Jewish theater conference in Vienna. 
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Warren Rosenzweig and two actors rehearsing for Die Judenstadt [The Jewish City] at the Votivkirche, Vienna, 2007.
Metronome Ticking: “Human beings on both sides of the Holocaust” (Germany/USA)
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ABOVE: Jewish Museum of Vienna, Austria--Museum Judenplatz, host of AJT's annual short play gala with playwright Rich Orloff (USA) as the lively MC. 

RIGHT: At the Jewish Museum in Vienna, Austria, Henrik Eger holding up a photo of his father. Mira Hirsch holding up a photo of Lily Spitz, whose husband had been deported from Vienna first to Dachau and then to Buchenwald. 
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Set during the Third Reich in Europe and the U.S., my play Metronome Ticking (Germany/USA), the only Holocaust docudrama which presents the harrowing experiences of Lily Spitz, an Austrian Holocaust survivor, fleeing across Europe, collide with the conflicting conscience and actions of Alf Eger, a Third Reich war correspondent and propaganda officer in occupied France—was performed at the Jewish Museum of Vienna by Mira Hirsch (USA), artistic director of the Jewish Theatre of the South, and myself.
 
Our scene began with both the original German and the English translation of my father’s letter to my mother: “Lies mehr als meine Buchstaben, lies was ich nicht schrieb, lies was mein Herz zerspringen lassen möchte."—“Read more than my letters, read what I did not write, read that which could shatter my heart.”
During the performance, I felt a gnawing awareness of what might happen to the predominantly Jewish audience of theater people from around the world being confronted by authentic texts of a victim and a perpetrator who, through his articles, had fostered anti-Semitism until, as a journalist, he witnessed a mass execution in Russia—an event that shattered him so badly that he could barely talk until he got killed by Russian partisans in the summer of 1944.

At the end of the scene, Mira dressed in black, slowly went to the back of the stage in silence, picked up a poster-sized photograph of Lily, the young Holocaust survivor, and held it up for all to see. Then, also dressed in black, I went to the back of the stage and picked up a poster of Lily’s contemporary, Alf—my father.

 
We both stood there holding up the photos of real people. Neither Mira nor I said a word, while a metronome was ticking mercilessly, until the audience broke the Third Reich spell and applauded—a cathartic moment in my life. 
 
Shortly before the reading of that scene, I had asked our conference host, Warren Rosenzweig, whether he would like to have the two large photographs from our presentation. He told me that he would feel honored and that those historical images would hang on the walls of his Jewish Theater of Austria—a permanent reminder of the work that still had to be done.
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ABOVE: Warren Rosenzweig, founding artistic director of the Jüdisches Theater Austria (Jewish Theater of Austria)
and host of AJT's international theater conference, accepting the two posters for his theater.
​From My Brooklyn Hamlet docudrama (USA) to The Forgiveness Project
​We were taken to the edge of human existence many times: Brenda Adelman’s (USA) My Brooklyn Hamlet relived her mother’s murder by her father (who then married the victim’s sister), a drama that created a classical Greek catharsis in a modern Brooklyn setting (at right, Adelman performing below a painting of her murdered mother).
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​LEFT: Brenda Adelman's father, the murderer, who killed her mother (see painting).
RIGHT: Photo of the daughter who not only wrote 
My Brooklyn Hamlet, but who also developed
​THE FORGIVENESS PROJECT. 
​
3. THOUGHT-PROVOKING, CHALLENGING IDEAS
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Time machine mapping the future and the past.
Moscow Art Theatre, Gregog Zeltser, and Boris Yukhananov: A radical concept of Jewish theatre
A century ago, the Moscow Art Theatre developed revolutionary new acting methods under Konstantin Stanislavski and became the topic of heated discussions in Europe, ranging from actors and directors reviling to revering this new method, so much so that during a tour through Germany, one playwright called Stanislavski and his troupe “artistic divinities.”

The Russian cultural revolution spawned many ideas and books, including Utopian Construction — Judaism and the Soviet Avant Garde, which in return helped in fostering the next generation of Russian theater artists, especially in the theater and film world to advance their own revolutionary ideas. 
Picture
El Lissitzky, illustrations for For the Voice, written by Vladimir Mayakovsky, 1923. Published in Berlin, Germany.
In Vienna in 2007, few groups sparked more discussion than young theatre artists, Gregog Zeltser of the LaboraTORIA ensemble from Moscow (Russia), and Boris Yukhananov—“a Russian director of theatre, video, cinema and TV, a theatre educator and theorist. He is currently the Artistic Director of the Stanislavsky Electrotheatre, Moscow. He was a pioneering figure in Russia’s underground art movement in the 1980s and 1990s and was one of the founders of the Soviet Parallel Cinema movement, which provided an alternative cinema to that which was produced by the state.”
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Revolutionary Russian Jewish theater at the international theater conference in Vienna with Greg Zeltzer, Boris Yukhananov, and
Nikolay Karkash.

Based on their intensive studies of traditional and mystical Jewish texts, they presented a radical concept of new Jewish theatre. Their purist, if somewhat combative approach, seemed to exasperate some conference participants—especially those directors in the US, who are facing the often brutal reality of unsubsidized theater.

​Quite a few small  Jewish theaters had to close their doors over the last few years, simply because they could not generate enough funds to pay all the expenses and find enough audiences to play to full houses—especially as more and more theaters in the US are producing Jewish-themed dramas and musicals. 
 ​Dybbuk and hauntingly beautiful “fleurs du mal”: Irina Andreeva of Russia’s Teatr Novogo Fronta
Picture
Irina Andreeva covered by leaves in her version of the Dybbuk, Teatr Novogo Fronta (Czech Republic).
Similarly provoking was the dispossessed spirit in Dybbuk, presented by Irina Andreeva of the Teatr Novogo Fronta, now settled in Prague (Czech Republic), whose movement-oriented, non-verbal method of acting created physical expressions and images, even absences, that crawled and crept into my mind—some of the most hauntingly beautiful “fleurs du mal” (“flowers of evil") from Eastern Europe that I have ever seen.
“Young Jewish-American revolutionary” now singing in Yiddish and performing in Berlin
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Daniel Kahn playing the accordion and other instruments not only on stage, but also walking through the streets, singing Yiddish songs in Vienna, Berlin, and elsewhere.
The strong emphasis on revolutionary Jewish theater in Russia captivated, even mesmerized others, including Daniel Kahn (USA/ Germany), whom some conference participants considered “our young Jewish-American revolutionary.”

​This multi-talented Michigan native, who left the United States for Berlin, walked through the streets between conference events, playing klezmer music on his accordion and singing Yiddish ​songs in the rain—charming some Viennese, challenging others—an unforgettable experience. 
Action-oriented political theater: Eva Brenner (Austria)
​Eva Brenner (Austria), the outspoken artistic co-director of the experimental theater collective PROJEKT THEATER STUDIO/FLEISCHEREI-mobil (the Butchery), co-founder of the independent political Castillo Theater, an independent experimental theater worker, author, and producer, and one of the very few Austrian theater people actively participating in the conference program. She directed over 50 political performances and new formats of socio-theatre with migrants and community people. In 2013, she published her book about independent theater--ADPATATION or RESISTANCE: The Loss of Diversity (Promedia, Vienna).
 
At the AJT conference, she presented one of her company’s action-oriented political theater pieces, Robert Blum, der Außenseiter (Robert Blum, The Outsider), who was executed in 1848 for his revolutionary activities, shortly after he wrote his famous Abschiedsbrief (farewell letter).
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Painting of the execution of Robert Blum in 1848.
“We are the Workers of Vienna”: Singapore's Sun Sun Yap joins Jewish Austrian activists 
In a performance at the store-front sized Jewish Theater of Austria, the audience was taught some warm-up exercises by Sun Sun Yap (Singapore/Austria), which slowly transformed into a protest rally where we imperceptibly became part of a revolutionary scene. Marching along, singing “Wir sind die Arbeiter von Wien” (“We are the Workers of Vienna”), a Socialist song written by Fritz Brügel, a Jewish Viennese activist, we became totally integrated into an old documentary of marching workers, now flickering on a large screen in front of us.
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To hear the rousing revolutionary song, "Workers in Vienna," click the image above.
The performance forced even the most ardent capitalists (if they were in the audience) to join this historic workers’ protest movement—probably the headiest and most physically involving theater experience I had in Vienna, making me both conform and rebel at the same time.
The Arab-Hebrew Theater of Jaffa: Challenging notions of the cultural and political divide
Gaby Aldor (Israel) represented The Arab-Hebrew Theater of Jaffa, where two theatrical groups produce plays, together and apart, in both Hebrew and Arabic, and in which Israeli and Arab actors and directors work collectively, provoking controversy for many in the region as they challenge notions of the cultural and political divide. They often engage in heated debates and arguments, but out of the pain can come good theater:
 
Tikun Olam at its best, as witnessed by the Jewish Arab peace song, or, in Aldor’s words, “sharing and working together in the theater makes us forget our different origins. It makes us become and stay close friends.” 
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ABOVE LEFT: Photo of The Arab Hebrew Theatre of Jaffa with inscriptions in Hebrew and Arabic. 

ABOVE RIGHT: Photo montage of Farid al-Atrash, 
Syrian-Egyptian composer, singer, virtuoso oud player,
and actor (1910-1974)​,
played by Jewish Israeli, Ziv Yehezkel, Israeli singer and popular oud player,
born to Iraqi Jewish parents, who sings in Arabic (1985-),
 Arab Hebrew Theatre of Jaffa. 
Motti Lerner: “The Politics of Jewish Theatre”—giving theater back its ancient centrality in life
​Motti Lerner (Israel), internationally acclaimed Israeli playwright and screenwriter, just as the legendary Theodor Bikel did before him, presented deeply challenging ideas about the prospect of Jewish culture and identity in his speech on “The Politics of Jewish Theatre” at the palatial Austrian Theater Museum:
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Motti Lerner, Israeli playwright, addressing members of the international AJT theater conference with his speech 
​
“The Politics of Jewish Theatre” at the palatial Austrian Theater Museum in Vienna, March 2007.
“It is still unclear whether [. . .] the globalization process will actually weaken nationalism in the world. If it does, then the centrality of the State of Israel in Jewish culture will become weakened, and Jewish culture will have to define a particular identity for itself that is not based on nationalism, and apparently not on religion either. On what, then, will our future particular identity focus? I hope that the focus will be on the same aspiration towards progress, depth, and universal justice–on the same “Tikun Olam."
 
Looking at Lerner’s theses and his many plays performed worldwide, I thought of Karl Marx’s “Theses on Feuerbach,” especially number 11 (published in 1888) which postulates that philosophers have only interpreted the world, but that others must change it.

​Lerner is one of those Jewish intellectuals and dramatists who, in his own way, may eventually do both—interpret and contribute toward a change of the world—at least by giving theater back its ancient centrality in life. 
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Inscription on Karl Marx’ tomb Highgate Cemetery The Ivy Castle, London.
Shimon Levy: playwright, director, Beckett scholar & author of The Bible as Theatre
I thought of Shimon Levy (Israel)—playwright, director, academic, and Beckett scholar—who brought up the Israeli saying that theater is a secular synagogue. Such a powerful institution, a synagogue-theater without walls.
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​Shimon Levy, Israeli playwright and academic, Beckett scholar, and author of  The Bible as Theatre. 
All About Jewish Theatre: The world’s largest secular synagogue and Open University
A synagogue-theater without walls already exists, thanks to editor Moti Sandak’s (Israel), who, in 2003, founded the All About Jewish Theatre website (AAJT), the world’s largest Jewish theater online portal—an influential, secular synagogue on the Internet, an Open University—which provides free access to everyone, Jews and non-Jews alike (see my YouTube video about AAJT).
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Henrik Eger, editor of Drama Around the Globe & Philadelphia, USA, correspondent for Moti Sandak's All About Jewish Theatre,
the world's largest Jewish theater website, Tel Aviv, Israel.

[Unfortunately, the extensive English language section with hundreds of reviews and articles about Jewish dramas around the globe—even scripts of dramas and operas created in the ghettos and concentration camps—all became inaccessible in 2014.

Via The Wayback Machine, I managed to create a section on Drama Around the Globe, called, “Rescued Jewish Theater,” which features my articles, reviews, and interviews, including the richly illustrated “’Don’t ask me what happened. It’s best not to know!’: A DYBBUK, or Between two worlds.”]
4. BEAUTIFUL AND NURTURING EXPERIENCES
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Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts, PIFA, Cirkus, Cirkor, 2.
Vienna wants Jewish artists from around the world to enrich Austrian culture 
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The president of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce Brigitte Jank (Austria) had earlier welcomed the conference participants, telling them how important their presence was to the city of Vienna, and encouraging them to come back and enrich the city with their culture.

I was honored to have been asked to serve as her translator during her conference welcome speech. 

​Later, she was elected as the Deputy to the Austrian National Council, and became Chair of the University Council of the Module University Vienna.
ABOVE LEFT: Brigitte Jank, president of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce welcoming the world's largest theater conference in Europe. ABOVE RIGHT: Dr. Henrik Eger serving as her German interpreter.
Jewish Theatre of Lemberg (Ukraine) director, now teaching AJT actors in English and German
​Moisej Bazijan, former artistic director of the Jewish Theatre of Lemberg (Ukraine), who now teaches and directs in Munich (Germany), created one of the most international experiences for me when I served as his German-English interpreter while he presented his “Role Analysis through Action” for English-speaking actors from Europe and the U.S.
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Director, drama teacher, and actor, Moisej Bazijan.
Within a short period of time, Bazijan taught the American actors a kind of “Stanislavsky plus” method—training them to pay close attention to the subtext and the unspoken messages within a script, and showing them how to link the text to their own experiences in honest and convincing ways. The actors then used all of these elements to generate actions for their characters while performing a scene from Anton Chekhov’s Seagull.
 
Bazijan then introduced the actors to a passage from Zilinski ist tot (Zilinski is dead) by Franz Mon—one of Germany’s most avant-garde authors, famous for his semantic turmoil and intricate acoustical pantomimes.
 
Directed so creatively by Bazijan that I thought I was witnessing actors from the U.S. transforming themselves into huge insects, reliving Kafka’s Metamorphosis. The acting by the young Jewish-American performers, rolling on the floor under a table, head to head, reciting Mon—was so persuasive that during those moments I actually thought my American friends had permanently and irrevocably transformed into Beckett characters on speed.
Classic Yiddish European Culture after the Shoah: Rafael Goldwaser’s Der LufTeater
Rafael Goldwaser (Argentina/France), founded Der LufTeater (Le Théâtre en l'Air) in 1992 with the goal of presenting Yiddish European Culture after the Shoah.

We were in awe of his colorful, multi-layered, and inspiring Yiddish Theater through sketches of ordinary Jewish folks, based on the stories of Sholem Aleichem with the kind of innovation, high energy, and humor only found in a few places on earth.
 
DHE, a reviewer, describes Goldwaser’s “furious interpretation” with “a whole life pouring out of him.”
[. . .] “as if he were a complete Shtetl in one person.”
​
​[my translation from Schwäbisches Tagblatt, Tübingen, Germany, 2007. For more and the original, click here].
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Rafael Goldwaser as an old woman in a shtetl.
Creating a Life in the Shadow of History: Robin Hirsch’s Germany, England, and USA
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Built in 1907, Berlin's most prestigious hotel, the Adlon Kempinski, tremendously supported by Kaiser Wilhelm II.
The wit of Robin Hirsch (Germany, England, USA), author of Last Dance at the Hotel Kempinski: Creating a Life in the Shadow of History, in spite of his terrible experiences in the 1940’s, kept the audience in stitches, showing life through the lens of the upper classes, first in Germany, then, after escaping the Nazis, in England.
 
Robin Hirsch was born in London during the Blitz to German Jews who had escaped Hitler. Coming of age in postwar England, he quickly learned the ironies of survival: His best friend at school, an English Jew—at the age of six—called him a “Nazi.” Hirsch moved to America as a young man and became well known for his literary, artistic, and musical career sponsoring rising artists through the performance room at the Cornelia Street Café in New York's bohemian Greenwich Village.
International Playwrights’ Forum: A preview of some of the best new Jewish-themed plays
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Playwright Rich Orloff.
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Eliran Caspi, writer, director, actor.
Photo by Shmuel Yaar.

​Witty New York dramatist Richard Orloff (USA), author of over sixty popular short plays, mostly comedies, emceed the International Playwrights’ Forum at the Jewish Museum in Vienna. 

Thanks to senior drama judges Norman Fedder and Diane Gilboa (USA), eleven playwrights from around the world were chosen to present scenes from one of their most promising new plays through ten-minute excerpts.
 
The International Playwrights’ Forum presented a wide range of short dramas, including a piece by the visually stunning Eliran Caspi (Israel), a writer whose well-built play showed old and new worlds clashing in modern Israel.

He also works as a director, film and stage actor. However, according to an Israeli interview, Caspi “stays away from media and public events and strongly refuses to talk about his private life."

Caspi founded Dad left the Group, and writes a personal comedy column for Haaretz, the progressive and longest running newspaper in print in Israel.
Ethiopian Jewish odyssey: Starting a new life as an immigrant actor of color in Israel—Yossi Vassa 
Yossi Vassa (Ethiopia and Israel) took the international viewers on a present-day Jewish odyssey in It Sounds Better in Amharic—an Ethio-Semitic language, spoken by Jews and others in Ethiopia. Carrying a cheap suitcase, he took us along on a painful secret flight, not from Egypt, but from Ethiopia, their homeland of thousands of years—a country that did not allow them to leave.
 
We experienced the 700 kilometer journey on foot via a hostile Sudan, the robbery of 10 of their donkeys, and the death of his grandmother and two of his brothers on a torturous, secret passage during many nights before finally reaching Israel, where the rabbis had decided to accept Ethiopia’s Falasha, the forgotten Jews, whose ancestors claimed to have roots going back to King Solomon.
 
In Israel, Anda Argi, now renamed Yossi Vassa, lived in a rough town together with many other immigrants without money. Yet, he succeeded at Haifa University, “dabbled in theater,” performed in the army, and even put on a show in Amharic for his fellow immigrants.

When his mother walked into his show, expecting perhaps classical theater, not a retelling of their own lives, she exclaimed, “They pay you to do that? But you're just talking!” Like so many other parts of this comic-tragedy, the audience roared with laughter.
 
However, the young actor who tried to develop a new identity as a Jew from Africa in an almost all-white Israel also had the courage to describe the difficulties of getting accepted by people whose ancestors, not too long ago, were discriminated against brutally because they were Jews.
 
It was during those parts that I wasn’t the only one fighting tears as it showed the dilemma of an immigrant, trying to start a new life as a Jewish artist of color in Israel. We saw Vassa as a mensch who has come into his own as a theater artist and educator—another ambassador of good will. For an excerpt of his show, click this link.
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Operation Solomon, Jewish Ethiopians moving to Israel.
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Anda Argi, now Yossi Vassa, Ethiopian Jewish immigrant and actor in Israel.
International solo performances and a celebration of life at the magnificent Piaristenkeller
Every playwright, director, actor, creative artist, board member, even theater critic in support of Jewish theater around the globe became a cultural ambassador the moment we all walked into the Imperial and Royal Wine Treasure Vault of the Piaristenkeller with glorious food and wines and, great company at the largest theater congress in modern history.
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Cultural ambassadors arriving at the Piaristenkeller, 1700s. Hand-colored engraving.
Against the backdrop of this historically furnished, elegant restaurant and museum from the 1700s, Deborah Baer Mozes (USA), artistic director of Theatre Ariel, the Jewish theater of Philadelphia, presented actors from around the world in the “International Solo Program.”
A Viennese Holocaust Survivor incarcerated in Britain during World War II: Ruth Schneider
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Her Majesty's Prison Holloway, the main prison in London. In 1897, the British Home Secretary, to avoid probable demonstrations, instructed the authorities to transfer Oscar Wilde from Reading Jail to Holloway Prison. Later, quite a few women were hanged there.
As part of the solo theater conference’s Solo Performance Series, we experienced an entertaining, yet gut-wrenching series of performances.
 
The past came back forcefully but also showed us a new spirit of hope, which surfaced again when Warren Rosenzweig introduced Ruth Schneider, a Viennese Holocaust Survivor (Austria and Britain), who spent some time incarcerated at Holloway Prison in London.
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Female prisoners at work, Holloway Prison in the 1940s. Photo by Getty Images & Jewish Chronicle, May 23, 2018.
German and Austrian residents in the UK and newly arrived victims of Nazi persecutions who had fled to England, like Ruth Schneider, were labeled an “enemy alien” during WWII and incarcerated (see “Imprisoned for being refugees” in The Jewish Chronicle). 
Son of an Austrian Holocaust survivor who now speaks the “Queen’s Yiddish”: ​David Schneider
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We also met Ruth Schneider’s son David Schneider, a former student of Yiddish at Oxford where he pursued a Ph.D. in Yiddish Drama—before he became a professional writer, actor, and stand-up comedian, including his video The Story Of The Day The Clown Cried, where Schneider “presents a look at some exclusive behind the scenes material from the notorious unseen Jerry Lewis film about the Holocaust.”
 
When he told us with a poker face that he now speaks the “Queen’s Yiddish,” even the wine in our glasses giggled, chuckled, and laughed full-throatedly about so much chutzpah. The talented Schneider with his Mad Hatter look had all of us in stitches. For more information, click this link. 
Better Don't Talk: A Holocaust Story--A daughter discovers her mother's hidden past
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Deborah Baer Mozes carrying a birthday cake with a “magic flame” onto the stage, accompanied by Robin Hirsch, celebrating Naava Piatka's birthday at Vienna's Piaristenkeller.
Up on stage, she brought parts of the past into our own lives with Better Don't Talk: A Holocaust Story—“A daughter discovers her mother's hidden past. The uplifting musical theater tribute to comedienne Chayela Rosenthal, wunderkind of the Vilna Ghetto."

Piatka drew us into the past in such a way that everyone there came alive, making quite a few of us fighting tears. At the same time, Piatka also made me laugh and feel empowered by her art, her work, her life.

​I wasn’t surprised when Piatka—physically and emotionally drained but radiant—received one of the biggest rounds of applause at the international conference.
Robin Hirsch, whose parents had fled Nazi Germany, and Deborah Baer Mozes (see links above)—whose mother, a refugee from Nazi Germany, aged only 16, arrived in the U.S. alone—walked up to the stage at the monastic Piaristenkeller with a birthday cake whose huge flame shot high up on that stage.
 
I will never forget the way Piatka held her hands up to her chin in utter surprise, radiating even more joy and energy than before—if that is possible.
Where the Imperial Austrian court once danced, Jewish theater ambassadors celebrated life: L’Chaim
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The ambassadors of Jewish theater from around the globe rose from their chairs, walked a few feet and paid a visit to the Piaristenkeller’s “Emperor Franz Joseph Hat Museum.” There they donned classical chapeaus, large feather boas, and old helmets from the Imperial Austrian Monarchy.
 
With much laughter and mutual admiration about the quick transformation, the cultural ambassadors then sauntered into the Imperial wine cellar, where the theater royalty drank more of those good spirits, toasted, sang together, and listened as the beloved Theodor Bikel (songs)—a native son of the city on the Danube—treated us to another song.
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Tamara Brooks (L), pianist and conductor, champion of contemporary music, and wife of Theodore Bikel (C),
with Kayla Gordon (R), actor, teacher, and artistic director, Winnipeg Studio Theatre, Canada. Vienna 2007. 
5. CONFERENCE CONCERNS: Dominance of American Jewish theater
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Discussion about Jewish theater in our time with three American theater artists at Vienna's Piaristenkeller, March 2007.
In spite of all the beauty and power of the emerging images in our kaleidoscope of Jewish theater, a few glass splinters did hurt when one of the active participants wrote, “The conference was very monopolized by American Jewish theater,” and when another participant e-mailed, “Why were so few Europeans participating in Vienna . . . Is this a question of lack of communication?”
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Is America the New Rome? – United States vs. the Roman Empire: Bridging a cultural gap.
One participant suggested more follow-up and another recommended more personal, direct, and ongoing contacts with the Artistic Directors outside North America to enhance the mission of the AJT. 
Uniting the conference with the Haggadah and a meditative healing: Michael Posnick
​Michael Posnick (USA), writer, editor, academic, and Artistic Director of the Mosaic Theater (New York), a caring, modern Solomon who united everyone on the last day of the conference with his group meditation and singing, responded to these concerns by quoting the Haggadah which invites everyone:
 
“Let all who are hungry come and eat. Let all who are in need, come and share”—next year at the Jewish Theatre Conference, hosted by Evelyn Orbach, founding artistic director of the Jewish Ensemble Theatre (JET) in Michigan (USA), and the following year, we hope, in Israel.

Everyone is invited to come and share. Everyone around the world:
 
איעדער. Ayeder.כולם; העולם כולו. كل شخص, كل امرأ  Die ganze Welt.
Tout le monde. Полностью мир. Tutto il mondo. すべての世界
Al wereld. Всеки. Todo el mundo. Όλος ο κόσμος
All verden. Todo o mundo. 所有世界
​The whole world.
​
Everyone is invited to come and share. 
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Page from the illuminated Darmstadt Haggadah, Germany, c. 1420.
6. EPILOGUE
West Coast Jewish Theatre and artist Marcia Isaacs
Hardly a day goes by without images from the Vienna kaleidoscope flashing into my mind, each of them—whether terrifying, thought-provoking, or nurturing—has encouraged me to continue my writing.
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Chanukah, Photographic artwork by Marcia Isaacs.
Many other conference participants seem to have been inspired by the conference, too. One of them, Marcia Isaacs (USA) of the West Coast Jewish Theatre in California (with husband Herb Isaacs, playwright and WCJT board member) went all out. She created a DVD with a beautiful musical and visual tribute to Tikkun Olam and all its participants in the spirit of old Vienna, a digital “laterna magica.” ​
“Like all theater, Jewish theater is not one thing alone”:
Australia, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Russia, Singapore, UK, and USA 
The Latin-American representative of the AJT, Leslie Marko Kirchhausen (Brazil), whose mother also escaped Vienna and the Holocaust like her contemporary Lily Spitz (see Metronome Ticking above), decided to support Jewish theater in her way.
 
Following the advice of our keynote speaker Theodore Bikel, “Like all theater, Jewish theater is not one thing alone,” Marko Kirchhausen translated the AJT conference poster into Portuguese, inviting people in Brazil and elsewhere to learn more about Jewish theater around the world and perhaps even attend the conference.
 
Back home in São Paulo, she encouraged playwrights, directors, actors, editors, and academics to contribute to Jewish theater—continuing the work that was shared in Vienna—all in the spirit of Tikkun Olam. 
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Let’s celebrate theater, let’s celebrate life,
let’s interpret and change the world and with it, ourselves:
L’Chaim, wherever you live, wherever you work.
H.E.
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Interior carved and painted wooden mural at a synagogue in Dura-Europos, Syria, depicting Esther, hiding with Mordechai, who adopted his orphaned cousin before she sacrificed herself, married Persian king Ahasuerus (Xerxes) and persuaded him not to kill the Jewish people—a mythical event that is celebrated to this day on Purim, one of the most theatrical events in Jewish history where people wear masks and costumes and celebrate life and survival in numerous ways.
This article was published originally by Theatre Arts, www.HenrikEger.com, March 2007, now updated, with additional texts and images, published by Drama Around The Globe, ​2020.
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“Collectively, we live in a period of drastic change and reordering": Interview with some of THE WAY OUT artists and performers.

9/26/2020

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By Henrik Eger
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Mandatory masks to combat the Spanish flu, San Francisco, 1918.
Driving by in cars at the Laurel Hill Cemetery like a slow moving funeral procession,
perhaps getting new perspectives of life from an all-female cast 
The Covid-19 pandemic has led to the isolation of millions of people, to creative and responsible actions by many others, and to irresponsible behaviors by way too many people who refuse to wear masks, refuse to keep social distance, and genuinely believe that Corona is a “hoax.”
 
The Way Out performance series by cutting edge theater artists and aerialists not only presents stunning live performances, but comes with a lot of thought behind it to create a safe environment for audience members driving by in their cars, on their bicycles or tandems, exploring Philadelphia’s historic Laurel Hill Cemetery at night with six different performance stations. The demand for limited tickets is so great that these artists are already planning another show in the spring.
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Brain Salad Surgery, ART, Work 217, ELP I by H. R. Giger
​Questions, Answers, Insights: Interview with The Way Out ​artists
​This interview asked some difficult questions and led to quite a few thought-provoking responses.
 
Henrik Eger: As a child and/or as an adolescent, what was your greatest fear in life, and how did you conquer it as an adult through dance or other creative arts?
Lauren Rile Smith (she/her/hers): I’m genuinely afraid of heights, so much so that you won’t catch me on top of a mountain! However, training and performing on trapeze allowed me to slowly adjust what “high” means to me.
 
I take inspiration from our setting at Laurel Hill Cemetery, a beautiful green space and historic burial ground that dates from an era before public parks. Our Victorian ancestors would visit graveyards to spend time with their dead as well as their living friends and family.
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A small group picnics on ledger-style tombstones in Historic St. Luke's Ancient Cemetery, Smithfield, VA.
Photo ca. 1957. Photo courtesy Historic St. Luke's.

During our COVID-19 pandemic, we’re constantly shadowed by a fear of mortality. Performing in a cemetery reminds me that loss always surrounds us—making death less scary. ​​​
​Evalina “Wally” Carbonell (she/her/hers): At home as a child, in my odd artist’s spirit, I was boldly unusual.
 
As an adolescent, I grew self-conscious, worrying that I should somehow tone myself down to be more accepted. However, I grew into an adult when I reclaimed myself, unafraid to see the world differently and eager to connect with other souls I would encounter.
 
Since then, through dance-making, I’m learning more about myself and find new ways to communicate with the world. The ability to open myself up to my surroundings is essential to being able to embody the connections which our dance piece requires. Yes, I owe much to dance.
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Evalina "Wally" Carbonell, dance artist and choreographer.
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Angel statue with fallen leaves.
​Henrik: Could you describe the scene that you and your team partner/s are performing at the cemetery? ​
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Christina Eltvedt, a multidisciplinary artist, performer & choreographer.
Christina Eltvedt (she/her/hers): The scene my dancers and I have developed for The Way Out plays with the concept of unraveling through movement and textiles.

​Collectively, we live in a period of drastic change and reordering.

​The unraveling of the known and familiar scares many of us and makes us feel uncomfortable. I’m looking for hope through weaving beauty into something new.
​Eppchez! (ey/em/eir): The scene I have created uses vocal looping and choreography to evoke the cycles of isolation and release—so common during these prolonged periods of semi-quarantine.

​The loops reflect the warped sense of time we’ve all been experiencing.

​While our interactions have shifted drastically, we still attempt to continue living—one day after another.

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Eppchez!, a Quaker, Cuban & Jewish artist, creating new work in music and theater.
Evalina “Wally” Carbonell: The scene we are creating for The Way Out illuminates connections between femininity and nature. Our blood has memories, as does the earth, and they speak to each other in a curving, heated flow of movement. “Blood is that fragile scarlet tree we carry within us,” wrote Sir Osbert Sitwell, brother of Dame Edith Sitwell, the poet. This awareness informs our connection to the natural world within Laurel Hill Cemetery. 
Ama Gora (she/her/we): Assata Shakur, a former Black Panther party member, inspired this work, Project Assata: Conscious States of Rage, which questions timelines of rioting, organizing, and protesting. Observing how rage drove—and drives—these movements, I question how black femmes are taught that “rage is distasteful.”
 
This scene also observes healing through a generational lens as a way of reclaiming our freedom of expression, our pain, and our healing. ​I’m trying to create a haunting presence, with reference to dance scholar Thomas DeFrantz [Queer Social Dance, Political Leadership, and Black Popular Culture]. We cannot ignore our dance lineage as ancient dancing spirits accompany us.
 
Creating shadowy vignettes with a lot of progressional phrase work, I want people to ask, “Are the dancers moving? What’s happening?”
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Ama Ma’at Gora, dancer & choreographer, who encourages identity, trauma & restoration dialogue from a black, queer perspective.
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Lauren Rile Smith, performer/poet.
Tangle Movement Arts founder & producer.
Lauren Rile Smith: For our performance, Tangle’s aerial dancers are suspended on our freestanding aerial rig, discovered at the end of our audience’s path throughout the historic Laurel Hill Cemetery.

​Caught within the bubble of the rig, our aerialists climb towards the sky and return to the ground.
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Grandfather clock pendulum digging a grave by Paweł Kuczyński.
​Henrik Eger: What aspects of your life influenced your scene at Philadelphia’s most historic cemetery?
 
Eppchez!: As a visibly queer and trans person, it is impossible to separate the queerness from my work. So often I find my mere presence pushes buttons, upsets the status quo, and I have to do a lot of coddling and educating if I want to share space with cis people. When I’m on stage, I can do the emotional labor dance much more on my terms.
Ama Gora: I use she/her/we pronouns. To acknowledge the communities, ancestors, and deities that carry and hold me as a queer black woman, I’ve embraced “we.” I find that my queerness is always a part of my work. It may not be the central theme in works like Project Assata, but it creates an ever-present dialogue about queerness.
 
Queer black femme folk have been and continue to pick up the broken pieces when things have crumbled. I have to acknowledge that, address it, and continue to create space for dialogue around it—despite any controversy and push back I may receive.
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Victorian horse-drawn hearse with flowers.
​Henrik Eger: What would you like your audience, driving by in cars like a slow moving funeral procession, take home with them and share with others—perhaps getting new perspectives of life from all of you?
Evalina “Wally” Carbonell: I would like them to tune into the blood in their own veins and be appreciative of the life force within them and that of their neighbors. Ideally, I would like them to listen to the ancient mysteries that live within them, communicating secrets of humanity to their environments.
 
Christina Eltvedt: I like to present an idea with enough room embedded to reflect and craft a personal outlook. I want audience members to take what they need from my work.
Eppchez! : I try not to worry too much about what the audience takes away—that is their prerogative and entirely in their hands. Four and a half minutes is not a lot of time to get much across. However, through this performance I hope to offer the realization that we need to do better than return to a normal that was untenable for millions of people.
 
We may not be able to interact intimately in this time, but we can still find ways to build the kinds of community that will get us through the deep winters that are coming. Not alone, holed up in the woods with our one million calories, but together in our neighborhoods—sharing all the resources we may not even realize we already have.
 
Lauren Rile Smith: In this show, all of our artists seek to answer, “What is the way out of our current moment?” Frequently, this question shows up in small and in large ways in our lives—as reflected in each performance in The Way Out.
 
Seeing others work through these vital issues gives me new perspective and strength in my own work. Through a half-dozen tiny worlds, The Way Out hopes to show our audience possibilities and transformations.
 
Sometimes, “this moment” feels like it started in the middle of March, while at other times, it feels like one endless, frustrating afternoon. For some, a marriage or a job needs escaping. For many, it’s a struggle that can be traced back decades, even centuries.
Henrik: Thank you all for taking risks through your contributions of The Way Out. Thank you for opening up, reordering, and generating new life at one of the oldest cemeteries in Philadelphia. 
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Cemetery gate.
WHERE: Laurel Hill Cemetery, 3822 Ridge Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19132.
WHEN: Thursday October 1, Friday October 2, and Saturday October 3. All performance times are rolling (7pm-8:30pm). Rain date: Sunday, October 4.
TICKETS: $100 tickets per car, not per audience member. $25 tickets for individuals on bicycles may be announced in September if COVID-19 safety permits.
 
Because of the COVID precautionary measures, only a few people are allowed in, leading to a very limited number of tickets—all of which are only sold in advance, making for a contact-free box office experience. Call 215-266-6215 for tickets. Upon arrival, audience members who already paid for their tickets will be checked in via the same telephone number.  
 
Throughout the entire performance, audiences will stay in their vehicles. There is no restroom access on site. Please read our COVID-19 Info Page for more information. The performance is family-friendly, although not oriented toward children. Contact info@tangle-arts.com or call 215-266-6215 with questions. 
For the article The Way Out: New life at Laurel Hill Cemetery with an all-female ensemble of many theater artists and Tangle’s aerialists, click this link.  

​See also, They Only Come Out at Night: A Graveyard Cabaret (REV Theatre): 2015 Fringe Review 60 by Henrik Eger, Phindie.
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The Way Out: New life at Laurel Hill Cemetery with an all-female ensemble of many theater artists and Tangle’s aerialists

9/26/2020

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By Henrik Eger
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Laurel Hill Cemetery with nightly illumination. Photo by Emma Lee, WHYY.
A multi-arts show for Fringe audiences on wheels that has never been performed before 
Philadelphians who are concerned about getting Covid-19 infected if they attend a large gathering of theatergoers can relax AND see a live show that avoids mingling with other people. Part of the Philadelphia Fringe, audiences can now experience The Way Out with performances by a wide range of cutting edge artists at Philadelphia’s historic Laurel Hill Cemetery’s on Thursday October 1 through Saturday October 3.
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Madeline Rile Smith, The Way Out. Photo courtesy Madeline Rile Smith.
The Way Out presents an immersive, 100% socially distanced performance for a drive-through some of the 78 acres at the Laurel Hill Cemetery where audiences can see six different shows—either by car, bicycle, or tandem—driving along gently winding roads on the old cemetery. On the way, they will have the opportunity to see dancers, a live flame-working artist, and kinetic sculptures. They will also experience live music and observe aerial artists performing high up over the cemetery. 
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Laurel Hill fortress-like wall. Photo M. Edlow for Visit Philadelphia.
The Way Out
The Way Out, a mini-festival, features 17 artists performing at 6 separate show stations at the Laurel Hill Cemetery—all coordinated by Lauren Rile Smith, founding artistic director of Tangle, the much talked about aerial circus arts group.
 
The lead artists include Ama Gora and her ensemble Ma'atWorks Dance Collective; Evalina Carbonell and duet partner Weiwei Ma; Christina Eltvedt and ensemble; Eppchez!; and Madeline Rile Smith [Lauren Rile Smith’s sister]—who present their own non-aerial works of dance and theater at five separate stations.
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Ama Maat Gora, The Way Out. Photo by LaTosha Pointer.
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Christina Eltvedt, The Way Out. Photo by Bill Hebert.
The show concludes with an aerial performance of Tangle (see bios and photos) with Kate Aid, Lesley Berkowitz-Zak, Rebecca MoDavis, Najwa Parkins, Lee Thompson, and Deena Weisberg.
Tangling with Tangle Movement Arts and associated artists
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Najwa Parkins, Tangle aerialist.
The Way Out. Laurel Hill Cemetery.
Photo by Michael Ermilio.

Tangle Movement Arts, a contemporary circus arts company since 2011 and a regular Fringe participant, presents a combination of traditional circus-like trapeze, lyra, and aerial silks where performers and acrobats hang from a fabric—accompanied by live music to tell a multi-dimensional story.
 
“Tangle’s work places an emphasis on queer and female experiences, and is devised collaboratively by its all-female ensemble,” according to Lauren Rile Smith.
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Rebecca MoDavis, Tangle aerialist.
The Way Out. Laurel Hill Cemetery.
Photo by Michael Ermilio.

Describing the evolution of Tangle, she said: “Out of excitement for a radical potential circus, I founded Tangle as a queer, all-female circus company to question our assumptions on gender, bodies, and the way people relate to one another. We believe that the real world’s politics show up in circus acts, and we want our performances to be part of creating the world we want to see.
 
She observed Tangle’s spectators as “those who are dazzled by the physicality of circus arts,” and audiences which “seriously explore relationships between women—from the platonic to the passionate.” Transparency and honesty, two of the hallmarks of Tangle, led to these observations of the performers who “display a wide range of body types, gender presentations, and interactions—relationships of support, antagonism, flirtation, or partnership.”
 
For this performance at the Laurel Hill Cemetery, Lauren Rile Smith is not acting as a performer because this complex outside show requires her to be on the ground as a producer throughout.
 
Tangle's aerial dance closes The Way Out with a moving and thought-provoking finale.
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The pieces fit.
WHERE: Laurel Hill Cemetery, 3822 Ridge Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19132.
WHEN: Thursday October 1, Friday October 2, and Saturday October 3. All performance times are rolling (7pm-8:30pm). Rain date: Sunday, October 4.
TICKETS: $100 tickets per car, not per audience member. $25 tickets for individuals on bicycles may be announced in September if COVID-19 safety permits.
 
Because of the COVID precautionary measures, only a few people are allowed in, leading to a very limited number of tickets—all of which are only sold in advance, making for a contact-free box office experience. Call 215-266-6215 for tickets. Upon arrival, audience members who already paid for their tickets will be checked in via the same telephone number.  
 
Throughout the entire performance, audiences will stay in their vehicles. There is no restroom access on site. Please read our COVID-19 Info Page for more information. The performance is family-friendly, although not oriented toward children. Contact info@tangle-arts.com or call 215-266-6215 with questions. ​
For interviews with the all-female cast of artists, see “Collectively, we live in a period of drastic change and reordering": Interview with some of The Way Out artists and performers. 

See also, They Only Come Out at Night: A Graveyard Cabaret (REV Theatre): 2015 Fringe Review 60 by Henrik Eger, Phindie.
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Excess of imagination and amazing muscle memory in POPCORN FALLS: Interview with multiple-role actors Luke Bradt and Dan Olmstead

3/9/2020

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​By Henrik Eger
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Popcorn Falls by James Hindman. Walnut Street Theatre, Independence Studio on 3.
Luke Bradt: It’s gonna be fun! Let the show surprise you. I think what I like most about Popcorn Falls is that there is a real heart to it.

Yes, I play a bunch of zany characters, but what might surprise the audience is how there are some moments in the show that are completely straightforward and grounded. My goal is to get you to fall in love with these characters so you cheer their successes and mourn their failings.
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Dan Olmstead as Mr. Trundle and Luke Bradt as Becky, falling in love with Mr. Trundle. Photo by Mark Garvin.
Dan Olmstead: In a world that can seem so dark these days, Popcorn Falls is a charming piece of mostly light entertainment, but almost consistently surprising—a comedic tour-de-force for my partner-in-crime Luke Bradt. He plays by far the lion’s share of characters with a Chaplin-like grace, humor, and pathos. The play often swings back and forth between moments that are almost farcical, and others that are grounded, true and deeply felt—but without a doubt, Popcorn Falls is a comedy in every sense.

Henrik: How did you manage to learn over 20 different roles?

Luke: Practice. Muscle memory. Practice. Practice. Muscle memory. Practice. Practice. Muscle memory. Practice.
Perhaps surprisingly, the actual switching between characters vocally and physically isn’t the challenge. That’s the fun part! I could do that all day! I just get to let my imagination run wild.
​
The hard part?—all the minutiae that go along with it. Remembering if I put the cigarette holder in the front right pocket the last time I did the character, or if three scenes ago I moved the second cell phone to the front left shirt pocket during the scene change. Did I remember to preset the walkie-talkie in the jacket pocket for the last scene after I stashed it in the onstage bin during a change during the first scene?
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Luke Bradt and Dan Olmstead in rehearsal at WST’s Studio 3. Photo by Mark Garvin.
It’s stressful stuff, and you have to trust your work, trust your prep, and trust that you have the chops to adapt if something goes wrong. And things will go wrong!

Dan: I’m not sure I’ve ever truly learned a role. If I’m being any good, at least to my mind and according to my own process—such as it is—I’ll be learning about my character throughout the entire process. If I didn’t approach both acting and directing from that angle, I’m afraid I’d bore not only myself, but very likely others, to tears.

Henrik: Which are your three favorite lines from this play?

Luke: I’ll try not to pick any lines that give anything away! Here we go:

“Hello.” . . . Simple line. But it’s delightful in context. It comes at a certain moment, and it marks the end of a particularly challenging sequence of character and prop shifts.

“Let dead dogs lie, Mr. Trundle. Let dead dogs lie!” . . . I have favorite characters. One of them is Floyd, the one-armed lumberyard owner, and I have a particularly fun time with him. While reading the script, I kept imagining the voice of the obscure character Monkey John from the Western series Lonesome Dove, played by Matthew Cowles. So Floyd is my best impersonation of that character, and I love doing it.

“One week. If there’s no play in exactly seven days, and let’s see . . . it’s 7:59 . . . I’ll even throw in a minute! You have until eight PM one week from tonight to put on your play, or I will see to it that you rot in jail.” . . . This is not an interesting line, but it was hard to memorize, and I am happy when it comes out easily.
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Dan Olmstead as Mr. Trundle and Luke Bradt as Mr. Doyle. Photo by Mark Garvin.
Dan: Hmm. “One day we dreamers are going to realize that there are a lot more of us than there are of you.”

“I hit traffic, got stuck behind a parked car.”

“I’m so tired, I just want to sleep.” Actually that last one is probably reflective of the way I’m feeling right now, at the end of week 3.

Henrik: Tell us something about you as a person that only some of your best friends know about you.

Luke: I was stuck on this question, so I asked my fiancée, Nicole, and she says that I’m a terrible liar, so I’ll go with that. [He laughs] I can’t get away with anything!
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Engaged: Nicole Calabrese and Luke Bradt.
I’m also a huge nerd. I have a whole room devoted to my hobbies. I regularly meet up with some friends to play Dungeons and Dragons. I’ve played it since fifth grade, and it’s always been an outlet for an excess of imagination.

Dan: My director, Ellie Mooney, is also my boss at home. She’s done an extraordinary job with Popcorn Falls, imbuing it with humor and poignancy. She and I met in 2010 during rehearsals for Amadeus at the Walnut Street Theatre. I played Salieri and she played Mozart’s wife Constanza. So Salieri finally wins! [he laughs] I had the extraordinary opportunity to direct her a few years back in The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, here at the Independence Studio. She and the rest of the cast were beyond wonderful; and now with Popcorn Falls, she finally got her chance to get revenge and direct me!

I’m only kidding: of course, she and I have a unique relationship where we collaborate artistically on almost all our projects.
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Popcorn Falls director Ellie Mooney, also star of The Rise and Fall of Little Voice at the Walnut Street Theatre.
Photo by Mark Garvin.

Henrik: Tell us something about you as an actor that only some of your closest colleagues know about you.

Luke: I’m petrified of missing an entrance. When I did Brigadoon in high school, I completely blew an entrance. It has haunted me ever since. I usually wait in the wings long before I’m supposed to enter, because I don’t want to space out and fail to hear my cue to get into place—sometimes, as far as two scenes in advance, if I won’t get in the way of anyone else trying to do their job.

Luckily in this show, I enter—and then I don’t exit. So I’m only nervous about that once!
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Luke Bradt as the librarian. Photo by Mark Garvin.
Dan: Wow, there could be so many things. I am a devoted pet lover and I am fairly obsessed with my current puppy, Bisou. She is a magical little Cavapoo [a cross between a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and a Poodle] who, ironically perhaps, teaches me every day, in some small way, how to be a better human being.

Ellie has kidnapped her to Florida for the moment, so I am missing them both very much; and even though I am loving the theatrical romp that is Popcorn Falls, I’m very much looking forward to the death by a thousand licks that I’ll receive when we are reunited—to be clear, I’ll be receiving those from Bisou, not Ellie
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Dan Olmstead, Bisou, and Ellie Mooney. Photo by Dan Olmstead.
Henrik: Inspired by those revelations, it’s Confession Time.
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Henrik Eger, German exchange student from Wuppertal at Bethel College, Kansas, January 1965.
Photo by Gordon Ratzlaff.

​On a scholarship as a German exchange student at Bethel College, Kansas, I was given the lead role in The Sign of Jonah by Günter Rutenborn–putting God on trial in Berlin in 1945. Everything went well during rehearsals, but on opening night, faced by a packed auditorium, something I had never experienced before, I forgot all my lines for the first five minutes and went into a James Joycean stream-of-consciousness mode.

The drama teacher developed gray hair and made me stay up most of the night and rehearse non-stop till the curtain went up again the next evening. Unfortunately, by then, I was so exhausted and nervous that I lost all my lines again. While I learned to improvise in front of a whole hall of theatergoers, none of whom knew the script and quite a few of whom told me afterwards how much they enjoyed my performance—alas, I was never invited to perform in any play anywhere since.

​To this day, I don’t know why!
​
Instead, I write plays in both English and German and became a theater reviewer and interviewer. In short, I have the greatest respect for actors, not only for their acting skills, but for their capacity to learn whole scripts by heart—as witnessed by muscle memory masters Luke Bradt and Dan Olmstead, acting over 20 different roles non-stop at the Walnut.
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Dan Olmstead, Henrik Eger, and Luke Bradt. Photo by Kevin C. Vestal.
[Walnut Street Theatre, Independence Studio on 3, 825 Walnut St., Philadelphia] February 25 – March 29, 2020; walnutstreettheatre.org
This interview was originally published by Phindie on March 9, 2020. 
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50th Anniversary of the Bethel-Wuppertal Exchange Program: 1951-2001

3/8/2020

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Wuppertaler Schwebebahn, ca. 1951
To see the entire booklet, 33 pages, click the PDF file above. Below, a few excerpts. 
In the Fall of 1951 Bethel College welcomed the first participant in what has become a truly unique exchange program between Bethel College and the Bergische Universität-Gesamthochschule Wuppertal (BUGH). In the intervening fifty years 151 students have participated in this exchange program and thereby gained a better understanding of themselves and another culture, while becoming fluent in their new language. As a part of the fiftieth anniversary celebrations of the Bethel/Wuppertal exchange program, this booklet containing words of welcome, brief history, personal essays, and photographs has been compiled. The historical segment, written by Erna Fast, a Bethel alumae, who was instrumental in establishing the exchange program, originally appeared in a booklet published for a 1994 Fall Fest Bethel/Wuppertal Exchange gathering. She has graciously offered it for inclusion in this booklet as well.
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Bethel College, North Newton, KS, Welcoming students from around the world, especially Wuppertal, Germany.
WELCOME
We are delighted to welcome alumni and friends of the Bethel College/Wuppertal Exchange program for the celebration of the 50 year anniversary of the program. It is only a small measure of the profound personal significance of the exchange program that so many have returned from near and far to join in observing this milestone. As I have visited with Wuppertal alumni on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean in the last six years, I have been impressed again and again with how these persons treasure the deep friendships, the changes in world views, the challenges to thinking and believing that arose from the experience of living and studying in Wuppertal or North Newton.

​This program has left its mark on hundreds of students. But it has left its mark on our college as well. International study-exchange programs were rare in 1951. That Bethel College and the then “Pädagogische Hochschule” created this program speaks to the firm conviction that serious encounter and exchange among persons of different cultures and nationalities is essential to real education. That conviction has continued and grown at Bethel College in a variety of formats and programs, but the Wuppertal program was and is the prototype. We celebrate this remarkable program, its inspiration, its history and the mark it has left on the scores of people who have through it immersed themselves in growth and learning.

Dr. Douglas Penner
​President of Bethel College
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Administrative Building, Bethel College, North Newton, KS.
​Since my arrival at Bethel College in 1985, I have been associated with the Bethel/Wuppertal Exchange program. In reflecting on the 50thanniversary of this program, I am reminded how much such an exchange program can be compared to a person. Like an individual, the program has experienced and survived occasional hardships, developed a network of friends, taken its place in educating students and broadening their world view, matured and taken on its own personality. Within the educational framework of Bethel College, the Bethel/Wuppertal Exchange program has given participants the opportunity for total immersion in a foreign culture and for developing proficiency in a foreign language, invaluable experiences in a liberal arts education, especially for language majors. Such a long-standing and affordable exchange program, the envy of many other language departments, deserves both the recognition that comes with its 50th anniversary and the continued support of Bethel College and the Bergische Universität-Gesamthochschule Wuppertal.

​Over the years I have appreciated the opportunity to interact with the students from Germany, to meet older participants in Wuppertal and to see the students from both institutions develop during their year in Wuppertal or in North Newton. I cherish the friendships that I have made through this program. In more recent years a group of the German participants founded the Förderverein, an offically registered organization dedicated to supporting Bethel College in a variety of ways and currently chaired by Christiane Renger. Thank you to each of you who are members of the Förderverein for looking after the Bethel students studying in Wuppertal and making their experience in Germany even more beneficial. I would like to personally thank Professor Uwe Multhaup, my colleague in Wuppertal for his support and guidance of the program in Wuppertal, especially since he has handed over responsibility of the program to his colleague, Professor Bettina Hofmann. On behalf of the Language Department I welcome all participants of the program to this celebration and thank you for your personal contribution in giving this program life, direction, and character.

Dr. Merle Schlabaugh
Professor of German & Editor of this booklet to celebrate 50 years of the Wuppertal-Bethel exchange program. 
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What’s going on behind the scenes?: Interview with Bernard Havard on working with his creative team at the Walnut Street Theatre

2/20/2020

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​By Henrik Eger
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People arriving at the Walnut Street Theatre. Photo courtesy of the Walnut Street Theatre.
In general, theater reviews tend to present photographs that favor actors; yet, a great deal of creativity comes through the work of designers, technicians, and many others—all part of a creative team.
​

In the final part of this three-part series of interviews with Bernard Havard, president & producing artistic director of the Walnut Street Theatre, America’s oldest continuously-operating theater, Bernard shares his experiences with his creative team for A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde: Scenic designer Dr. Roman Tatarowicz, lighting designer Shon Causer, sound designer Christopher Colucci, and costume designer Mary Folino.
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Scene from A Women of No Importance, designed by Dr. Roman Tatarowicz, lighting design by Shon Causer.
Entering an aristocratic Alice in Wonderland world, peopled by fantastic Victorian characters:
Scenic designer Dr. Roman Tatarowicz
Henrik: Before the play started, we saw a rich, upper-class environment through a gauze curtain, as if we were about to enter an aristocratic Alice in Wonderland world, peopled by fantastic Victorian characters—all set in an awe-inspiring design by Dr. Roman Tatarowicz, “chair of the obstetrics department at St. Mary Medical Center in Langhorne” and one of the most sought-after stage designers for miles. He was quoted as saying that he found his stage work “humbling because some of the people I work with are crazy talented.”

What was it like working with this “crazy talented” scenic designer?
​

Bernard: We found him through our production manager, Siobhán Ruane, who was aware of his work. Having Siobhán on our staff has been a tremendous asset for us. She introduced me to Roman, and I saw his portfolio. I thought the work was amazing, and we immediately got him under contract for a show in the studio, and it just grew from there. ​
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Dr. Roman Tatarowicz, scenic designer and chair of the obstetrics department at St. Mary Medical Center in Langhorne, PA.
Photo by Thom Carroll.

He’s worked on two shows that I directed, The Humans and then this show. He’s a wonderful collaborator. He not only studies the script thoroughly to inform himself as to the design, but he will also talk to me in great detail about my vision for the piece, leading to great collaborations. 

The only thing that I had to talk to Roman about was the final act set for A Woman of No Importance. He was doing it in the same design as the grand mansion, and I said, “No, it’s a different world altogether. She lives in a cottage. It has to portray purity. There has to be a great change. All the flowers have to be white, absolutely white.” And I said, “I want a crucifix on the wall, because she has devoted so much time to religion and her church.” So with that collaboration, he came up with that wonderful set for us. 

Henrik: When you shared your interpretation of the last act with Roman, how did he respond? 
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Alicia Roper and Ian Merrill Peakes. Act 4. Stage design by Roman Tatarowicz and lighting design by Shon Causer. Photo by Mark Garvin.
Bernard: Oh, he immediately drafted a new set. Immediately. And I said, “You got it; you understand.”

Beyond collaboration with me, Roman is also a great collaborator with the costume and the lighting designers. He doesn’t need to collaborate with the sound designer, although I’m pretty sure he would’ve told me if he thought it was wrong. 
Roman’s hands-on. He goes down to the shop to make sure the scenery’s being built properly. He’s there the whole time the set’s being put in the theater. How he finds the time to leave the hospital and be at the theater for as long as he does, I’m not sure. Maybe he’s got great assistance at St. Mary’s. 

Henrik: I have never heard of a physician who also creates some of the finest stage designs.
​

Bernard: Same here. I believe Dr. Tatarowicz is the only set designer I’ve ever worked with who delivers babies. He brings such a vision and precision to his work that I can only think that these skills make him an excellent obstetrician. 
You know how Leonardo da Vinci was able to encompass the scientific and the artistic worlds—that’s what Roman does. ​​
Working with a sensitive and aware human being and artist:
Lighting designer Shon Causer
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Shon Causer, lighting designer.
Henrik: Could you describe your overall approach working with the creative team, starting with lighting designer Shon Causer, and how all their arts and skills contributed to this production of a difficult play with some of Wilde’s most famous quotes? 

Bernard: 
Shon and I have collaborated on a number of plays that I directed at the Fulton Opera House and then moved to the Walnut, and he also worked on The Humans with me. He’s a sensitive and aware human being and artist. He understands light and the importance of it. ​
Henrik: For instance? 
​

Bernard: Hester is overhearing these women prattling on about men and about society, and she’s off in a corner by the bookcase, and she’s sort of in a very dim light, so nobody really pays any attention to her. She’s just there. We know she’s there, and at the moment that attention is drawn to her, we slowly bring the light up on her, not so fast that the audience realizes what’s going on, but to focus the attention on her now. ​​

Shon understands that, so we don’t have to have a long discussion about it. 
For example, he knows that the first scene is outdoors. To try to help the audience understand, we use gobos—pieces of metal or glass with a design carved into them, in this case, leaves. Once a gobo is inserted, it projects whatever is carved into it. As a result, we get a dappled lighting effect coming through the trees. 

​Shon and I discussed whether they had electric light at that mansion, and we decided they did not. They were rural people, and they were probably still working off gas light in that building. Whatever adjustment he made to the color or the temperature of the lighting, it conveys gas light. 


Henrik: You and everyone involved in this production must have spent an extraordinary amount of time and energy, let alone money, to make every moment work for your audience. 
​

Bernard: True. We had the footlights at the front of the stage to convey gas light, and to heighten the fact that it’s theatrical. We’re not trying to fool anybody. A Woman of No Importance is a theater piece, and we hope audiences enter into it as a theater piece. We’re not trying to create reality as such; rather, we’re trying to convey the truth and the honesty of the situation. ​
“We’ve been on the same wavelength for a long time”:
Sound designer Christopher Colucci
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Christopher Colucci, sound designer. Photo by Ryan Collerd.
Henrik: You also worked with your sound designer Christopher Colucci on creating specific moods. 
​

Bernard: Yes, Colucci and I, we’ve been on the same wavelength for a long time. We think, “What is the mood that we’re trying to set?” I wanted a pastoral mood, because they’re in the country. We also had to deal with that big melodramatic moment when Hester comes screaming out after having been kissed by Lord Illingworth. 
And at that point, it’s so melodramatic that I thought, if we cover this with a sound effect in the music, it will help the audience. If there’s nervous laughter in the audience, it’ll be covered to a certain extent. And it was successful, I think, in doing that. 

Henrik: What music did you play during those tension-filled moments?
​

Bernard: The two composers that I was focusing on were Vaughn Williams and Gustav Holst. As soon as Hester comes on and says, “Lord Illingworth tried to kiss me,” and then the seducer appears onstage, and young Arbuthnot goes charging across the stage to punch him, Mrs. Arbuthnot makes a shattering revelation.

​At that point, the music chords strike. Badoom. It helps deflect, I think, nervous laughter from the audience, who may find this scene either tragic or overly melodramatic. 
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American composer Stephen Foster (1826 - 1864).
Photo courtesy of Newslocker.com.

And also, the piece that’s played by Hester on the violin is American music from that period. I think it’s Stephen Foster. I said to Colucci, “Find me a piece of music that would’ve been played in America that she would have learned to play. And I’d like it to be specifically American, and not a piece of Beethoven or Bach or something.” So that’s what he did. ​
“Costumes give the audience information about the characters before they even speak”:
Costume designer Mary Folino
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Costume Designer Mary Folino conducting a wardrobe fitting on actress Megan Arnoldy. Courtesy of the Walnut Street Theatre.
Henrik: One of those “crazy talented” people at the Walnut, Mary Folino, your costume designer, once said, “Costumes give the audience information about the characters before they even speak. And they help define their personalities, just as anyone’s clothes do.” 

In this production, the men are dressed in dark outfits that represent their social and professional status. The women are wearing exquisitely elegant Victorian outfits with various colors and shades, with two exceptions: the American visitor dressed in white, and Mrs. Arbuthnot dressed in all black, almost like an angel risen from the dead (played by Alicia Roper, demonstrating a wide range of feelings). 

Could you describe Folino’s work at the Walnut and her costume design for this production in particular?

Bernard: The first costume you see the young American in is pale off-white, slightly yellow, and the last dress she wears in Oscar Wilde’s Act 4 is white, white muslin. It’s also informed by Parisian fashions at the time, because of Wilde’s reference to “American women always get their clothes in Paris.” So when Mary researched the period and the costumes, she also researched what costumes, what dresses were being designed in the early 1890s in Paris. 

The black dress, worn by Mrs. Arbuthnot, was only for Act 2 and 3, and it’s called for. Oscar actually refers to the “woman in black,” and so Lord Illingworth immediately says, “Yes, what a charming woman in black.” 

The costume is also spelled out for Hester, the young American girl. It has to be a woman in white muslin. Oscar Wilde has put it in the script, in the dialogue. You would be absolutely foolish, and wrong, if you didn’t follow Oscar’s direction. ​
Turning the wit of a great writer into a living work of art on stage:
Director Bernard Havard on Oscar Wilde
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Oscar Wilde lounging, original photo from the 1890s.
Henrik: Bernard, you lived with this work for quite some time. Which quotes from this play seem to represent the wit and the biting satire of A Woman of No Importance for you? 

Bernard: “The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.”

“To win back my youth, Gerald, there is nothing I wouldn’t do—except take exercise, get up early, or be a useful member of the community.”

“The English country gentleman galloping after a fox—the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.”
There’s just wit everywhere. There are so many quotes in this play, each one more famous than the next. I love them all.

Henrik: Tell us something that very few people know about you.

Bernard: The one thing I will tell you that I did in the past that informs my life is work as a short order cook and a sous chef in London, even though I didn’t get that far. I was cooking to support myself as a young actor, rather than driving a taxi or working as a waiter. 

Preparing meals for people and seeing the satisfaction they get from a well-prepared meal is the same satisfaction I get from preparing a well-prepared play. 

Henrik: I appreciate the way you greet people on opening night. As a theater reviewer, I feel always honored, as if you were saying, “You’re all doing a lot of hard work, too.”

Bernard: It’s a brotherhood. The people who support the theater are not a large group, probably less than, I don’t know, 3% of our country who enjoy what we’re doing. We have to embrace our audiences. They’re precious people. Without them, the theater doesn’t exist. 
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Audience, including critics, with diverging opinions by Honoré Daumier, 1808 – 1879.
[Walnut Street Theatre, 825 Walnut Street] January 14-March 1, 2020; walnutstreettheatre.org

​
This interview was originally published by Phindie on February 20, 2020. 

For the other two parts of this three-part interview, click these links:

Part 1, Risks can lead to financial loss: Interview with Bernard Havard on A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE at the Walnut Street Theatre, and
Part 2, 
As if Oscar Wilde himself had arrived on the Walnut stage: Interview with Bernard Havard on casting and working with his actors. 
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As if Oscar Wilde himself had arrived on the Walnut stage: Interview with Bernard Havard on casting and working with his actors

2/18/2020

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By Henrik Eger
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A Woman of No Importance full cast and creative team at the Walnut Street Theatre.
In this interview with Bernard Havard, Walnut Street Theatre’s President & Producing Artistic Director as well as director of Oscar Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance, he describes his work casting and directing the actors and many other aspects of creating an artistically successful production. 

For more details check out our first interview in a series of three: “Risks can lead to financial loss: Interview with Bernard Havard on A Woman of No Importance at the Walnut Street Theatre,” and the third interview, “What’s going on behind the scenes?: Interview with Bernard Havard on working with his creative team at the Walnut Street Theatre” ​
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St. Georges Catholic Boy's School, now College, Weybridge, Surrey, UK.
Henrik Eger: Most people seem to know you only as one of the most successful theater directors for miles. Could you give a few examples of how your childhood and adolescent experiences led you to the theater world? 

Bernard Havard: Born in Chiswick, England, I was a child actor at St. George’s, a Catholic boys’ boarding school in Weybridge, Surrey [founded in 1869]. As I had a very high soprano, I got to play all the female roles. 

In adolescence, I was involved in a television program in Calgary, Alberta, as an actor. It was called More or Less, and it was also sold to ABC in Australia. I played a juvenile delinquent in a black leather jacket and a ducktail hairstyle. 

Henrik: Audiences often wonder whether you are English or Canadian.

Bernard: I’m a proud American. I was born in England and immigrated to Calgary, Alberta, Canada with my family when I was eleven years old. In 1977, I was head-hunted into the Alliance Theater in Atlanta, GA. 

Henrik: Did those experiences encourage you later in life to create programming for young people in Philadelphia? 

Bernard: No, that came much later. I got involved in touring for young children in Toronto with Young People’s Theatre. Later on, I was recruited by the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton, Alberta, putting together tours for young audiences in Northern Alberta. We would fly our company into Northern Alberta, because those communities were so remote that this was the best way to reach them. This program was subsidized by the Alberta government. 
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Maclab, Citadel Theatre, Edmonton, Canada.
Henrik: You seem to have quite a theater background via your family.

Bernard: During my childhood, I found out that my family has been in the theater for over 200 years. They were an Irish acting family who had moved from Dublin to England in the 1820s. One of my great-great aunts was the first woman to play Candida for George Bernard Shaw and the first woman to smoke a cigarette onstage at Wyndham’s Theatre in London. 

There were two aunts. One was called Kate Rorke and the other Mary Rorke. The family had Anglicized their names when they moved from Ireland to get along better with the British. They both ended up teaching a whole generation of actors at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, two famous theater schools in London. 

Henrik: Even the most experienced actors consider it a great honor to be cast by you. Could you tell us more about that process? 
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Bernard: If there’s one strength that I have, Henrik, it’s in my casting. I’ve been casting actors now for over 55 years, and I think I have a very good understanding for what talent and truth is about—in terms of conveying that from one human to another, meaning the artist at one end and the audience at the other. 

I don’t have a problem with it. It’s something that’s come to me over the years, and I feel natural and confident about that aspect of my work. 

Henrik: Has it ever happened that an actor whom you had screened and hired did not pull through and you had to let go of that person?

Bernard: It has happened to me as a producer, but not as a director. All of those actors that you saw onstage in A Woman of No Importance, none of them auditioned for me, except Audrey [Ward as Miss Hester Worsley]. I’ve worked in this city for 37 years. I know many of the best actors in the city. I knew exactly who I wanted, and I offered them the roles. 
However, as a producer, there was a very unfortunate incident years ago. A wonderful older actress had been hired, and it turned out that her memory was totally shot. She was not able to retain the lines, and I, unfortunately, had to part company with her, and it was one of the most emotionally painful experiences of my life. 

But now, we actually have the technology to put a hearing aid into an actor’s ear and have the stage manager prompt them through the hearing aid, so, from a memory standpoint, with that technology we’re able to preserve an actor’s longevity.

Henrik: You brought together great actors who have won many Barrymores and other awards or nominations, including Mary Martello (as Lady Caroline Pontefract), Paul L. Nolan (as Mr. Kelvil), Karen Peakes (as Mrs. Allonby), Jane Ridley (as Lady Hunstanton), Jessica Bedford (as Lady Stutfield), Peter Schmitz (as Archdeacon Daubeny), and Bill van Horn (as Sir John Pontefract). What were you looking for in this cast? 
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"They’re all world class actors. I believe they could take the stage anywhere, in New York, London, and would be among the best."
A Woman of No Importance, cast. Photo by Mark Garvin.
Bernard: The whole cast was a joy to work with. I hired people who, I think, have tremendous instincts and great talent. I was looking for a specific physical type, but also an actor who could handle the language well and was appropriately-aged. 

Oscar has given us those characters, Dr. Daubeny, for instance. If you read Oscar’s letters—there are 641 of them, I believe—he uses Daubeny as a running joke in all of his letters. When anybody complains about all their ailments in old age, he calls them “Daubenys.”  

Peter Schmitz, to me, is the perfect model for Daubeny. He fits those roles that Wilde has written. He understands these people, and he nails them. 

Similarly, there’s Mr. Kelvil, the pompous Member of Parliament. When you think of an actor locally who can do pompous really well, Paul Nolan is exceptional at it. He’s played more military men and men of authority than I remember anybody else doing around here. 
​

Don’t forget, there’s another wonderful actor that we’re overlooking because he doesn’t have many lines in this play, but what he has, he makes the most of, and that’s Bill Van Horn. He played Sir John Pontefract, Lady Caroline Pontefract’s hen-pecked husband. ​​​
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Bill Van Horn as Sir John Pontefract, Karen Peakes as Mrs. Allonby, and Ian Merrill Peakes as Lord Illingworth. Photo by Mark Garvin.
Henrik: Women of the ruling class during Wilde’s time dominate this play. Tell us about those women.

Bernard: Mary Martello played Lady Bracknell in Wilde’s Importance of Being Earnest, so she’s more than earned her spurs in this sort of environment, and so has Jane Ridley. They’re all exceptional. 

The only one that I’d never seen do classical work was Jessica Bedford, but I’d seen her do And Then There Were None, so she’d worked with us before, and she handles the English accent very well. 

They’re all world class actors. I believe they could take the stage anywhere, in New York, London, and would be among the best.
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Victorian women in A Woman of No Importance. Photo by Mark Garvin.
Henrik: Is there any particular approach you prefer in giving feedback to your actors?

Bernard: Yes. The director I admired most that I worked with over the years was Malcolm Black. He directed numerous shows at the Walnut, and his method of giving notes was individual. He would not give notes to the entire company. He would never run the risk of offending somebody in front of the rest of the company, so I used the same methodology. I thought it worked wonderfully well. 

If there was a note I would give anyone, I would take them aside and give them the note, either during the rehearsal when we would have a break or after a preview. They were all personal, never a collective one other than to say, “Bravo, you did a wonderful show tonight.”

Henrik: Often, Oscar Wilde gets portrayed as a caricature—a talented, narcissistic, rich dandy—giving people who don’t appreciate his wit a chance to cut him down. 

Your production did the opposite: as Lord Illingworth, a dubious, almost Weinsteinean character who wanted to right one of the wrongs in his life, Ian Merrill Peakes moves and even sits down with a wide range of elegant Wildean motions and gestures, each one presenting another kaleidoscopic aspect of Wilde at the height of his social and literary fame.
How did you get Peakes to turn each moment into a unique vignette, as if Oscar Wilde himself had arrived on the Walnut stage? 
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Ian Merrill Peakes and Karen Peakes in A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE at the Walnut Street Theatre. Photo by Mark Garvin.
Bernard: Ian brings that strength to his creativity as an actor. He grew up in a theatrical family. His father John worked for us as an actor at the Walnut, and also a director, so Ian is imbued with the same blood of the theater. Ian’s really cut from a classical model, able to extend his talents over a considerable range. He’s done a lot of Shakespearean roles. Just recently, he played Salieri at the Folger Theatre and was lauded for that performance in Washington, D.C. 
Not many notes for Ian from me. 

Henrik: What did you do to make sure that the American in England didn’t sound like everyone else? 
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Audrey Ward as the American, Miss Hester Worsley and Karen Peakes as Mrs. Allonby. Photo by Mark Garvin.
Bernard: I didn’t want people thinking, “Where she is from?” One of the characters refers to having met one of her relatives in Boston, but I didn’t want to lay that dialect on her. Audrey had a nice American accent that was devoid of any regional flavor, and I thought that was appropriate. 

Henrik: What was it like directing your own son, the multi-talented Brandon O’Rourke—playing the young Gerald Arbuthnot, in love with the visiting American woman? 

Bernard: He was asked by a director that has known Brandon all of his life, who was here for his 21st birthday last week, what it was like to be directed by his father, and Brandon said it was different than any other director he had worked with. 

Henrik: What was different in your communication as a director with your son? 
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Alicia Roper as Mrs. Arbuthnot and Brandon O’Rourke as Gerald Arbuthnot, her son. Photo by Mark Garvin.
Bernard: In Brandon’s case, because he lives under the same roof as me, it was very easy to talk to him. 

Henrik: Not all actors always agree. How do you handle their suggestions, especially if some of them come from your son?

Bernard: An actor sometimes will say, “I don’t agree with you,” and I will say, “Well, why don’t we try it and see who’s right?” And sometimes they’re right, and sometimes I’m right. I like to be objective about the situation and see if it works in terms of the audience. When we try something, it’s really in front of an audience. That’s why we’re so fortunate to have nine previews, so those things can be worked out, and we can hear what the response is from the audience. 

Henrik: Could you give an example?

Bernard: Sure, did the laugh work, or did it land properly? Sometimes I might say, “Don’t you have to wait another pause—give it a Pinter pause to let it land, so you don’t jump on the next guy’s line.” It was easy. In fact, it was very easy. 
​

Working with Brandon was one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life. 
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Producing Artistic Director Bernard Havard, his wife, Judy, and Actor Brandon O'Rourke. Photo courtesy Walnut Street Theatre.
[Walnut Street Theatre, 825 Walnut Street] January 14-March 1, 2020; walnutstreettheatre.org
This interview was originally published by Phindie on February 18, 2020. 

For the other two parts of this three-part interview, click these links:

Part 1, Risks can lead to financial loss: Interview with Bernard Havard on A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE at the Walnut Street Theatre, and
Part 3, 
What’s going on behind the scenes?: Interview with Bernard Havard on working with his creative team at the Walnut Street Theatre. 
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Risks can lead to financial loss: Interview with Bernard Havard on A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE at the Walnut Street Theatre

2/17/2020

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​By Henrik Eger
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Bernard Havard. Photo courtesy Walnut Street Theatre.
Thirty seven years ago, Bernard Havard was named president and producing artistic director to bring back to life America’s oldest continuously running theater, the Walnut Street Theatre. Together with his creative and administrative staff, Havard developed one of the most popular theaters on the East Coast. However, even the most successful theaters, especially those which take a risk with a play that might be difficult, can take a financial loss.
​

Few producers and directors would be willing to talk about these aspects of running a cultural institution. Havard admitted that for his production of Oscar Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance, “I’m not selling the number of tickets I hoped to sell.” In this interview, he described the risks he took and the efforts he and his team made to lead to one full house after another since Valentine’s Day.
Taking risks can lead to a financial loss for a theater
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Walnut Street Theatre. Photo by E. Frizzelle for Visit Philadelphia.
Henrik Eger: Recently, you took the risk of putting on the rarely performed A Woman of No Importance. What gave you the courage to produce and direct this wit-filled Oscar Wilde drama, which takes place in upper class Victorian England butdoes not come with the razzle-dazzle of My Fair Lady and other productions familiar to American audiences?

Bernard Havard: I enjoy Oscar Wilde’s work. I have great admiration for his writing, and I have great admiration for his courage. He was a man of great courage. Also, the play speaks to me about democratic values versus the British class system, which for me was always full of hypocrisy. But it has been a risk, and it continues to be a risk, because I’m not selling the number of tickets I hoped to sell.

Take the title: The Importance of Being Earnest is an extraordinarily well-known title, the most popular of his plays, but A Woman of No Importance is not as popular. It’s a more difficult play. He wrote the play in four acts, and the first three acts all take place at the large manor house, and they’re all full of Wildean wit and humor. But then, after Lord Illingworth attempts to kiss and seduce the young American lady, the Puritan, it becomes rather melodramatic, and it’s a tough change for the audience. It just is.
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A Woman of No Importance, part of the playbill.
I think, possibly was influenced to some degree by Henrik Ibsen at that stage of his career. He was trying to mark out some new territory in terms of his playwriting. I find it an important transition, and I find it very moving, too. Some women I know weep with that scene, because they’re familiar with those relationships.

Henrik: For the role of a young American woman in search of an aristocratic husband, you took another risk by hiring a Temple sophomore. Tell us more about Audrey Ward and the difficult role of playing an independent American woman as seen through the eyes of Wilde in the early 1890s.

Bernard: I wanted it to be authentic, especially when Wilde describes this character as 18 years old. I held auditions for 35 young actresses, who had been screened by Rita, my assistant, and Audrey stood out in her audition as being able to command that role.

I’m less interested in academic training for actors and actresses. You either have the talent or you don’t. Talent is not something you can be taught. She has talent, and she took direction very well, which I guess she learned from her professors at Temple.
Connecting an old British play with a modern American audience
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Jessica Bedford as Lady Stutfield and Karen Peakes as Mrs. Allonby. Photo by Mark Garvin.
Henrik: What did you, your experienced actors, and your creative team do to present this satirical setup in such a way that American audiences would relate to it, especially as we are dealing with the barriers of linguistic class divisions in Victorian England?

Bernard: First of all, I made a number of substantive cuts to the text. I also allowed the actors to get involved in the cuts. During the rehearsal process, we probably reduced the play’s running time by about half an hour, and a lot of the references that we cut were references that were too obscure, or too English, or too unrelatable to an American experience. I didn’t see any point in keeping references that made no sense to a contemporary American audience.

However, I did supply one word to the text: when Karen Peakes as Mrs. Allonby mentions the place they’re talking about—Philadelphia. That was my one addition, and I thought it worked, because Wilde had been to Philadelphia. He knew about its Centennial International Exhibition. That’s what the young girl is actually reading about, so when the actress says, “that city with the funny name,” it was Philadelphia. It was a great laugh that American audiences could relate to.

Henrik: Strong British accents can present a problem for American audiences.

Bernard: All of the actors, I think more or less, gave me an English accent that was as close to being understood as you could get. I didn’t want any regional accents; I didn’t want any Yorkshire accents; I didn’t want any Cockneys. I was trying to get a clear English accent that was acceptable in terms of pronunciation. We worked very hard at pronunciation to make sure everybody was consistent.
When audience members complain about sound, something else might be going on
Henrik: Some people complained about sound, even though you have an excellent sound system. Like other theaters, the Walnut rents out hearing aids, free of charge, for anyone who requests a set before the show.

Bernard: A lot of it has to do with the accents. It’s an adjustment. Also, people, I don’t think, have the same kind of attention span that they had a few decades ago. It’s becoming more and more difficult.

Certainly Ian Merrill Peakes as Lord Illingworth knows how to project, and so does Mary Martello as Lady Caroline Pontefract. You have a company of actors who basically know how to project in a proscenium theater.
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Ian Merrill Peakes as Lord Illingworth and Brandon O’Rourke as Gerald Arbuthnot. Photo by Mark Garvin.
But it is an adjustment for an American to come in and hear a bunch of foreigners on that stage, people with foreign accents, anyway. And you have to adjust and listen.

The sound is heightened. There are a number of microphones on that stage. There are four small foot mics, and then there are mics in the vases and around the set to pick up the dialogue. Everything is amplified.

I just don’t like putting radio mics on actors for a classic piece like that. One of my bugbears is making sure the audience can’t see the microphone. If you see a microphone on an actor who’s performing in a classic piece, it takes me right out of it. Like, what the hell is that little thing on the forehead of that actor doing there? So I’m a bit old fashioned, I suppose, when it comes to hiring actors that can project.
Wilde at the Walnut: Valentine’s Day push, filling America’s oldest theater
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Old Valentine's Day card from the late 1800s.
Henrik: Earlier, you said that, unlike your other productions, A Woman of No Importance did not sell so well. What did you do to rectify this situation?

Bernard: We made a really large social media push for Valentine’s Day. We got my son, Brandon [O’Rourke who played Gerald Arbuthnot], involved and asked him to push it on his extensively subscribed social media platforms. Actually, he offered to do that. Contained in these social media posts was an ability to go to his bio to find the link to purchase tickets.
We attempted to get the rest of the cast involved by making production shots available to them. We offered special “two fer’s” and a $27 ticket for Valentine’s Day. All in all, we used Instagram, Facebook, and I believe some Twitter. We are also experimenting with texting.

Henrik: Impressive cooperation. What impact did this Valentine’s campaign have on ticket sales?

Bernard: It increased our attendance. We were probably selling close to 500 seats a performance, and this jacked it up to over 750 seats, so that’s something like a 50% increase. We now have a President’s Day special. Everyone is invited.

Henrik: Oscar Wilde’s wit and spirit will be hovering over the stage in every sold out performance, no doubt. And the unexpected ending of this play, which came as a shock in 1893, is delighting thousands of theatergoers.

[Walnut Street Theatre, 825 Walnut Street] January 14-March 1, 2020; walnutstreettheatre.org
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Oscar Wilde, autograph draft of A Woman of No Importance, titled Mrs Arbuthnot, with corrections and additions, 1892-1893.
British Library.

This interview was originally published by Phindie on February 17, 2020. 

For the other two parts of this three-part interview, click these links:

Part 2, As if Oscar Wilde himself had arrived on the Walnut stage: Interview with Bernard Havard on casting and working with his actors, and
Part 3, 
What’s going on behind the scenes?: Interview with Bernard Havard on working with his creative team at the Walnut Street Theatre. 
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Talking to the Roosevelts: Interview with Eleanor, Franklin, and Sara from the cast of ELEANOR at Media Theatre

2/6/2020

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​By Henrik Eger
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Maxwell Porterfield as Eleanor with four children. Photo by Maura Boruchow McConnell.
Eleanor – An American Love Story runs January 29-February 23, 2020, at the Media Theatre. A little-known musical, Eleanor (music by Thomas Tierney, lyrics by John Forster,  book by Jonathon Bolt) has been a favorite at regional theaters since the first production was staged in 1987 in Seattle, WA. The musical is based on the early lives of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, from their passionate courtship, through their complicated marriage with a domineering mother-in-law, to Eleanor’s emerging role as a catalyst for social change in America.

In Media, Eleanor is played by Maxwell Porterfield, Franklin is played by Patrick Ludt,  and Sara Roosevelt (FDR’s mother) is played by actress Susan Wefel (see below for historical biographies). Henrik Eger spoke to the actors about their roles and the real-life characters behind them.
​
[Media Theatre, 104 E. State Street, Media, PA] January 29-February 23, 2020; mediatheatre.org
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Patrick Ludt & Maxwell Porterfield as Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt in a 1936 Ford Phaeton, parked at the Media Theatre.
Photo by Patricia Cofiell.

Henrik Eger: What did you learn about your character that you did not know until the Media Theatre offered you the job? 

Eleanor Roosevelt (portrayed by Maxwell Porterfield): I didn’t know that Eleanor was reluctant to be a public figure and for her husband to go all the way to the presidency. Not that I expected her to have planned to be First Lady, but rather, I thought that someone who made such a large impact over her lifetime would’ve felt more in her element. Eleanor always wanted to help people, but in her early years, she was very shy and lacking in confidence. Her life is an example that people are not limited to their current circumstances or abilities. 

Franklin D. Roosevelt (portrayed by Patrick Ludt): I learned a lot about the early FDR years that you don’t hear much about in school, including his run for State Senate of New York and his time as Assistant Secretary to the Navy in the Wilson administration.

Sara Delano Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s mother (portrayed by Susan Wefel): I learned that FDR’s mother was very controlling, and FDR appeared as a bit of a momma’s boy.
Eger: What are your two favorite scenes involving your character and why? ​

Porterfield as Eleanor Roosevelt: One of my favorite scenes is when Eleanor realizes what her interests and life’s work are. I think this is an important realization for every person, but in this case it was the start of a life which made an enormous impact on the world. Another scene poignantly shows how Eleanor chooses to give up the life she wants to serve the greater good. 

Ludt as Franklin Roosevelt: I enjoy the scene where Eleanor and Franklin tell his mother they intend to get married. I think it’s quite funny. Next would be the speech that I recite during one of Eleanor’s songs in the second act, “He Touches Me.” I find the words moving.
​

Wefel as Sara Delano Roosevelt: Favorite scenes for me are Act 1, Scene 5, the wedding night, when Momma leaves her bedroom at Springwood to visit Franklin and Eleanor for a week and tells them about her newly-constructed plans for a double townhouse in NYC with “connecting floors” so that she can always be with them when they need her. Also, Momma’s lecture to Eleanor about “serving one’s husband first” from Act 1, Scene 7. Poor Eleanor didn’t have a chance! Or did she?  ​
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Maxwell Porterfield
Eger: Share your favorite quotes from your Roosevelt character and the effect they had on you. 

Porterfield as Eleanor Roosevelt: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” This is one that I have known from an early age. It made quite the impact on me, because we live in a world where people try to tell you who you are and label you. Although we can’t control what others say, this quote reminds us that we can choose which voices we listen to.
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Patrick Ludt
Ludt as Franklin Roosevelt: “For it is not to our glory that we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide for those who have too little.”

​I love this quote, which eloquently states that people matter more than money. It compares helping the needy versus increasing the wealth of the rich—posing the question, which is more glorious?
​

“I have no control over her, Mother; she’s only my wife.” This comes at a moment when Eleanor stands up to Franklin’s mother, Sara, who is telling Franklin to make Eleanor stop. I just think it’s such a clever little answer that shows FDR’s wit and understanding of how, just because they’re married, doesn’t mean he can tell her what to do.
Wefel as Sara Delano Roosevelt: Favorite line—“Franklin, you can’t be a politician; you’re a gentleman!”

Eger: As life goes by faster than many people realize, what would you like the next generation of theatergoers to know about this musical that connects Americans to history? 

Porterfield as Eleanor Roosevelt: Life is so much more than comfort or getting what we want. Eleanor decided to live outside her comfort zone. She was faced with many difficult decisions, and she chose the path that was often the most difficult. These are the kinds of decisions that one has to make in order to live a remarkable life.
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Susan Wefel
Ludt as Franklin Roosevelt: This musical provides a good, relatable glimpse into the early lives of Eleanor and FDR. It includes their conflicts in their marriage and shows the early history of their political rise.

​Most importantly, it demonstrates how Eleanor influenced FDR and how she gained her own political voice over the years.


Wefel as Sara Delano Roosevelt: What I learned from working on the show was that these Roosevelts were real American Royalty. As a result, I gained an appreciation for their hard work on our country’s behalf.
​

Eger: Many thanks to all the Roosevelts!
[Media Theatre, 104 E. State Street, Media, PA] January 29-February 23, 2020; mediatheatre.org​
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Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt promotes the Victory Bond in Times Square. courtesy of History101.
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (Oct. 11, 1884 – Nov. 7, 1962), an American political figure, diplomat and activist, acted as the First Lady of the United States from Mar. 4, 1933, to Apr. 12, 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s four terms in office, making her the longest-serving First Lady of the United States. She served as the US Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from 1945 to 1952. President Harry S. Truman, FDR’s Vice President, later called her the “First Lady of the World” in tribute to her human rights achievements. Watch an historical interview with her from 1958 which shows us in beautiful ways how Eleanor saw life at the White House.
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This photo is one of only two that show Franklin D. Roosevelt in his wheelchair. Photo by Margaret Suckley, courtesy of History101.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Jan. 30, 1882 – Apr. 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death. A member of the Democratic Party, he won a record four presidential elections and directed the federal government during most of the Great Depression, implementing his New Deal domestic agenda in response to the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. His third and fourth terms were dominated by World War II. He is rated by scholars as one of the three greatest U.S. presidents, along with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, but has also been subject to substantial criticism. 

Sara Ann Delano Roosevelt (Sept. 21, 1854 – Sept. 7, 1941) was the second wife of James Roosevelt I and the mother of President of the United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt, her only child, and subsequently the mother-in-law of Eleanor Roosevelt. 

(All three bios adapted from Wikipedia.)
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Eleanor. She holds Franklin's glass, and he holds her knitting.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library.

The cast of the Media Theatre’s production of Eleanor, An American Love Story--book by Jonathon Bolt, lyrics by John Forster, music by Thomas Tierney, and directed by Jesse Cline—also includes the following talented actors: Roger Ricker as Louis Howe, Hannah Parke as Alice Roosevelt, Kelly Briggs as Theodore Roosevelt and Al Smith, Chelsea Aubert as Lucy Mercer, Lila Bea Hannon and Lily Jo Shelkin as Young Eleanor and Young Anna, Elliott Boldin and Preston Newton as Young James and Hester, Zachary Amos and Tyler Motlasz as Teen James, Lulu Spinelli and Chloe Tomaszweski as Maria, Sutton Gold and Reese Masiello as Spike, and Greyson Heneks and Zoe Nesbitt as Pepini.
This interview was originally published by Phindie on February 6, 2020. 
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from Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, and  Azerbaijani to Vietnamese, Welsh, Xhosa, Yiddish, Yoruba, and  Zulu—​thanks to the latest version of Google Translate.
Picture
Tower Of Babel
by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1563).
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Copyright Henrik Eger, 2014-2020.
Update: December 30, 2020.
All images are credited to the best of our knowledge. We believe known sources should  be shown and great work promoted. If there is a problem with the rights to any image, please contact us, and we will check it right away. 
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