AJT March 2020 NEWSLETTER
This Issue: The Telling Monologues, April Webinar, Circles
Our Community During The Plague
Dear AJT Members and Community,
We theatre-folk, like the Israelites of the past, have lost our temple. We have lost our place where we come together and inspire one another and our audience. We have lost our place for collaboration in action. And it's still uncertain when we will be able to return.
Though, all is not lost. While I am personally mournful, I am also hopeful. I believe that together we will find a way to forge ahead and share stories as we always have. Some say that Judaism began when the Temple was destroyed, when Jews were forced to find a different way to honor the sacred. Perhaps in some way through this, we too will find new ways to connect to each other and to our communities.
We come from a long tradition of storytellers. We Jews have been here before. And we will get through this, as we always have, undoubtedly with many stories and experiences to share. As we approach our seder table this Passover and tap into our long history of liberation, may we find freedom from what restricts us today. Our people will come together again. That is why we are starting The Telling Monologues Project.
- Jeremy Aluma, Executive Director of the Alliance for Jewish Theatre
and the Executive Board
The Telling Monologues
Alliance for Jewish Theatre (AJT) is excited to announce our first virtual theatre project: The Telling Monologues. AJT invites you to submit 1-3 minute monologues on the theme of Passover using the hashtag #PassoverTellingProject
Deadline extended to Tuesday, April 14
The international crisis with COVID-19 is leading up to one of our major holidays, Passover. Given the Jewish people’s history, we feel the significance of this parallel. Each year, we read from the Haggadah (The Telling, aptly enough), and it tells us that the Israelites gathered and shared stories during a time of crisis.
Passover is about creating community. What were these communities like? Quite similar to what we're experiencing now: Small, usually one family to a household. They ate together. They lived and stayed in one place. They couldn’t leave their homes.
We are in a time of plague once more, and we can join together and maintain a sense of hope, a sense of love. Passover provides this inspiration: it is a universal story, a story of freedom, of redemption, of coming out of oppression.
What is your Passover Message?
AJT invites anyone to submit a 1-3 minute monologue on Facebook and Twitter on the theme of Passover. Feel free to use one of the following thematic prompts:
Liberation
Community
Performance
Service
Using the hashtag #PassoverTellingProject, you may either:
Submit text as a playwright: AJT will help you connect with a theatre artist to learn, perform, and record it for you and add the additional hashtag: #TellThisStory
Submit video as a performer. Monologues can be written, rehearsed, performed, and recorded on video remotely from the comfort (and safety!) of the actors’ homes.
Submissions will be accepted through Tuesday, April 14; after, we will publish them on our channels. If your monologue contains sensitive material, please include a content warning. AJT has a zero-tolerance policy for any hateful, oppressive, and discriminatory submissions. And mamash, we know we like to talk, but please honor the 1-3 minute time limit.
Email jeremy@alljewishtheatre.org with any questions or concerns.
May this Passover be one where we tell the stories of the past, present, and future that lead to our redemption and propel us into freedom. #PassoverTellingProject
Magical Dialogue Playwriting Workshop (AJT April 2020 Monthly Webinar)
What - Magical Dialogue Playwriting Workshop Webinar
Who - Emma Goldman-Sherman, Playwright and Founder of 29th Street Playwrights Collective
When - Sunday, April 12, 12:45pm - 3pm Central Time
How - via Zoom Video and Audio Conferencing (email Jeremy to receive the link)
Tickets - Free for AJT Members, $20 for Non-Members
RSVP and More Info - email jeremy@alljewishtheatre.org
The goal of Emma’s webinar is to help playwright participants understand how to use dialogue to forward the action in a scene. Emma’s webinar includes a timed writing exercise that will help you to see dialogue in a brand new way. This webinar format came from Emma’s time teaching playwriting at the University of Iowa. She wanted to help her students understand how to use dialogue to forward the action in a scene, since the students hadn't been trained as actors. Since teaching this to many people, Emma has found different ways to apply the exercise, and playwrights at various career stages enjoy using it. It's also a great way to help playwrights tackle fear and judgment as it often arises in our work.
Emma Goldman-Sherman's plays have been produced on 5 continents and include 2 podcasts available for download for free: "Counting in Sha'ab" (Golden Thread, PlayingOnAir.org) and Abraham's Daughters (TheParsnipShip.com). Her work is forthcoming with Experimental Bitch Productions and The Tank and two plays were recently postponed due to the pandemic at DETC and New Circle Theatre Co. Emma earned an MFA from University of Iowa where she received a Norman Felton Award, the Richard Maibaum Award for Plays Addressing Social Justice. PERFECT WOMEN won the Jane Chambers Award. As Resident Dramaturg, she created and runs the 29th Street Playwrights Collective, WriteNow Workshop and Brave Space. She has taught at U of Iowa, Great Plains Theatre Conference, New York Writers Workshop and at many other places. Member: The Dramatists Guild, LPTW, LMDA, AJT. Her plays are available at newplayexchange.org.
Also, here is the recording and packet from the 'Writing a Play from a Jewish Source' March 2020 Webinar led by Toby Klein Greenwald. It was held this past Sunday, 3/22. These materials will be available until Wednesday, April 29, 2020.
AJT Talking Circles
AJT Member Theatre, Theatre Ariel presents Live Stream Performance
Ethics of the Fathers AKA The Gangster & the GrandPa
Written and Performed by Jesse Bernstein
Director/Dramaturg - Deborah Baer Mozes
Sunday, March 29 at 4 PM
Monday, March 30 at 7 PM
"Beginning in 1950, and continuing for nearly a decade, my grandfather was the doctor to the head of the Jewish Mafia in New Jersey..." Drawing on the stories of an unlikely friendship and the teachings of Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers), this powerful one-person show explores morality, legacy, and Jewish identity in America.
Alliance for Jewish Theatre
Email: jeremy@alljewishtheatre.org
Website: https://alljewishtheatre.org/
Phone:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/allianceforjewishtheatre/
Twitter: @alljewishthtr