Jewish play writing contest - israel
Center Stage is proud to announce that it has been chosen to partner with New York's Jewish Plays Project to bring the Jewish Play Writing Content to Israel for the very first time. We invite you to join us for a very special evening - Saturday, June 6th at 8.30pm - where the Israel reading team, with script in hand, will read/present excerpts from three brand-new, contemporary Jewish plays (see info below) in a live video stream to you, our online audience. Once all three excerpts have been presented, it is your turn to vote for your favourite to continue to the final round in New York.
Register now to be part of the live online voting audience.
Register now to be part of the live online voting audience.
A MOVING PICTURE by Jennie Berman Eng
Four NYU film students are chosen for an elite screenwriting class, to be taught by legendary screenwriter, Solzberg. The class is cross-listed with Holocaust Studies, and students are tasked with writing scripts about that era. One of the students, Ivy, finally confronts her own family history in the Holocaust, and as her script about Jewish women in a Mercedes Benz’ labor camp is read in class, it comes to life onstage--with her classmates and professor as fellow prisoners and Nazi guards. As they analyze Ivy's script for accuracy and storytelling, Solzberg's own integrity comes into question. When he demands Ivy kill off her protagonist, the class and the teacher confront some ugly truths about themselves, the business they're in, and human nature.
Four NYU film students are chosen for an elite screenwriting class, to be taught by legendary screenwriter, Solzberg. The class is cross-listed with Holocaust Studies, and students are tasked with writing scripts about that era. One of the students, Ivy, finally confronts her own family history in the Holocaust, and as her script about Jewish women in a Mercedes Benz’ labor camp is read in class, it comes to life onstage--with her classmates and professor as fellow prisoners and Nazi guards. As they analyze Ivy's script for accuracy and storytelling, Solzberg's own integrity comes into question. When he demands Ivy kill off her protagonist, the class and the teacher confront some ugly truths about themselves, the business they're in, and human nature.
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Jennie Berman Eng is a playwright, screenwriter and educator based in the DC metro area. Her play, A MOVING PICTURE received a workshop reading at Spooky Action Theater and at Mosaic Theatre in Washington, DC. She was a 2017-2018 member of Playwrights Arena at Arena Stage and a 2014 and 2016 Theater J Locally Grown Playwright. DC productions include EXIT CAROLYN (Nu Sass Productions), WHENEVERY YOU’RE NEAR ME I FEEL SICK (2015 Women’s Voices Theater Festival), BETHESDA (DC Capital Fringe). NYC productions include EXIT CAROLYN, A STALL OF ONE’S OWN, and FAMILY. Jennie was a member of the all-female comedy group, The Greasy Girlz, which toured New York and Los Angeles when Jennie was younger and had better knees. Jennie is currently a screenwriter at WILL Interactive. She has two fantastic children and a loving and tolerant husband who she is pressuring for a pet dog.
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REFUGE * MALJA * ﻣﻠﺠﺄ by Bess Welden
Fiercely independent Jewish-American photojournalist Jamie Winter meets refugee kids all the time, but when Waleed, a shoeless teenager steps off the boat and in front of her lens, she is suddenly forced to confront her own cultural identity, family history, a complicated past relationship, and the undeniable compulsion to become the boy’s rescuer. Written in English and Arabic, the play explores motherhood, what it means to truly communicate across cultures and inside our own families, and how each of us defines and finds a home. Full productions will feature photographs by award-winning photojournalist Jodi Hilton.
Fiercely independent Jewish-American photojournalist Jamie Winter meets refugee kids all the time, but when Waleed, a shoeless teenager steps off the boat and in front of her lens, she is suddenly forced to confront her own cultural identity, family history, a complicated past relationship, and the undeniable compulsion to become the boy’s rescuer. Written in English and Arabic, the play explores motherhood, what it means to truly communicate across cultures and inside our own families, and how each of us defines and finds a home. Full productions will feature photographs by award-winning photojournalist Jodi Hilton.
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Bess Welden lives and makes theater in Portland, ME. She’s written over a dozen plays and librettos that center women and girls, and the lived experience of the female body. She focuses on the complicated, powerful, and often fraught love in relationships between mothers and daughters, grandmothers and granddaughters, and between sisters, and more often than not explores these characters and their stories through both a contemporary and historical Jewish lens. She’s drawn to examining how ancient stories like myths and folktales collide and resonate with everyday life, and weaves poetry, songs, illustration, photography, puppets, and languages other than English into her work. Her full-length play REFUGE MALJA premiered on Portland Stage’s mainstage and was nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 2018. Her solo comedies THE PASSION OF THE HAUS FRAU (2009), BIG MOUTH THUNDER THIGHS (2013), and one-act MADELEINES (2015) premiered in Portland Stage’s Studio Theater. LEGBALA IS A RIVER, an immersive solo-storytelling event with live music and illustration, premiered at Mayo Street Arts in 2017. Her newest play with songs, DEATH WINGS , is a semi-finalist for the 2020 O’Neill New Play Conference and was recently workshopped with Boston’s Fresh Ink Theatre. MERGIRL SAVES THE WAVES, Bess’ feminist, environmentalist adaptation of The Little Mermaid, is in development supported by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission. www.besswelden.com
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SETTLEMENTS by Seth Rozin
When the resident theatre at a Jewish Community Center commissions a new play about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a half-Jewish/half-Jordanian playwright, the Center finds itself pulled in several directions. One of the Center’s major donors, the Center’s Board President, the theatre’s Artistic Director and the playwright each fight for a different outcome, while the Center’s Executive Director tries to keep the institution from falling off its foundation. In these polarized times when extreme voices on the left and the right threaten to pull America one way or the other, SETTLEMENTS examines the difficult balancing act of holding onto the center.
When the resident theatre at a Jewish Community Center commissions a new play about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a half-Jewish/half-Jordanian playwright, the Center finds itself pulled in several directions. One of the Center’s major donors, the Center’s Board President, the theatre’s Artistic Director and the playwright each fight for a different outcome, while the Center’s Executive Director tries to keep the institution from falling off its foundation. In these polarized times when extreme voices on the left and the right threaten to pull America one way or the other, SETTLEMENTS examines the difficult balancing act of holding onto the center.
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Seth Rozin is the author of more than a dozen plays, including Men of Stone (produced by Theater Catalyst, nominated for a Barrymore Award for Outstanding New Play, published by Playscripts, Inc.), Missing Link (produced by InterAct Theatre Company, nominated for a Barrymore Award for Outstanding New Play), Reinventing Eden (produced by InterAct), Black Gold (National New Play Network rolling world premieres at InterAct, Phoenix Theatre, Prop Thtr, Arts West), Two Jews Walk Into A War (NNPN rolling world premieres at Florida Stage, New Jersey Rep, Playwrights Theatre, Shadowland Theatre, Unicorn Theatre, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, InterAct, Florida Studio Theatre, GEVA Theatre, Barter Theatre, Jewish Theatre of Grand Rapids, New Repertory Theatre; published by Playscripts, Inc.), The Three Christs of Manhattan (produced by InterAct), and Human Rites (produced at Phoenix Theatre & InterAct; winner of the 2018 Brown Martin Philadelphia Award; published by Broadway Play Publishing). Seth has also written the book, lyrics and music for a musical entitled A Passing Wind: The (Mostly) True Story of Joseph Pujol, which received its premiere at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts’ inaugural Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts in 2011. He is the recipient of two playwriting fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, NNPN’s Smith Prize, as well as a new play commission from the Foundation for Jewish Culture. Seth is the founder and Producing Artistic Director of InterAct Theatre Company in Philadelphia, where he has directed over 50 productions, including 35 world premieres, and he has twice served as President of National New Play Network from 2002-2006 and 2014-2016.
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production team
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David Winitsky (Founder) is the director of the Jewish Plays Project (www.jewishplaysproject.org), a collaborator with StorahTelling, and a PresenTense New York City Fellow. He has directed or assisted on Broadway, off-Broadway, and regionally at Papermill Playhouse, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, California Shakespeare Festival and Philadelphia Theatre Company. NYC: Displaced Wedding (New Worlds Theatre Project). A Wonderful Flat Thing (14th St Y), Dominic D'Andrea's One Minute Play Festival, Brooke Berman's Until We Find Each Other (Midtown International),. Regional: Douglas Adam's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (What Exit?), and Javier Malpica's Our Dad is in Atlantis (Playwrights Theatre). MFA in Directing from Northwestern, BA in Mathematics from Cornell. Member: Lincoln Center Directors Lab and Emerging Artists Theatre. David is the proud husband of playwright and painter Elizabeth Samet, and father to Ezekiel and Alexander.
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Danielle Faitelson, New York actor, writer, and director. Originated roles in new Off Broadway plays in NYC including Greg Kalleres' "Honky" at Urban Stages, assisted Lior Raz's on set of his new Netflix TV series, "Hit and Run", is writing a romantic comedy screenplay (with writing partner) about two strangers that find themselves on a multicultural journey in Israel, teaches acting on camera and theater independently, was a Teaching Artist for CSC (Classic Stage Company). Master of Fine Arts (MFA) focused in Acting from Columbia University in the City of New York, and Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Theatre Arts from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
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Daniella Crankshaw, Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Center Stage, the first professional English theater in Israel. Originally from South Africa, she has appeared in productions including Cabaret, Trojan Women and Threepenny Opera; Rama & Sita (Gold Reef City), A Nativity Play (The Market Theater). In Israel she performed in numerous productions including Albert, Lysistrata, Top Girls (Sharon Players), Springboks and Sabras, The Show Must Go On (TELFED), Vanities, Taming of the Shrew, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, The Fantasticks and she originated the role of Bree in Eli, Eli, Lobelia in Smoke and Mirrors (The Guild Theater). Directed, produced and acted in All My Sons, Broadway Babes, Best of Broadway, Sentimental Journey and the crossover production, Ze Broadway, Buba! Produced the shows Bad Jews and Rapture, Blister, Burn at Center Stage. BA Honors in Dramatic Art majoring in Acting and Directing from the University of Witwatersrand.
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