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At The Toronto Centre for the Arts (former Ford Centre) Studio Theatre. 5040 Yonge Street, Toronto
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TEATRON Theatre's Past Productions - Click on name for details |
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2008-2009 |
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THE DYBBUK A Drama by S. Anski Translated, Adopted and Directed by Ari Weisberg Music by Judy Shier Weisberg and Noam Bergman Choreographed by Ronit Eiznman February 25 to March 8, 2009, Leah Posluns Theatre. THE DYBBUK is a love story of a different kind, where other-worldly forces are at work in a simple village in Eastern Europe. This romantic drama, born in the Yiddish Theatre, has transcended its cultural context to become a classic of the modern theatre. Click here for more photos
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Celebrating Israel’s 60th A Glimpse of the Light a Musical by Ben Finn Directed by - Ari Weisberg Choreographed by - Nicole Hapke Musical Direction and Orchestration by - Floydd Ricketts November 12 to 23, 2008, Leah Posluns Theatre An uplifting love story spanning the events leading to the birth of Israel, from illegal immigration to life on a Kibbutz as told through the eyes of a group of Holocaust survivors, who, in the process, became participants in the greatest Jewish adventure since Biblical times. Read review Read more… Photos by Neil Sigler Click here for more photos |
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2007-2008 |
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Conversations With My Father by Herb Gardner Directed by Ari Weisberg Stage Manager Kivi Shapiro November 21 to December 2, 2007 From the award winning author of I'M Not Rappaport and A Thousand Clowns comes a powerful and funny play about three generations of a Jewish family on NY’s Lower East Side, featuring a large cast. in the photo: Blue (Allan Soberman) Eddie (Arnie Zweig) Nick (Philip Soiffer), Finney The Book (Julian Nicholson) and Jimmy Scalso (David Rego) at a stand off in Ed’s Golden door bar in TEATRON Theatre’s production of Conversations With My Father Click here to see more photos from the production |
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a Comedy by Marvin Chernoff Directed by Ari Weisberg February 27 to March 9, 2008 Chaim Shotsky, a retired mailman in Brooklyn, is an American Tevye. His exotic tale is rich with vitality. His friends include a philosophical baker, his son and daughter, a matchmaker to end all matchmakers, movie star pigeons and a host of Israelis. Read reviews Read a letter from Marv Chernoff, playwright Photos by Neil Sigler Click for more photos |
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| 2006 - 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||||
THE LAST NIGHT OF BALLYHOOTony Award for Best Play
a comedy
by Alfred Uhry Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Driving Miss Daisy Directed by Ari Weisberg January 24 – 28, 2007 The Last Night of Ballyhoo is a bittersweet comedy set in Atlanta during the Christmas of 1939. Gone With the Wind is having its world premiere and Hitler is invading Poland. Meanwhile, Atlanta’s elitist German Jews are more concerned with finding the best dates and dresses for Ballyhoo, the social event of the season. Hidden prejudices, family secrets and a longing for their roots make this romantic comedy a hit. Cast in Order of Appearance: Lala Levy - Vanessa Kobran, Reba Freitag - Reva Lawry*, Beulah "Boo" Levy - Candi Zell, Adolph Freitag - Irving Dobbs, Joe Farkas - Lorn Eisen. Sunny Freitag - Jenna Harris, Peachy Weil -Daniel Sadavoy
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THE GOD OF ISAAC
review
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| 2005-2006 | |||||||||||||||||||||
THE HOME OF THE BRAVE
a drama by Arthur Laurents
Directed by Ari Weisberg January 10 to 15, 2006 AT THE Leah Posluns theatre Main Stage A fast-paced drama dealing with anti-Semitism in the U.S. Army during World War II. When a group of soldiers volunteer for a dangerous mission to a Japanese-occupied island, prejudice, fear and friendships are exposed and tested.
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THE TENTH MAN
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THE CHOSEN
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The Sisters Rosensweig by Wendy Wasserstein Directed by Ari Weisberg March 10 to 19, 2005, at the Fairview Library in association with Amicus Productions. Three very different sisters get together for the eldest’s 54th birthday. Unexpected romance, recriminations, reconciliations and acceptance occur in this hilarious and thought provoking comedy.
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2003-2004 |
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THIS NIGHT
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Photos by Gabriel Cropley |
March 3 - 20, 2004 at the Berkeley Theatre
CAST (in order of appearance)
Benny- DAVID ROSSER*
David – JACK KENNEDY
Hellman – HOWARD JEROME*
Understudy – PAUL STAFFORD
* Appears with the permission of Canada Actors'
Equity Association
About the play:
by Robert Majzels
Winner of the Canadian Jewish Playwrighting Competition and the Dorothy Silver Awards (Cleveland Ohio, USA), the play This Night takes place in the home of the Hellmans over a single night. David Hellman, after years of failed struggle as a political and union activist, has come home in defeat and humiliation. His older brother Benny, who stayed home and dedicated himself to building a successful business, is all that remains of the family. Although it is David's first night back in the family home, the two brothers' rapidly conflict over their opposing visions. When the spirit of their dead father is raised, Benny and David engage in a no-holds-barred battle over the truth of his life. They cannot even agree on the facts, and the audience is confronted with very different enactments of the past. During this night, the Hellmans' common Jewish heritage becomes the site of a struggle for meaning. Which brother has been true to their father's experience as a survivor of the Holocaust? Which has betrayed the legacy?
In This Night, past and present conflate, history and imagination are blurred. On one level, this play explores the dilemma of the children of the Holocaust, saddled with a memory they can never entirely call their own. It is also a call to make the past serve in our struggle to survive the present, and, perhaps even to forge a future.
“This Night is not just about the dilemma of Jewish children of the Holocaust,” says Robert Majzels, himself the son of survivors. “We are all survivors of the Holocaust. What happened to the twentieth century, the failure of Western civilization, is a legacy we have to contend with. And yet, on a day to day level, we go ahead with our lives, making decisions based on our immediate needs, whether material or psychological.”
Majzels’ play takes as a given the fact that the most advanced bastion of Western civilization turned into a nation of mass murderers. There are no Gestapo torturers, no cruel German guards in his play. He is more interested in how the victims behaved toward each other, and how the survivors can go on living after the event. “After more than half a century,” says Majzels, “it’s no longer enough to say ‘Never forget so that it should never happen again.’ We need to think and talk about what exactly we are supposed to remember. We have to make the problem actual and real. Imagine if our lives were in fact the dream of a prisoner still in that concentration camp.”
This Night is an attempt to return the events of the Holocaust to the level of a mystery of biblical proportions. As in the ancient texts of the Talmud, Majzels presents a dialogue of differing possibilities, a relentless search for the truth in the knowledge of the impossibility of ever entirely attaining that goal. That he succeeds in doing this with dramatic tension and even occasional doses of humour constitutes a major achievement.
Teatron Toronto Jewish Theatre | Office 41 Warwick Ave. Toronto ON M6C 1T7 | 416-781-5527 | teatron@sympatico.ca
Copyright 2009 (c) Teatron Theatre. Last Updated 07/26/2010
