|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
| Directed by Elayne LeTraunik | ||
| Assistant Director Sophia Klevit | ||
Cast
Creative Team
Elayne LeTraunik
Sophia Klevit
Adam Pasen
About Arts Judaica
COMING NEXT
Arts Judaica and Yiddishkayt Initiative
Present the World Premiere
of
A People by L.M. Feldman - Directed by Avi Hoffman
A magical, lyrical journey into heritage, tradition, religion and humanity. Through vignettes, music and monologues, L.M. Feldman holds up a mirror to 5000 years of Jewish identity and history, reminding us that we’re all descendants from somewhere, and we choose to embrace our lineage, deny it, or wrestle with it. Hilarious and terrifyingly honest, A People gathers a tight ensemble of performers, taking on a mass of old and new-world personalities to create snippets of life the way we see it, the way we want it to be, and the way it is.
L M Feldman is a queer, feminist playwright (and circus artist) who pens plays that are wildly theatrical but deeply intimate. Formally ambitious plays that move, take up space. Plays that are questing, wrestling, asking. Plays without answers. Plays about women and queers, plays about outsiders and searchers. Plays grappling with voice and agency, opportunity and access, history and its wake. Plays about the human connection. Plays that seek to be a greater, communal, rare theatrical event in which something transcendent transpires – for those both onstage & off. 
Her plays include THRIVE, OR WHAT YOU WILL (Page 73 Residency, New Georges Audrey Residency); ANOTHER KIND OF SILENCE (Magic Theatre Virgin Play Festival, PlayPenn Conference, Playwrights Realm Fellowship, FEWW Prize Honorable Mention); AMANUENSIS (Georgetown University); A PEOPLE (Orbiter 3, Jewish Plays Project); THE EGG-LAYERS (Jane Chambers Honorable Mention, New Georges/Barnard College commission); GRACE, OR THE ART OF CLIMBING (Denver Center, Art House Productions, Nice People Theatre, ATCA/Steinberg New Play Award Nomination, Barrymore Nomination); ensemble-devised works, including GUMSHOE (New Paradise Labs + Free Library of Philadelphia + Rosenbach Museum), WAR OF THE WORLDS: PHILADELPHIA (Swim Pony + Drexel University), AND IF YOU LOSE YOUR WAY, OR A FOOD ODYSSEY (The Invisible Dog, New York Innovative Theatre Award Nomination), and others; and a baker's dozen of short plays. She has been nominated for the Barrie and Bernice Stavis Playwright Award, Wendy Wasserstein Prize, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and the Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award. She was awarded an artist grant through the Boomerang Fund and a creation grant from the State of Vermont, and she has been an artist-in-residence at Terra Firma, SPACE at Ryder Farm, the School of Making Thinking, Tofte Lake Center, Montana Artists Refuge, Montana Repertory Theatre, Sewanee University of the South, Cornell University, and Theater Emory/Brave New Works Festival. A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, L is also a New Georges Affiliated Artist, a devised-work collaborator, a teacher of playwriting (Bryn Mawr College, Lantern Theatre/Jefferson Medical School, PlayPenn), and a freelance dramaturg.
When she’s not writing plays, performing circus, or teaching, she’s devising collaborative theater or dramaturging circus with ensembles.
Exact dates and location will be announced soon.
To support the work of Arts Judaica, please make a donation at www.artsjudaica.com
Meet the Company
Rachel Fox
Rachel Fox is a recent graduate of Roosevelt University, where she received her BFA in Acting. Her recent credits include 'Olivia' in Twelfth Night, ‘Ruth’ in a staged reading of Jane: Abortion and the Underground, and ‘Christie’ in from here to utopia. She dedicates her performance to her grandfather, Max Steinmetz, who was the only one of his family to survive the camps at age eighteen and lived a happy and peaceful life until he passed away at the age of ninety-six in 2021. Follow her on Instagram @rachelsfox or check out her website rachel-fox.com
Jacob Simon
Jacob Simon is a Deerfield native with a passion for telling Jewish stories onstage. He has spent the better part of his early twenties performing in various productions of Fiddler On The Roof, including the Broadway National Tour and the recent production at The Drury Lane Theatre, directed by Elizabeth Margolius. This summer, he’ll return to Anatevka once more as Perchik at Music Theatre Works. When he’s not doing Fiddler, Jacob enjoys developing new works like Penelope, Or How The Odyssey Was Really Written at The York Theatre Company Off-Broadway, Surviving The Rosenthals at New York Theatre Festival, and Paper Brigade, a queer/Jewish musical currently in development. Today, Jacob is humbled to tell this important story and to share the stage with his boyfriend Nathan. Thanks to Elayne and the folks at Arts Judaica!
Elayne LeTraunik
Elayne LeTraunik is a native Chicagoan and has been involved in the Chicago theatre scene since the 1970s. A graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago with honors in History and Theatre, she continued her acting studies at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London, England.
Elayne has worked extensively both as an actress and a producer and starred in the Chicago premieres of “Nuts” and “Extremities.” She also appeared in “Beyond Therapy” which featured Skipp Sudduth and Carmen Roman. She currently works extensively in commercials and independent productions. As a producer, she oversaw a number of award winning and critically acclaimed productions including the Chicago premiere of “A Dybbuk” and a revival of “Class Enemy.”
Elayne was the auditions columnist for “Performink” newspaper for 15 years and was the founder and Artistic Director of Red Hen Productions and Chicago Jewish Theatre.
Elayne was also a prolific writer and was a weekly columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times as well as contributor to Plays and Players Magazine in London.
Elayne currently works as a freelance grant writer and PR person for a number of small theater and arts companies in Chicago. More information about her can be found at elayneletraunik.weebly.com.
She was the Associate Artistic Director of Genesis Theatrical Productions but now acts as a consultant, script reader and grants writer and has taken courses in grant writing from the Foundation Center and from the Fundraising Authority. .
She is a member of Actor’s Equity, She is represented exclusively by Big Mouth Talent.
Sophia Klevit
Sophia Klevit (she/her) was assistant director for Female Ashkenazi with a Sewing Machine and returns as assistant director for Free Radicals. Sophia is a recent graduate from DePaul University originally from outside Philadelphia. She is a playwright, and has written and directed productions while studying at DePaul.. She is looking forward to more projects in collaboration with Arts Judaica!
Adam Pasen
This special performance features a new work by playwright Adam Pasen. Originally from Chicago, Adam has written on the last two seasons of the hit crime drama Power Book IV: Force with his writing partner, Sammy Horowitz. He is a graduate of the PhD Playwriting program at Western Michigan University, where he studied under Steve Feffer. Full-length Chicago productions include Tea with Edie and Fitz (BroadwayWorld Chicago Award for Best New Work) and Badfic Love. He is the winner of the National Ten-Minute Play Award from the Kennedy Center and published in the Best American series from Applause books.
Born into an interfaith household, this is his first play exploring the Jewish side of his family, and he dedicates it to his father, Robert.
