Category: Families

Families, Family, Father's Day

Fathers in Theater: The Beauty and the Beast

JET

In honor of Father’s Day, four men involved in our wonderful theater community share their experience of being a dad during rehearsals and shows. Read more to see their experience in balancing fatherhood and theater.

C.B. Davies

Being a father while doing a show was very exciting but also difficult. It was really special to have my young daughter come to rehearsals and even see some of the shows. I even used my newborn son’s cry for “The Candlesticks” sound effects. But it brings with it many challenges. Managing my time at home and keeping my relationship with my children and wife together. I usually am not home for bedtime which has been difficult for all of us and then add in all the extra rehearsal times.

When I didn’t have kids I could feel okay about not being home in order to do a show. Heck, Dena and I were both out being part of shows. Now I have to really think about if and when I would need to be home for my family.

I do enjoy performing and being part of shows but now I have to think about my kids and how that will affect the show. When I performed in “Peace Warriors” there were a few times because Dena was pregnant and my son was due during the rehearsal period that I had second thoughts about the rehearsals and the show dates. When auditions for “Into the Woods” came up Dena and I discussed if we would audition and it was decided that only one of us should because of our kids at home. 

I think managing a family with theater can be the most beautiful thing. I talk about Leia Rose being on stage before we started our run of “After Rome” and how that was so special for me. I see how our involvement in theater really has affected her development but at the same time it can get overwhelming with the time management especially since we are doing so many other things as well including our theater journeys.

Daniel Lewin

Being a father of a toddler, plus my wife being pregnant with our second child, equals a really hard time to do theatre. To explain, I had been cast in 2 musicals. First one was Oliver, and then midway I was cast in Into The Woods. This was making things really difficult with my schedule as I would come home from work, only have about an hour or 2 to spend with my wife and son, and then head straight to rehearsals. Unfortunately, as supportive as my wife was with me doing this, it was also a lot of work for her to handle. This started putting guilt on my shoulders with the fact that I wasn’t at home enough to help out. Unfortunately, as fun as it was to perform in the shows, the feeling of guilt still stuck with me.

The experience of doing theatre without having a child yet was of course easier and less pressuring. I knew after rehearsals or a show that I wouldn’t need to run back home in a hurry or feel any guilt (also because my wife and I were in 2 shows together when we got  married). 

With or without kids, I still enjoy doing shows. It is an undying love of mine. One thing that was amazing was the fact that both the shows I did recently let me bring my son to a rehearsal. The whole cast and creative team were super supportive of me bringing my son. It made those rehearsals a whole lot more fun. When I needed to rehearse something at that time, cast members would offer to watch him while I worked. Those moments will always mean so much to me. It makes me love doing shows here and being part of such a community SO much more better.

There were for sure times when I felt it was overwhelming for me. 2 shows, the guilt of not being home more often, my wife doing all of the work, really felt like it was a putting a strain. I have learned from this experience that I may need to stick with just one show from now on. I want to be fair to my wife, my kids, and myself. My wife has been an absolute superstar for putting up with it for half a year and I’ll forever appreciate her hard work, love and support. As much as I love theatre also, I will always be there for my kids, no matter what, even if that had to include departing from a show because my kids need me. But I do hope they will also love to be part of doing theatre one day like my wife and and I.

Jeff Fantl

As a father of five, participating in community theater offers its own unique challenges and rewards. On the one hand, time is definitely much more limited when you have a busy household to maintain, and participating in theater is probably one of the most time consuming hobbies there is! Thankfully, my endlessly supportive wife helps make that possible by picking up some of the slack at home when I’m tied up in rehearsals. But these challenges all become worth it when my kids come to see me doing what I love on stage, and when I hear them singing the tunes of “Into the Woods” over and over again at home for months after closing night.

Pascal Roy

I started to learn and do theater when I lived in Madrid, Spain. I used to learn, rehearse and play a lot back then, specializing in comedy and clowning. On July 4, 2003, my daughter Juliette was born. Then I started to do less and less theater, focusing on other “more terrenal” priorities. But theater was always somewhere on my mind. Now I am divorced and live in Israel while my only child lives in Spain. We will celebrate her 20th birthday together soon. I am happy to be back to theater now, especially through the English Community Theater, and my dream is that she comes to see me perform live on a future show (and not only see me on video). I think of her and always dedicate each one of my performances to her.

Community, Families, Family

Keeping It in the Family: Generations

JET

Recently, I had the privilege of sitting down with three generations of the Abelow family. The reason? All three generations are involved in theater. I couldn’t get a hold of them all in one place, but I caught Peter, his wife Debbie, their daughter-in-law Rachel, and their grandson Yakir on the tail-end of a Hans Christian Anderson rehearsal to talk about their life in community theater and their personal, inter-generational legacy.

Where it all began:

When it comes to which production had the most Abelow family members participating, Esther was the first one with multiple relatives, with Rachel, Elana and Debbie in the production. However, since Raise Your Spirits is an all-female theater company, the male half of the family could not have been in Esther, and in that case, there could not have been complete family involvement.  Rachel and Elana Abelow Kronenberg both played prominent roles in Esther; Rachel played the title role and Elana played Ahashveirosh.

When Peter auditioned for Fiddler on the Roof, he did not expect to get a role but he did. He expected it to be a one-off, a dabble in theater but it led to other stage appearances. He came back, and a fellow cast member was the one who predicted it.

Whether it was seeing Peter on the stage or seeing him in a shtetl-era beard, what inspired the theater bug is still up for debate. But soon afterward, Peter and Debbie’s grandchildren appeared in Carousel, for a total of five Abelows in a show together, while the second generation watched from the audience. All three generations were present in Oliver, bringing the number to eight Abelows in a single show.

Decisions were made on a very individual basis, each person deciding on their own if they wanted to be in a specific show, followed by calls to various family members, figuring out if they were also interested, setting up rides to rehearsals and making other plans. Some shows became inter-generational affairs, while others featured only a few members. It was almost a sure thing that Debbie and Peter were involved in a show, and often, the filmed shows would later appear on Avi Abelow’s YouTube Channel. Recently, Peter branched out into non-musicals as well, debuting at the AACI in J-Town’s production of Hannah Senesh (much to this author’s delight!) and Elana has taken command backstage, directing and producing two musicals (Mary Poppins, Annie) with Orot Etzion Banot.

An Enduring Legacy

Involvement in Jerusalem shows has changed the way Peter sees musicals abroad—on Broadway and The West End. “I’m much more highly aware of the polish that goes in, how the scenery moves. How actors move. The relation to each other.” He also developed an appreciation for how much effort goes into the supporting cast; “With 20 people on stage, I used to watch the lead. Now, I’m much more focused on all the other actors on stage; to see what they’re doing in these moments when the leads are in the focus, but they’re on stage. And they’ve got to be acting too. I’m much more aware of that now.”

Yakir mentioned a personal example from his most recent show which he starred as the title character of Hans Christian Anderson. Act I ends with complete confusion, and a large amount of people are involved in creating “organized chaos.” Coordinating a chaotic situation was a large undertaking that only lasted moments in action, but took hours to choreograph beforehand.

Then there’s the fun. There are also family members who come to see you, like that uncle in the audience who spends the entire show trying to make you crack up and break character. There is an added pressure when people you know and fellow actors are watching you. You want to be the best you can be. Then there is that euphoric, joyous feeling you share with cast and audience alike on a night that went well and the behind-the-scenes stories you share of the things that–noticeably or not–did not go to plan. Rachel said it well: “It’s exciting to know that they’re there and you’re having that experience together.”

Each person counts. Not just as a role on stage, but as part of a larger community. You see it when you are hard at work on a project with family or friends and you have those moments where everything comes together or when you’re all singing a song and connecting with the audience, or when you deliver a line to the Burgomaster and you both smile, knowing he is also your grandfather, it’s a special moment. “The end of the show is the highlight when everyone comes together,” Yakir maintained. “I start tearing. I don’t know about you,” Debbie concluded, “I agree.”

I asked the Abelow family what makes them keep coming back.

Rachel started with “The togetherness.”

Debbie added “The memories together.”

Yakir added “The cast.”

Peter added, “the privilege to be part of the efforts of presenting quality English language theater to audiences in Israel.”

It is a mix of all those things. It is special arriving as a new oleh or olah and having a community waiting for you that speaks your language, that entertains you in your language. Meeting people with whom you are going to put together a show, connect with, work with, and make friends with. “I was just helping Ronny who is the stage manager [of Encore] put things in the car, and I was like ‘do you know that you met me eight years ago and I used to be that annoying kid that always wanted to press the curtain?’ He’s like, ‘You still are.'” remembers Yakir. “You grow up with these people. It’s kind of fun.”

And within the nuclear family it happens as well. “It’s really special that we have this shared experience together, and then it’s also special that we talk to family from the audience and they share their experience. What they saw and how they saw. It all goes around.” remarks Debbie.

It’s the experience that brings us all back. Today’s children debuting in the ensemble are tomorrow’s lead roles. For the Abelows and many others, theater is in the family. For some of us, theater becomes our family. Whether it’s all we’ve known, or a new love we’ve discovered along the way, it’s an enduring legacy, the gift we all give to each other each time we take on a new role.