Tag: Uta Hagen

Heroes, Streaming, virtual, Yom Hashoa

Theater vs. COVID – 19 #7 Yom Hashoa, perseverance, heroism, and thank you

JET

Today is Yom Hashoa. I just finished a long preparation for a live reading of Vilna by Ira Fuchs and am glad that I persevered and made it happen. The video is below.

Yom Hashoa Facebook Live Ceremony and Reading of Ira Fuchs’ Vilna

Doing this project has brought up a couple of thoughts for me in the past few weeks and I am finally able to share some thoughts here. We are living in a time where people are doing heroic deeds by just being. We live during COVID – 19. It keeps us homebound. It keeps us from living the way we are used to. Of course it is not the same as what my ancestors, my Bubby and Zaidy and their families went through. It will never be the same. They had their stories and we share them today. But now we are creating our own stories. How we go about our story and what choices we make today will be told in the years to come.

These past few weeks have been hard for me. I wanted to continue writing here but I have taken my time. I go in and out of how and what I can accomplish. I get depressed that I am not accomplishing enough and yet there are sparks of inspiration. I said I would read Uta Hagen’s Respect for Acting and I have been reading it but I have not finished. I said I would complete Theater Makers Studio’s course but have not even finished two sessions. I know that I am doing other things that are as good. I launched JET Live! and directed, hosted and acted in the above video but sometimes we need to take a break and refresh. I do have Shabbat for that and I am blessed to be part of the Jewish people and to celebrate what Shabbat is but even during the week we need this. We who are home have that ability during COVID – 19 to take that break. That is what makes us heroes today. To persevere and refresh and continue.

And there are those on the front lines of the COVID – 19 struggle and they too are heroes. They are making sure that those in the field are staying strong, staying safe, and surviving. It is a struggle and there are losses but these people are keeping it together for all of us. The policemen, the healthcare workers, food workers, and more. They are all heroes

What is the Hero story

What is a hero? Who is a hero? I searched on google and honestly could not figure out the right answer or even determine if there was a correct answer. Heroes will be different for each and every one of us But in our discussion last night there was the mention of a hero being a person who finds themselves in a certain situation and rises to the occasion. Human beings, us, are heroes and living through a heroic time just because we are living now. We can call others heroes from their time, but we can also call ourselves heroes today.

We are all heroes

I want to thank every one of you. You are all heroes in today’s story. All an inspiration of what the human spirit can endure.

#stayhomestaycreativestaysafe

Share your written work here. Join the blog. Have any other ideas to weather this virus? Want to join JET Live!? Let us know @ jerusalemenglishtheater@gmail.com

Community, Support, Theater Vs. Virus

Theater vs. COVID – 19 #2

JET

Yesterday I went through all of my collection of plays to find ones that would be conducive for up to five people. In case anyone wants to have an online reading with me. I will list them here in case. I also wanted to point out the different things happening around the world that have been created by people.

Yes, and…

One of our alumni, Lauren Flaherty teaches a storytelling and acting class in California and used Facebook to create stories using “Yes, and…” with people commenting to continue the story. Since then others have borrowed the idea and have created wonderful stories together through Facebook.

Musical Genius

Another actress in our community, Avital Sykora, started a thread on Facebook of topical musical theater parodies and it has been a hit!

Sing-along

In Italy and around the world people are singing from their balconies. 

Going virtual

I plan to do an online acting class this evening. It’s all experimental but hoping it will go well. Theater very much needs connection but I hope to bring in theater games and ideas that can involve that connection through conference call.

5 person plays

So here are the plays that I went through. I’ve read through most of them at some point or other. I do have a bunch more that require more than 4 people for a reading, including Shakespeare of course. There’s a few monologue books as well that I am not listing here that would be great to work on while at home. Most of these are contemporary and dramatic. I wonder if any involve a virus.

I also just got Respect for Acting by Uta Hagen. I’ve delved into her exercises and have been meaning to get this book for awhile. So there is some of my reading for the next week or so, or as the foreword by David Hyde Pierce says, a lifetime. Just reading the first chapter I find that our theater community is very lucky to be able to do what we do.

Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf by Edward Albee Proof by David Auburn, Carol Mulroney by Stephen Belber, 9 Circles by Bill Cain, Freud’s Last Session by Mark St. Germain, Orphans by Lyle Kessler, This is Our Youth by Kenneth Lonergan, American Buffalo by David Mamet, Oleanna by David Mamet, Dinner with Friends by Donald Margulies, Pitching to the Star and other short plays by Donald Margulies, Jack and Jill by Jane Martin, Encounters by Leonard Melfi, K2 by Patrick Meyers, The Four of Us by Itamar Moses, Pieces of the Sky by David L. Paterson, Dumb Waiter by Harold Pinter, A Slight Ache by Harold Pinter, Paradise by Yasmine Beverly Rana, God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza, Doubt by John Patrick Shanley, Italian American Reconciliation by John Patrick Shanley, Welcome to the Moon and other plays by John Patrick Shanley, True West by Sam Shepard, Pterodactyls by Nicky Silver, and The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

If any of these plays are of interest to you to do a reading let me know. I can send you a digital copy somehow, or maybe you own a copy too. If you’d like to share what you are doing during these times let us know and we’d gladly share it on our page. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Mutual support

And in order for our community to continue what it does when this is all over and people start going back to the physical theater space we launched a donations page that links to all the English speaking theater companies in Jerusalem. There are lots of institutions and individuals that need our help to get through this – it’s a long list, and we’re by no means putting ourselves anywhere near the top

We are in this together.

Do you have another idea? Want to write some of your own ideas here? Get in touch with jerusalemenglishtheater@gmail.com.