December | 2017 | Intimate Excellent
The cast of ‘The Chosen’ in rehearsal.
Friendship, faith and fatherhood. Jonathan Arkin, Alan Blumenfeld, Dor Gvirtsman and Sam Mandel star in The Chosen, the award-winning stage adaptation by Aaron Posner and Chaim Potok of Potok’s beloved novel. Simon Levy directs for a January 20 opening at the Fountain Theatre, where performances continue through March 25. The Fountain celebrates the novel’s 50th anniversary (last April) with the West Coast premiere of Posner’s new, streamlined version.
Set in Williamsburg, Brooklyn against the backdrop of World War II, the revelation of the Holocaust and the desperate struggle of Zionism, The Chosen is a moving coming-of-age story about two observant Jewish boys who live only five blocks, yet seemingly worlds, apart. When Danny, son of an ultra-Orthodox Hasidic tzaddik, injures the more traditionally Orthodox Reuven during a baseball game between their rival yeshivas, their two universes collide and a unique friendship is born.
“This powerful story shows how essential it is to consider the views of those who are different from us,” says Levy. “It’s an antidote to the toxicity of our times. Potok beautifully depicts what it means to bridge chasms — between modernity and tradition, the secular and the sacred, Zionism and Hasidism, adolescence and adulthood, friendship and family, fathers and sons, the head and the heart, and the struggle to choose for ourselves, to fight for what we believe in and who we want to be.”
According to Posner, “Through the story of two remarkable boys and their remarkable fathers, Potok asks us to contemplate a world where we chose to fill our lives with greater meaning… and where complexity, understanding, compassion and reconciliation are among our highest values.”
In 1967, Potok burst upon the literary scene with The Chosen, his first novel, sometimes referred to as a “Jewish Catcher in the Rye.” A best-seller, it was nominated for the National Book Award and through the years has become a must-read both in and out of the classroom. In 1992, in celebration of its 25th anniversary, it was republished as a young reader’s classic. A film starring Rod Steiger was released in 1981, and a short-lived off-Broadway musical debuted in 1988. Before his death in 2002, Potok collaborated with Posner on the stage version, which debuted in 1999 at the Arden Theater in Philadelphia, where Posner was a co-founder and resident director. Now, nearly 20 years later, Posner has rewritten the script to create a new version, which premiered last month at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, CT.
In an interview with the Connecticut Jewish Ledger, Posner explained that he has made a number of changes to the script. “I think it’s now a more dynamic, more streamlined play,” he said. “I’m really very excited about this new version. I think it’s going to be stronger in every way. I love the old version, too but I’m hoping this is even better.”
The creative team for The Chosen includes scenic and props designer DeAnne Millais, lighting designer Donny Jackson, video designer Yee Eun Nam; composer and sound designer Peter Bayne, costume designer Michele Young, hair and makeup designer Linda Michaels and dialect coach Andrea Caban. Rabbi Jim Kaufmanconsults. The production stage manager is Miranda Stewart; technical director is Scott Tuomey; associate producer is James Bennett; and Stephen Sachs and Deborah Lawlor produce for the Fountain Theatre.
The Fountain Theatre is one of the most successful intimate theaters in Los Angeles, providing a creative home for multi-ethnic theater and dance artists. The Fountain has won over 225 awards, and Fountain projects have been seen across the U.S. and internationally. Recent highlights include being honored for its acclaimed 25th Anniversary Season in 2015 by Mayor Eric Garcetti and the Los Angeles City Council; the inclusion of the Fountain’s Citizen: An American Lyric in Center Theatre Group’s Block Party at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. The Fountain’s most recent production, the world premiere of Building the Wall by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Robert Schenkkan, ran for five months and was named “L.A. hottest ticket” by the Los Angeles Times.
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Posted in actors, arts organizations, Books, director, Drama, Fountain Theatre, Jewish, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwright, stage, Theater, theatre
Tagged Aaron Posner, Alan Blumenfeld, Andrea Caban, book, Chaim, DeAnne Millais, Deborah Lawlor, Donny jackson, Dor Gvirtsman, drama, Fountain Theatre, Hasidic, James Bennett, Jew, Jewish, Jonathan Arkin, Linda Michaels, Los Angeles, Michele Young, Miranda Stweart, novel, Peter Bayne, Rabbi Jim Kaufman, Sam mandel, Scott Tuomey, Simon Levy, stage adaptation, Stephen Sachs, The Chosen, theater, theatre, Yee Eun Nam
by Stephen Sachs
Marcia and Mirk Mirkin
Everyone has them. The favorite relatives who visit at a family gathering. A cherished pair of grandparents, a blessed aunt and uncle. Family members so fun, so kind-hearted, supportive and filled with good cheer that you actually look forward to seeing them. For all of us at the Fountain Theatre for decades, Marcia and Mirk Mirkin were that treasured duo. We lost Mirk (Irwin) in 2015 at the age of eighty-eight. We now say good-bye to Marcia Mirkin, who passed away last Friday at eighty-three.
Marcia and Mirk were so connected as a couple, so deeply married, that Mirk passed away on June 20th, the day of their 60th wedding anniversary. That kind of devoted bond at life’s end was no stranger to me. My mother died on the 52nd anniversary of her wedding to my father.
Mirk and Marcia Mirkin were jolly parents to all of us at the Fountain. Mirk with his sly grin and playful glint in his eyes. Marcia, arms open wide, the big mamma you wish you had, proudly bestowing you with accolades when you hit a home run and scolding you lovingly when you sometimes struck out.
Marcia Mirkin
Marcia kept coming to the Fountain after Mirk passed. Nothing would keep her away from the theatre she loved. As her own health declined, she’d still get herself here for every production, even when she now required extra help getting to her seat.
Marcia spoke forcefully from the stage at our memorial service for our beloved staff member, Ben Bradley. And she mourned with us when we lost our subscription sales diva, Diana Gibson. Diana and Marcia were close pals.
My strongest feeling of Marcia Mirkin is her huge embrace. Marcia wrapping her large arms around me, smiling broadly, bathing me in praise like a son. I bet each and every one of us at the Fountain felt they were her favorite. She made you feel that way.
Marcia passed away on Friday, December 8th, 2017, by her own choice. She was in hospice care at home in terminal condition and had been approved for the End of Life program at Kaiser. It breaks my heart to learn of her passing but I admire her decision to conclude her life on her own terms.
The Fountain Theatre was on her mind days before her final Friday. As one of her last mortal duties, she had her daughter Karen send me a manuscript written by a patient she knew in a prison hospice unit suffering from AIDS and MS, encouraged by his therapist to tell his life story in his own words. Marcia believed it was a story of “trauma, healing and redemption.” Telling his life story “could help at-risk youth and prevent them from going into the penal system.” She thought it could make a good play.
This was on her mind, in her heart, days before she had scheduled her own exit from this world.
Our hearts ache with the loss of our dear friend, Marcia Mirkin. We salute a remarkable woman who enjoyed a meaningful life. Even gone, she and Mirk will remain with us always.
Stephen Sachs is the Co-Artistic Director of the Fountain Theatre.
Posted in arts organizations, Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, performing arts, Theater, theatre
Tagged audience, family, Fountain Family, Fountain Theatre, Irwin Mirkin, Los Angeles, Marcia Mirkin, marriage, subscriber, theater, theatre
Lauren Gunderson’s “I and You”, Fountain Theatre, 2015.
By Lauren Gunderson
Think of this pitch to a room of venture capitalists: “What we’re proposing is a scalable, repeatable product that makes vital intellectual and emotional wisdom portable, communicable, and adaptable and memorable. Everyone will use it and keep using it for millennia. We call it: storytelling.”
A bit ridiculous, but I think of live storytelling as an ancient technology that has served human survival for centuries by wrapping critical knowledge in unforgettable characters, impassioned moments, or hilarious escapades. Stories are ancient social media startups, and ones so successful that they are still in play after thousands of years.
But unlike most social media technologies, live storytelling actually is social. And perhaps that’s why it’s still around, never having been truly eclipsed by radio, TV or the Internet. In defiance of each generation’s claim that theater is dying, both “Hamlet” and “Hamilton” would beg to differ. Yes, online social media offers us on-demand communication, information and all manner of opinion articulated and shared to the world. But is there congregation?
I use that word deliberately because, though I grew up going to church in Georgia, I find most of my philosophical and humanitarian meaning coming from theater. Theater is my church. And what it offers in the way of congregation, catharsis and wisdom is not just entertainment or art, but might also be an antidote to stress related to social media.
That stress can be the fatigue that comes with nonstop screens that can disrupt sleep patterns, change our breathing (“email apnea” as coined by Linda Stone), hamstring live interpersonal communication with all ages, and lead some to become addicted to the dopamine of pings and alerts. The stress for some might feel like the constant search for information or connection, but isn’t it really the search for meaning that comes up short?
Meaning is what stories have been giving us since the dawn of language. How might live storytelling soothe our over-teched minds still seeking meaning?
Theater offers resolution. While social media is often a nearly endless scroll of information and opinion, it often doesn’t lead to any ending, any answer to the question “so what?” But theater answers that question by taking the audience all the way through a hero’s odyssey of struggle and revelation. Being witness to a complete story, instead of the bits and bytes we find online, offers a more satisfying and thoughtful resolution. Meaning is made not from pieces of information but from journeys and fellow journeyers.
Lauren Gunderson
Theater is right here, right now. Theater is not on demand. Rather it asks you to show up on time and focus in order to experience the intimate intensity of its medium. Screens cannot replicate the feeling of being in a shared space and time with other humans. Theater is one of the most intense artistic experiences because the fiction is happening to real people who are right in front of you. You can hear it, smell it, see their passion and pain only feet away from your seat. This viscerality is unlike what you can experience through a posted video on your smartphone or even a TV show at home. The emotionally and physically distinct power of being present for art is hard to document or measure, but it’s apparent to everyone who has witnessed live performance’s arias, embraces and thunderous ovations.
Theater is empathetic. You might not have an experience that relates to the latest public policy debate, or the latest natural disaster, or the latest series of protests. But theater does. Theater offers you an intimate perspective on the lives of others that lifts their experience out of statistics or news and plants it in your emotional and intellectual line of sight. Combined with the cathartic resolution and visceral power of its storytelling, theater is a way not only to learn about someone else but to feel like someone else. Social media often promotes judgment of others — not empathy.
The Bay Area is not only a hub of innovation but for art, too. Silicon Valley lives right next to the “city by the play,” with an abundance of theaters that rivals even Chicago. Bay Area theater companies have transferred shows to Broadway, incubated prize-winning plays and playwrights, and drawn world-famous actors to our stages. The wisest of us (and thankfully not just the wealthiest with a new push for affordable tickets for all) should take advantage of the digital relief, inspiration and empathetic reboot theater has to offer.
For a hotbed of tech that we are, it might be a good time to go old school and let live performance open your mind in a way social media can’t. Who knows what pattern-breaking ideas might occur to you once you leave your bubble (and your phone), focus on someone else’s story with a group of strangers, and see what wisdom alights on you at the theater.
Lauren Gunderson is the author of I and You (Fountain Theatre, 2015). She is a nationlly acclaimed award-winning playwright and the resident playwright of Marin Theatre Company. This essay originally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle. .
Posted in Acting, actors, Art, artist, Arts, arts organizations, Drama, Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, new plays, non-profit organization, plays, playwright, playwriting, social media, Theater, theatre
Tagged anxiety, arts, Fountain Theatre, Freddy, I and You, Lauren Gunderson, Linda Stone, meaning, playwright, social media, stress, technology, theater, theatre
by Lin-Manuel Miranda
The trajectory of my life changed in 8th grade, when I got the following note back on the back of an English essay. My teacher’s name was Dr. Rembert Herbert. This is what he wrote:
“Lin-Manuel—This is an excellent, well-crafted essay. It confirms what I have suspected for some time—that you have been ‘hibernating’ in the back of my class, emerging only occasionally—as when you wrote ‘The Chosen’ musical for class earlier this year. It’s a new semester, almost spring—join us!”
The “Chosen” musical he references was a class project I created as a part of a class assignment. The assignment was to teach three chapters of The Chosen by Chaim Potok, as part of a group. I decided it would be easier to write a song based on each chapter and have our group perform it. Actually, I recorded myself singing all the songs and made my group mates lip-synch my voice, as I had no trust in their musical ability and no way of teaching it to them. Why did I do this? Well, I loved the book. And I loved the way Dr. Herbert taught the book, encouraging us to find the connections and themes for ourselves. I had, in fact, spent most of 8th grade scribbling song lyrics and poems in the back of my classes, earning grades just good enough to get by. I never saw any reason to share these with anyone else.
With this note, Dr. Herbert essentially called me out. He told me, “That creative energy you are burning in the back of the class is what we need IN the class. You can USE that here.” He was also the first person outside of my family to say to me, “You’re a good writer.” He encouraged me to audition and submit my writing to Brick Prison, a student-run theater group at my high school. It was there that I found the energy source that would power the rest of my life.
His encouragement extended far beyond that 8th grade English class. When I began making films in high school, Dr. Herbert would sign permission slips allowing me to film in classrooms, or after school. I began writing short, 20-musicals for Brick Prison, buoyed by my “Chosen” experience in his classroom. My senior year, I earned course credit as his intern, helping him with his 8th grade students. I gained a whole new respect for how much he invested in every student, stepping in if he sensed a drop-off in the quality of their writing, or quietly encouraging the shyest class members with leadership roles.
I still have that 8th grade essay, and Dr. Herbert’s attached note. He is still teaching 8th grade English at Hunter. I am so grateful to him for paying such close attention, for seeing something in me, and urging me to share it. That’s what the best teachers can do. I hope I have made him proud.
See The Chosen at the Fountain Theatre
Posted in Acting, actors, artist, Arts, arts organizations, Drama, Fountain Theatre, Jewish, Los Angeles, new plays, non-profit organization, performing arts, plays, playwright, playwriting, Theater, theatre
Tagged arts, Arts education, Chaim Potok, Fountain Theatre, Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Los Angeles, musical, novel, Rembert Herbert, student, teacher, The Chosen, theater, theatre
Judith Moreland and Bo Foxworth, ‘Building the Wall’, Fountain Theatre
You know them as the New York-based organization that presents the Tony Awards and the Obies each year. But the American Theatre Wing provides a myriad of other remarkable services nationwide. It provides grants and scholarships, connect talents at all stages with educational and professional opportunities, and creates content that illuminates and preserves theatre. Founded in 1917 on the eve of America’s entry into World War I by seven suffragettes, American Theatre Wing has spent a century using theatre to advance human experience, empathy and cultural growth by providing a platform for strong and fearless voices in the American theatre.
This week, American Theatre Wing released a new short documentary film it commissioned on the creation and development of the Fountain Theatre’s world premiere production of Building the Wall by Robert Schenkkan. The riveting new play opened at the Fountain Theatre on March 18, 2017 and was extended to sold-out houses to August 27th. It earned international attention and launched the National New Play Network’s Rolling World Premiere.
The documentary film, Working in the Theatre: Building the Wall, is an episode in The Wing’s Emmy® Nominated series produced to entertain audiences by revealing theatre’s inner-workings, profiling industry luminaries, and taking a closer look at unique stories that surround important work.
“We’re very proud and honored to have our production chronicled by the American Theatre Wing, ” says Fountain Co-Artistic Director Stephen Sachs. “Robert’s play is triggering a national conversation. It’s a privilege to have our process at the Fountain Theatre documented and permanently archived by The Wing for the field of the American Theatre.”
For playwright Robert Schenkkan, the documentary carries forward the crusade that began when he first wrote the play in a fury of outrage over the 2016 presidential campaign. For Schenkkan and the Fountain, theatre can serve as a spark for social action.
“Theatre, of course, is about bringing together very disparate groups of people, during which they share a story, ” says Schenkkan. “A story about themselves, about their society, about their culture. And in the sharing of that story, hopefully they learn something about themselves, they are provoked to think more deeply about themselves, to ask better questions, and to leave in some fundamental ways, altered and perhaps more open to the possibility of change.”
Posted in actors, arts organizations, Drama, Fountain Theatre, immigration, Los Angeles, new plays, non-profit organization, performing arts, plays, playwright, Theater, theatre
Tagged American Theatre Wing, Bo Foxworth, Building the Wall, documentary film, Judith Moreland, National New Play Network, NNPN, Obie Awards, playwright, Robert Schenkkan, Stephen Sachs, theater, theatre, Tony Award, Working in the Theatre, world premiere
The cast of “The Chosen”
A select group of Fountain Theatre donors gathered at the lovely Sherman Oaks home of Director of Development Barbara Goodhill last night to meet the director and cast of our upcoming production of Chaim Potok’s The Chosen. The stage version of the beloved classic of modern Jewish literature opens at the Fountain January 20th.
The party first noted the Friday evening with Shabbat blessings led by Rabbi Jim Kaufman, followed by a delicious dinner. After welcoming comments by Co-Artistic Director Stephen Sachs and director Simon Levy, the four-member cast read a selection of short scenes from the script. The actors are Jonathan Arkin, Alan Blumenfeld, Sam Mandel, and Dorian Tayler.
The invited group of VIP guests included Mrs. Sue and Rabbi James Kaufman, Jacqueline Schultz, Robert and Carol Haymer, Marianne Weil, Harold Shabo, Marsha and Mark Novak.
Interested in joining our family of Fountain donors? Contact Barbara Goodhill, Development Director at (323) 663-1525 ext. 307 or [email protected].
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Posted in actors, arts organizations, Fountain Theatre, Jewish, Los Angeles, non-profit organization, performing arts, plays, Theater, theatre
Tagged Alan Blumenfeld, Barbara Goodhill, Carol Haymer, Chaim Potok, Dorian Tayler, Fountain Theatre, Harold Shabo, Jim Kaufman, Jonathan Arkin, Los Angeles, Marianne Weil, mark Novak, Marsha Novak, novel, Robert Haymer, Sam mandel, Simon Levy, Stephen Sachs, The Chosen, theater, theatre