Diane Gilboa, producer of OnStage Israel, has secured an
impressive list of guest experts to lead post-show discussions after every
performance of OnStage Israel, August 16-24 at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater. She
explains:
“The purpose of the festival is to present the community
with unique artistic works about Israel that pose questions of
universal urgency, help us reflect about our values in new ways, and promote
cross-cultural dialogue. The project is also intended to celebrate Israel’s
60th birthday by educating the community about Israeli culture
through theatrical works that transcend religious, gender, political, and
cultural barriers and express universal concerns about the human condition."
Following are the distinguished guests leading
post-performance discussions during OnStage Israel. For tickets, go to or call 773/871-3000:
Saturday, August 16, 8 pm
Women's Minyan
Rachel Jacobsohn is a professional facilitator of book/film discussion
groups, founder of the Association of Book Group Readers and Leaders, and a
past guest on The Oprah Show, Fox News, Good Morning America, and others.
Sunday, August
17, 4:30 pm
Women's Minyan
Diane Gilboa, producer
of the American premiere of Women's
Minyan and of OnStageIsrael.
Monday, August
18, 7:30 pm
Masked
Elliot Zashkin is a retired former political
scientist and former director of the Levine
Hillel Center
at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
He has been active in non-profit organizations for many years, including
Chicago Friends of Peace Now, the first organization in North America
affiliated with Shalom Achshav in Israel, and more recently, Brit
Tzedek v’Shalom, the Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace. He has an MA
in Jewish Studies from the Jewish Theological Seminary in NYC and is an active
member of the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation of Evanston. Since
February 2002, he has worked part-time as a job coach for the homeless with an
interfaith organization in Evanston.
He also participates in the Network for Evanston’s
Future, a grass-roots sustainability organization.
Tuesday,
August 19, 7:30 pm
Women's
Minyan
Guest speakers include Rabbi Paul Saiger, Becky Adelberg, and Anuja U. Mehta, LSW, Apna Ghar,
Transitional Housing Coordinator.
Wednesday,
August 20, 7:30 pm
Apples
from the Desert
Rachel Kohl
Finegold is the Programming
and Ritual Director at Anshe Sholom B'nai Israel Congregation. She
received her B.A. in Religion from Boston University and completed the Scholars Circle at the Drisha Institute
in New York,
an intensive graduate-level program in Talmud, Jewish Law, and communal
leadership. Rachel served as Congregational Intern at Ohev Shalom - The
National Synagogue - in Washington, DC and has studied at Midreshet Lindenbaum and MaTaN
in Jerusalem.
As an informal educator, she worked many summers at New Jersey Y Camp
Nesher as well as the Drisha High School Program and Camp
Szarvas in Hungary. She has directed high
school theatre at the Heschel High School in New
York, and is a founding member of JIG -
the Jewish Improv Group.
Thursday,
August 21, 3 pm
Conviction
David Y. Chack, from Chicago and
Louisville, was recently honored as a semi-finalist for the 2008 Charles
Bronfman Visiting Chair in Innovative Jewish Communities for his proposal
"From Fiddler on the Roof to Rent". Chack is also President of the
Association for Jewish Theatre, a world-wide organization that sponsors and
supports Jewish performing arts and theatre; and he is on faculty at
Northwestern University in the Theatre Department and Jewish Studies. He has
received numerous awards for his artistic and community work including the Elie
Wiesel Award for Jewish Arts and Culture from International Hillel ; the
James Macdonald Award for Interfaith Understanding and Social Justice at the
University of Virginia ; and The Best Director Award for the Louisville
Jewish Film Festival. His numerous projects
of consulting, directing, and teaching take him between Chicago, Louisville,
New York, Boston, and Israel. He has worked with Jewish Community
Centers, Hillel Foundations in Boston and Virginia, the Virginia Humanities
Foundation, the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, the Louisville Orchestra, All
About Jewish Theatre, Hillels Around Chicago, The Theatre Museum in New
York City, the Jewish Theatre Ensemble at Northwestern University, and the
Florence Melton Adult Mini-School of Hebrew University. He continues to write
reviews on theatre and performing arts for All About Jewish Theatre and has
also written for Genesis2, the Louisville Eccentric Observer, and the Virginia
Festival of American Film Journal.
He is on the Board of the International Center for Israeli and Jewish
Theatre, and is an alumnus of the Mandel Teacher Educators Institute in Israel.
Currently he is writing about Jews in performing arts in America and creating
multi-cultural theatre.
All
performances Thursday, August 21 - Sunday, August 24:
Thurs, 8/21,
3 pm Conviction
Thurs, 8/21,
7:30 pm Masked
Fri, 8/22, 8
pm To Pay the Price
Sat, 8/23, 1
pm To Pay the Price
Sat, 8/23,
4:30 pm Conviction
Sat, 8/23, 8
pm Apples from the Desert
Sun, 8/24, 1
pm Apples from the Desert
Sun, 8/24,
4:30 pm Masked
Sun, 8/24,
7:30 pm To Pay the Price
Michael Taub, one of America's
foremost specialists on Israeli drama,
will come in from New York
to lead post-reading discussions. He
is translator of the off-Broadway hit, Masked, a riveting
festival selecton. He is also editor of Modern
Israeli Drama, Israeli Holocaust Drama,
Israel Drama
for the New Millennium, Contemporary Jewish American
Writers, and The Jewish Experience on Film.
