Arts & Culture | Theater

Have I Got A Job For You?

09/11/2012 | Ted Merwin | Special To The Jewish Week | Theater

It may be the world’s oldest profession, but it was the last place that a nice Jewish boy from Dix Hills, L.I., expected to land a job after college. In Josh Mesnik’s autobiographical new comedy, “Have I Got a Girl For You,” directed by Sara Sahin, the playwright stars as the manager of one of the largest escort agencies on the East Coast, a job that taught him the ins and outs of the business of prostitution.

Reb Nachman And ‘Mad’ Dance

09/05/2012 | Ted Merwin | Special To The Jewish Week | Theater

Israeli Men Do ‘Romeo And Juliet’

08/14/2012 | Ted Merwin | Special To The Jewish Week | Theater

Talk about men needing to get in touch with their feminine side. Ido Bornstein’s new comedy, “Dogs,” starting this week at the Fringe Festival, centers on a group of Israeli men, both Jewish and Arab, who stage a musical version of “Romeo and Juliet” that not only helps them to explore their emotions, but leads to one of them getting pregnant! The play, which has enjoyed a successful run in Israel, is newly translated into English; it runs at the New Ohio Theatre in the West Village.

Politics And Power At Fringe Festival

08/07/2012 | Ted Merwin | Special To The Jewish Week | Theater

If you’ve ever worn tzitzit, you know that if you stand still, the fringes stay more or less flat against your body, but as soon as you start to move, they splay out in all directions. The same might be said of the dozens of plays at this year’s Fringe Festival, which are as multifarious, unpredictable and uninhibited as ever.

The Return Of Yiddish Vaudeville

08/02/2012 | Ted Merwin | Special To The Jewish Week | Theater

Beginning in the fifteenth century in a valley in Normandy called the Vau de Vire, from which its name derives, vaudeville became one of the most popular forms of entertainment both in Western Europe and America. Jewish immigrants who flooded into New York from Eastern Europe encountered vaudeville and made it their own.

Harvey Milk, The Musical

07/24/2012 | Ted Merwin | Special To The Jewish Week | Theater

He was a martyr to the cause of gay rights. When Harvey Milk, San Francisco’s first openly gay public official, was gunned down by a fellow city supervisor in 1978, the nation was forced to confront its own discrimination against homosexuals. Now comes a new musical, “A Letter to Harvey Milk,” based on Lesléa Newman’s 1988 short story of the same name, about the friendship between a Holocaust survivor and his young lesbian writing teacher.