{"id":37465,"date":"2021-09-10T01:34:43","date_gmt":"2021-09-10T08:34:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=37465"},"modified":"2021-09-09T11:03:32","modified_gmt":"2021-09-09T18:03:32","slug":"bema-mounts-wells-mazel-tov-john-lennon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2021\/09\/10\/bema-mounts-wells-mazel-tov-john-lennon\/","title":{"rendered":"Bema mounts Wells\u2019 Mazel Tov, John Lennon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nicholas Guerriero as John Lennon, left, and Perry Burton as his Jewish lawyer, Leon Wildes, in Bema Productions\u2019 rendition of <em>Mazel Tov, John Lennon<\/em> by David Wells, which had a virtual run at the Victoria Fringe Festival this year<em>\u00a0(photo from Bema Productions).\u00a0<\/em>Based on the true story of the Nixon administration\u2019s attempt to deport John Lennon because of his political activism against the war in Vietnam, it is a fascinating play about a lesser-known aspect of American history. The years-long case ultimately led to various changes in the country\u2019s immigration laws.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was so happy to be back in live rehearsal after a year-and-a-half, and had tears in my eyes at the first rehearsal,\u201d director Zelda Dean told the <em>Independent<\/em>.\u00a0 \u201cOf course, we all wore masks until near the end.\u00a0 This is the 142nd\u00a0show I have directed in my long career and the first time that I couldn\u2019t see the expression on the actors\u2019 faces while we were working together. \u00a0Of course, their masks came off at the last few rehearsals and at the filming of the show [by Jason King] and, by then, everyone was fully vaccinated.\u00a0 A new experience and I was delighted to learn much and develop new techniques.\u00a0 I am always grateful to learn from the many skilled artists I am privileged to work with.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nicholas Guerriero as John Lennon, left, and Perry Burton as his Jewish lawyer, Leon Wildes, in Bema Productions\u2019 rendition of Mazel Tov, John Lennon by David Wells, which had a virtual run at the Victoria Fringe Festival this year\u00a0(photo from Bema Productions).\u00a0Based on the true story of the Nixon administration\u2019s attempt to deport John Lennon [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37466,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[785],"tags":[7428,20863,20861,20862,4306,8989],"class_list":["post-37465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performing-arts","tag-bema-productions","tag-david-wells","tag-john-lennon","tag-leon-wildes","tag-victoria-fringe","tag-zelda-dean"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}