Chutzpah!

Chutzpah! back on the stage

Ophira Eisenberg (photo by Mike Katzif)

Live performances – that you can see in person – are, thankfully, a thing again. At least, for now. And this year’s Chutzpah! Festival, Nov. 4-24, features many shows that people will be able to attend, most of which will also be streamed digitally.

For the two artists the Jewish Independent interviewed this week about the festival, the upcoming performances hold special meaning.

“I am so looking forward to coming back to Canada,” said New York-based comedian and storyteller Ophira Eisenberg, who was born in Calgary. “And Vancouver at that! Where it all started.” Eisenberg performs Nov. 7 at the Rothstein Theatre.

Shay Kuebler/Radical System Art’s Momentum of Isolation sees its world première at the theatre Nov. 13 and 14. The dance company returns to Chutzpah! as resident artists. The Rothstein Theatre and Chutzpah! “have been critical to the growth of Radical System Art and my work as an individual artist,” Kuebler told the Independent, describing the theatre as “the cradle that supported us” during “our infancy as an organization.”

“When I stepped back into the theatre,” Kuebler said, “it was like being back in a close friend’s home. It feels right. There’s a groove and comfort there. This has enabled us to create with as much momentum as possible, both as a company and collective of artists.”

Stepping back into a theatre has been an emotional experience for many artists.

“This spring in New York, I performed numerous times outside,” said Eisenberg. “All of the situations were a little different and, a couple of times, the address of the show was a large tree in a park! It wasn’t ideal and definitely was challenging, but people really wanted to laugh and take in some live entertainment, so it was uplifting.

“My first real performance inside at a comedy club was in early May, when New York opened small performance venues,” she said. “The audience was distanced and masked, and I think they laughed louder and harder than an audience of 3,000 – or maybe my ears weren’t used to hearing live indoor laughter and it sounded explosive. Either way, it almost brought me to tears, and I know I’m not the only one that felt that way.”

Eisenberg comes to Vancouver soon after the final episode of National Public Radio’s comedy trivia show Ask Me Another, which she hosted for nine years, interviewing and joking with numerous famous folk, including Sir Patrick Stewart, Awkwafina, Ethan Hawke and Julia Stiles, among many others.

“After interviewing hundreds of celebrities, authors, musicians,” said Eisenberg, “one thing that stands out to me is that, whenever we talked about a project that meant a lot to an artist, they mentioned that what made that project so successful was the supportive environment – and the fact that they worked with people who allowed experimentation and even failure. That ended up bringing out their best work. I think about that a lot when it comes to creating a space for artists to truly succeed.”

Eisenberg has headlined and performed at countless festivals and appeared on numerous comedy networks and programs. She has her own comedy special, called Inside Joke, and her first book, Screw Everyone: Sleeping My Way to Monogamy (Seal Press), was optioned for a feature film. She is a regular host and storyteller with the Moth, an organization that has become a radio show and podcast, in addition to putting on live events and other activities.

As for what she would still like to accomplish in her career, Eisenberg said, “I’m working on another podcast that I hope is also long-running! But I have so many things I’d like to do. Maybe too many things! On the docket are writing another book, and I’d love to write for TV. Performing live is my first love, so I’m looking forward to a safer world where that can happen more often.”

Eisenberg’s journey to success began at a young age.

“I truly believe I was drawn to New York as a child from watching Sesame Street!,” she said. “I went to McGill for university, where I got a bachelor’s in anthropology and theatre, then moved to Vancouver for a couple of years, where I tried standup for the first time.

“I was honestly too scared to move to New York,” she admitted, “so I moved to Toronto and spent five years performing and starting to understand my craft. Then, one day, I thought, ‘I need to move to New York now while I can still happily live with a futon and milk crate furniture.’ Two years after moving here, I discovered the Moth…. I love writing jokes, but I was working on other material that just did not fit into the standup mold. I found an outlet of expression at the Moth and in this short form storytelling, and I continue to pursue both.”

When asked to describe her connection to Judaism and/or Jewish community or culture, Eisenberg said, “I have a joke in my act that goes something like this: ‘I was raised Jewish in Calgary, Alberta, or so I thought because when I moved to New York I wondered, “maybe I was raised Protestant?” Everyone in New York is more Jewish than I am. My Puerto Rican neighbour knows more about Judaism than I do.’

“That is just a joke but living in New York is definitely the first time I felt surrounded by pervasive cultural Judaism. My father was the principal of the Hebrew school in Calgary but left that job the year I was born, so I went to public school. We still practised at home and went to synagogue during the High Holidays. As an adult, I’ve definitely been able to find my community here in Brooklyn, which is very wonderful and embracing.”

Exploring isolation

In 2018, before the pandemic sent us all into relative isolation, the United Kingdom appointed its – and, apparently, the world’s – first minister of loneliness, to address the problem as a public health issue.

“Right away, the title of ‘minister of loneliness’ grabbed me,” Shay Kuebler told the Independent. “There’s something very simple about it and it almost feels like a caricature, yet, when you think of someone whose entire work/career is to disrupt loneliness, it becomes deeply serious. When you read about isolation and loneliness, the gravity of this position becomes even more clear.”

The United Kingdom’s action was a catalyst for Kuebler, who noted, “You can now find multiple countries that have ministers of loneliness.”

The work Momentum of Isolation “speaks to a number of ideas around isolation and loneliness,” he said. “By doing so, I hope to open up greater conversations around the topic and maybe have audiences start their own exploration of the topic.”

photo - Sarah Hutton performs in Shay Kuebler/ Radical System Art’s Momentum of Isolation — Sarah Hutton performs in Shay Kuebler/ Radical System Art’s Momentum of Isolation. *(screenshot)*

Momentum of Isolation explores the theme both through physical isolation and social isolation, explained Kuebler. “These two points are explored through a number of different scenes, which make the show episodic in its structure, with some through-lines and arcs for characters moving all the way through.”

The work has turned out to be even more relevant than Kuebler initially thought it.

“Honestly, this show took on an evolution that I could have never projected,” he said. “The timing of our first full-company research period coincided with the closures and lockdowns across 2020. I knew that this project was important, and being forced into an online/isolated form of research was profound, to say the least.

“This isolated online research, which enabled one-on-one time with each of the company artists, created a well of material,” he said. “It was a format that was completely new, but something I found extremely valuable. While working with each artist one on one, I was simultaneously writing and composing music for the work. This not only led to a lot of new scenes and ideas, but it also distilled what was most relevant and necessary to say.

“For me, this piece was both a rediscovery and a reinforcement of what I hold most valuable. It has brought me back to how and why I want to create. I am grateful for this.”

For those unfamiliar with Radical System Art and dance in general, Kuebler added, “I know when we hear ‘dance’ and, especially, ‘contemporary dance,’ a lot of people can feel hesitant. I want readers and audiences to see this show as more of a ‘contemporary theatre experience.’ It brings together technology, design and multiple art forms around a very relevant – and timely – theme. It is something being made now, through many different artists and their many unique experiences…. With a collaborative approach to connecting with our audiences, we hope to create something new, relevant and accessible.”

For Chutzpah! tickets and the full lineup, visit chutzpahfestival.com or call 604-257-5145.

Impactful works at Chutzpah!

After COVID-19 hit, The Eichmann Project – Terminal 1 evolved into a per- formance directed to a camera. (photo from Pathos-Mathos Company)

Art has many facets, forms and reasons for being. As much as it can be an escape from our daily realities, it can help us process and understand them, sometimes in vastly different ways. The Chutzpah! Festival, which opens Nov. 4 with City Opera Vancouver singers performing to the Marx brothers’ A Night at the Opera, features many examples of entertainment with multiple purposes.

On the face of it, Project InTandem’s dance double bill (Nov. 6-7) might seem to have nothing in common with the theatre work The Eichmann Project – Terminal 1 (Nov. 8). Yet both deal with, among other things, trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as our ability to change ourselves and even our circumstances.

The Eichmann trial

Lilach Dekel-Avneri and the Pathos-Mathos Company’s Terminal 1 examines the 1961 trial, in Israel, of Adolf Eichmann, one of the main perpetrators of the Holocaust. The books of attorney-general Gideon Hausner, political theorist Hannah Arendt and journalist and poet Haim Gouri, “with their testimonies on the trial, were the inspiration for the three main ‘characters’” of the theatre work, explained Dekel-Avneri. “My dramaturg, Liat Fassberg, and I, like in a Greek tragedy, positioned the two main characters with opposing worldviews, one against of the other. The words by poet Haim Gouri, who was present at the courtroom and reported daily from there, were composed and treated as a chorus. The chorus tries to advance in telling the tale of the trial while providing a dramatic lament on the happenings.

“It is actually a trial of the trial,” said Dekel-Avneri, “dotted with texts from researchers of the Holocaust and post-traumatic stress disorder, poets, philosophers, and performers’ live comments between those three main voices. The COVID-19 epidemic presents itself in the team’s testimonies and actions, erasing all plans and forcing project evolution into a digital performance to the camera.”

Dekel-Avneri refers to the Eichmann trial as “the first reality show in Israel.”

“A lot has been said about the connection between trials and performance,” she explained. “The Eichmann trial was the first trial-show recorded in front of a live audience, that actually bought tickets, and was projected live on the radio, later on television, with the full documentary show now available on the internet.”

Terminal 1 explores the concepts of collaboration and obedience, and asks, “What is our responsibility as citizens, as artists?”

“It’s an extension of Arendt’s brilliant manifest evoking the citizens to think by themselves and not to obey automatically. Not to automatically be part of horrific systems, just because they say: do this and not that,” said Dekel-Avneri. “We are thinking creatures, the least we can do is use our heart and brain, take responsibility for our actions, and not collaborate with demons.”

The show initially was created to be interactive with an audience and then remade for film because of COVID.

“During 2020, at the beginning of the outbreak, the Israel Festival, where we premièred, decided to move online, so I made my choice,” said Dekel-Avneri. “Since I do not believe in shooting a theatre show and screening it, I had to let go of my vision for the full project I was working on for six years, and re-create it as something new, made especially for the camera.

“The Eichmann Project – Terminal 1 is, for me, the first station, like its name,” she continued. “The last station may be completed in the future, or not. It will need to start almost from the beginning. We hope that one day we will find a sponsor or a theatre to collaborate with and fulfil the vision of this Via Dolorosa of 21 live scenes. The trial is not going anywhere and, unfortunately, we, by ‘we’ I mean humanity, do not learn from our past mistakes, so it looks like it will remain relevant for awhile.”

photo - Lilach Dekel-Avneri — Lilach Dekel-Avneri *(photo by Shachaf Dekel)*

Dekel-Avneri recently premièred Crowned, which she described as “a performative portrait, broken by the encounter with time, shattered in the prism of the plague, emerging through a web of video and audio testimonies by seven women at different decades of their lives, which coalesce into a course of a lifetime. An attempt to leave a monument to the voice of femininity at the current time, femininity striving, despite everything, to see the opportunity for growth within the crisis and wonder about the intersection between life and art at a time of change. These women take responsibility of their actions, future and well-being,” she said.

“In a way,” she added, “Crowned is a post-traumatic response to what COVID did to The Eichmann Project. After being torn apart from my original vision and separated from the audience, I prepared a show for any situation – we are not afraid from lockdowns or the camera anymore. The camera became a friend, a tool and a partner, to continue creating performative works.”

Struggle, empowerment

Project InTandem – which was cofounded by Calgary-based producers and choreographers Sylvie Moquin and Meghann Michalsky in 2017 – brings two works to the Chutzpah! Festival: Deep END by Michalsky and moving through, it all amounts to something by Moquin.

“This double-bill,” explains the press material, “explores themes of female struggle and empowerment…. Michalsky investigates how movement can accumulate and evolve through set rounds and repetition. Moquin’s work is inspired by the concept of neuroplasticity and the journey of rewiring one’s patterning.”

photo - Project InTandem – Meghann Michalsky and Sylvie Moquin – bring two works to the Chutzpah! Festival — Project InTandem – Meghann Michalsky and Sylvie Moquin – bring two works to the Chutzpah! Festival. *(photo by Tim Nguyen)*

The pair met for the first time when they both created short works for a production at the University of Calgary, eventually forming Project InTandem “to share workload, resources, and to create an opportunity for emerging artists to produce evening length work.”

“Having Meghann as a collaborator has always pulled me to a higher standard,” Moquin told the Independent. “I think we work together in a way that elevates us to achieve more than what might be possible on our own. It also makes the journey of being an artist less lonely.”

“Our approaches to dance can sometimes overlap because we have had similar experiences or opportunities, or trained within similar methods,” they said in their email interview with the JI. “All of our accumulated experiences as dancers and movers inform us as creators; those experiences become like an inventory of information.”

Moquin has been a dancer within Michalsky’s choreographic works since 2018, so that also informs their relationship.

“Some of our shared values include creating work with visceral physicality, creating opportunities within our city, elevating the production value of contemporary dance work, and always prioritizing integrity,” they said.

Each has her own interests, though.

“I am really interested in exploring what the body can endure in this work,” said Michalsky. “We push and we push again. As performers, we pass through movements and states and eventually surrender to things that are no longer needed. I am interested in seeing the dancer go through something tangible in real time, something that is honest and showcases risk and vulnerability. As a choreographer, I play with conflict from both internally in the body and externally in the space and I desire for both of these things to be felt by the audience.”

About her piece, moving through, Moquin said, “When creating this work, I was completely immersed with investigating partner work (the way bodies engage and interact) as well as being upside down. I used these primary desires to dig into the concept of neuroplasticity – the way we adapt, the way we can gain governance over our thinking; sometimes even the feeling of being trapped in our own mind and thoughts.

“I am a big believer that we must fail in order to succeed,” she continued. “As a choreographer, I use the sensing body to somatically approach theories I find fascinating in the world. I am especially interested in how bodies interact with one another, how they can support each other to fly, spin, and find themselves upside down effortlessly. I am keenly interested in the effects of the mind, the power of our thoughts, and the ability for change and growth. I would say that my research and choreography seeks to find a sense of hope within a world of chaos.”

The initial vision of moving through included the use of “walls.”

“I couldn’t get the idea out of my mind, and so I finally started looking into building/creating something to fulfil these ideas,” said Moquin. “The material used (a form of Plexiglass) was almost a happenstance. I became fascinated by the translucent quality. I had no way of knowing how this material would have such an impact within our world merely months after creating and premièring the work in March 2020. As I watch this work now, two years later, after a global pandemic, it is almost startling to watch the dancers engaging with these Plexiglass structures.”

The Chutzpah! Festival runs Nov. 4-24. For tickets and the full lineup, visit chutzpahfestival.com or call 604-257-5145.

Chutzpah! coming soon

Josh “Socalled” Dolgin leads an evening of Yiddish songs as part of Chutzpah! 2021. (photo from Chutzpah!)

The Chutzpah! Festival returns this November, presenting music, theatre, comedy and dance that reflect the joy of coming back together. For more than two decades, Chutzpah! has been an annual highlight of Greater Vancouver’s arts season. From Nov. 4 to 24, artists will once again grace the stage of the Norman & Annette Rothstein Theatre, the festival’s hub, and share their work in person and online. Tickets go on sale Sept. 15.

The 21st Annual Chutzpah! Festival will include a variety of performances, paired with conversations and opportunities to interact with the artists. Audiences will have the chance to attend in-person shows, with COVID safety protocols in place, or enjoy digital streams from their homes. With an emphasis on artists from across Canada, the festival will also present work from Israel, the United States and the United Kingdom.

“Artists and arts enthusiasts alike have been eagerly awaiting our chance to come back together to share our stories,” said Jessica Mann Gutteridge, artistic managing director. “With the joy of reconnecting comes the knowledge that our lives have profoundly changed over the past year-and-a-half. The Chutzpah! Festival will explore and celebrate the many ways we tell stories now, with a variety of ways to experience and participate in the work.”

The festival opens Nov. 4 with a screening at the Rothstein Theatre of the Marx brothers classic A Night at the Opera, during which City Opera Vancouver will sing the operatic music parodied in the film. The 1930s cinema experience will include festive treats, glamour and a costume contest.

In the comedy realm – all in-person performances at the Rothstein Theatre – Canadian-born, New York-based stand-up comedian, storyteller and writer Ophira Eisenberg, host of NPR’s comedy and trivia show Ask Me Another, performs Nov. 10. Israeli-American stand-up comedian Avi Liberman is joined by special guest Jacob Samuel and host Kyle Berger on Nov. 20. And Iris Bahr, who impressed Chutzpah! audiences in 2020 with her festival hosting and her solo show DAI (enough), performs her new solo show Nov. 23.

The dance performances at the Rothstein will be in-person events, as well as digitally streamed. Nov. 6 and 7, a Project inTandem double-bill features the works of Calgary producers and choreographers Sylvie Moquin and Meghann Michalsky, which explore the themes of female struggle and empowerment. Nov. 13 and 14, Shay Kuebler/Radical System Art return to Chutzpah! as resident artists with the third “chapter” of Kuebler’s research that began in 2018, after he read about the United Kingdom hiring a minister of loneliness. On Nov. 16 and 18, Ballet BC artist in residence Alexis Fletcher, who was 2019 and 2021 Chutzpah! resident artist, returns to the festival with a solo integrating movement and the visual art of Vancouver painter and HIV/AIDS activist Tiko Kerr, while 2020 and 2021 Chutzpah! resident artist Ne.Sans Opera & Dance, led by Idan Cohen, returns to showcase a new solo drawing inspiration from the myth of Orpheus and Gluck’s opera Orfeo ed Euridice, with co-creator Ted Littlemore (aka Mila Dramatic).

Theatre works featured are Lilach Dekel-Avneri and the Pathos-Mathos Company’s The Eichmann Project – Terminal 1 on Nov. 8 (digital stream available); The Flame – An Evening of Storytelling on Nov. 17, under the stewardship of artistic director Deborah Williams, featuring storytellers including Stephen Aberle, Glenda Zenoff, Eleanor Lipov and Helen Schneiderman, with musical guest Anton Lipovetsky; and Halifax-based Surplus Production Unit’s A Timed Speed-Read of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Trial Transcript on Nov. 21 and 22.

Montreal’s Josh “Socalled” Dolgin, accompanied by a local string quartet, leads an evening of rediscovered Yiddish songs, with stories and perhaps a little magic, on Nov. 19, and Israel’s Guy Mintus Trio’s performs A Gershwin Playground Nov. 24. (Digital streams available for both shows.)

Nov. 8-12, Chutzpah! Festival favourite, U.K.-based theatre artist Tamara Micner, transforms her theatrical work-in-progress (workshopped in the 2020 festival) into an audio installation. Audience members will be invited into the Zack Gallery to listen to Micner’s reading of letters written to Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, reflecting on how their music informs her feelings about friendship, activism, Jewishness and art. There will be opportunities to “meet” the artist via video stream for conversations about her work and ideas.

Throughout the festival, Bahr converses with festival artists, featuring her stand-up and a wide-ranging cast of characters.

Due to COVID-19 safety processes, all tickets must be purchased in advance and will not be available at the door. Visit chutzpahfestival.com starting on Sept. 15 or call 604-257-5145.

– Courtesy Chutzpah! Festival

Arts enhance inclusion

Matthew Tom-Wing, right, dressed as Elvis, was one of the participants in the 2019 Chutzpah! Festival finale. His mother, Elizabeth Tom-Wing, recalled it as a “standout moment for our community and for our son!” (photo from JCC)

February is Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month (JDAIM). It offers a wonderful time to look back at some of our community achievements in fostering inclusion at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver; in particular, the 2019 Chutzpah! Festival’s Inclusion Project.

Mary-Louise Albert was artistic and managing director of Chutzpah! and the Rothstein Theatre for 15 years. Before she retired, she and I had many spirited conversations about the importance of creating access for local community members in all areas of Jewish communal life and at the JCC, which is the home of the festival and the theatre, and where I am the coordinator of inclusion services.

We believed that the arts are an important avenue for personal growth and skills development, and that they also bolster visibility and foster true belonging. We hoped that the JCC’s inclusion services and Chutzpah! could collaborate in some way and, through our conversations and Mary-Louise’s vision and expertise, the Chutzpah Inclusion Project crystalized.

After months of planning, in November 2019, members of the local community took to the Rothstein stage to participate in a first-ever Inclusion Project performance – an evening of dance and comedy with international inclusion advocate Pamela Schuller and professional dancers Troy Ogilvie and Rebecca Margolick. The event was the finale of the 2019 Chutzpah! Festival and a highlight of Albert’s final year with Chutzpah!

In preparation to take to the stage, participants had a yearlong introduction to theatre, including low-barrier and free classes with a specialist through the JCC’s Theatre Lab program. Participants attended many local productions through the JCC’s social club, and spent hours rehearsing and co-creating with Ogilvie, Margolick and Schuller over a series of workshops that would not have been possible without community partners and friends.

The 2019 performance received a standing ovation from the audience. The feeling of solidarity and acceptance between the audience and the performers was palpable. What was most amazing, Elizabeth Tom-Wing recalled, is that her son had the opportunity to “train and perform on stage with the professional dancers, along with his friends, and close off the three-week-long 2019 Chutzpah! Festival.” She recalled it as a “standout moment for our community and for our son!”

This project demonstrated that artists of mixed ability and skill can create a powerful and moving performance. Moreover, it reminds us that it is only through equity and action that belonging can be fostered. As diversity, equity and inclusion strategist Arthur Chan explains: “Diversity is a fact. Equity is a choice. Inclusion is an action. Belonging is the outcome.”

Leamore Cohen is inclusion services coordinator at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver.

Community milestones … Suedfeld, Averbach, Phillip, Gutteridge, BI

Dr. Peter Suedfeld with Governor General Julie Payette at Rideau Hall. (photo by Sgt. Johanie Maheu)

On Nov. 21, 2019, Vancouver’s Dr. Peter Suedfeld was among those invested into the Order of Canada by Governor General Julie Payette during a ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa.

The Order of Canada is one of the country’s highest civilian honours. Its companions, officers and members take to heart the motto of the order: “Desiderantes meliorem patriam” (“They desire a better country”).

Suedfeld was invested as an officer of the order. The honour’s website notes that his “groundbreaking research expands our notions of resilience and transcends academic fields. Professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia and a prolific writer, he is internationally acclaimed for documenting previously ignored positive psychological and physical effects of extreme and challenging environments. His work has taken a critical look at the impacts on humans experiencing polar isolation, space exploration, sensory deprivation, decision-making during international crises, and such traumatic experiences as genocide. He is highly regarded both as a mentor and active member of his community.”

Created in 1967, the Order of Canada recognizes outstanding achievement, dedication to the community and service to the nation. Close to 7,500 people from all sectors of society have been invested into the order. Those who bear its iconic snowflake insignia have changed Canada’s measure of success and, through the sum of their accomplishments, have helped build a better country.

Appointments are made by the governor general on the recommendation of the Advisory Council for the Order of Canada. For more information about the Order of Canada or to nominate someone, visit gg.ca/en/honours.

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photo - Gary Averbach at the Israeli Scout’s facilities in the city of Ra’anana — Gary Averbach at the Israeli Scout’s facilities in the city of Ra’anana.

JNF Canada is proud to have completed renovating the infrastructure of the Israeli Scout’s facilities in the city of Ra’anana, to be more accessible for children and youth with disabilities. This project was the focus of the JNF Vancouver 2017 Negev Dinner, honouring the Averbach family.

The Israeli Scouts, Tzofei Tzamid, run programming for more than 80,000 members aged 9-21 (including more than 2,500 with disabilities) throughout Israel. They bring together children and youth from across the spectrum of Israeli society to learn leadership skills and the value of inclusive community, and to enhance their self-image.

A special thank you to Gary Averbach, Michael Averbach and Shannon (Averbach) Gorski, and the entire Vancouver community for taking this vision forward and helping JNF improve the lives of the members of Tzofei Tzamid. To learn more about the project, visit jnf.ca/tzofei-tzamid.

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photo - Rob Philipp will start his position as chief executive officer of Hillel BC in June — Rob Philipp will start his position as chief executive officer of Hillel BC in June.

Rob Philipp has been appointed to the position of chief executive officer of Hillel BC, effective in June.

Philipp’s appointment follows a Canada-wide process engaged by the search committee of the Hillel board of directors, comprised of Gordon Brandt (chair), Eric Andrew, Rebecca Recant, Frank Cohn, Talia Magder, Alexis Pavlich, Rachael Segal and Isaac Thau (board president). Philipp was the unanimous recommendation of the search committee and unanimous choice of the board of directors.

Philipp has a long history with the Vancouver Jewish community, having served on several boards, including 20 years on the board of Temple Sholom and being president of that organization. He participated in the Vancouver Wexner Heritage Leadership Group, which was a selected group of local Jewish leaders that studied and learned together for two years.

Philipp brings a unique and impressive set of experience, credentials and passion to Hillel. After graduating from the University of British Columbia, where he was an active member of Hillel, he worked as a chartered professional accountant. He then developed his career in sales, marketing and management in both for-profit and nonprofit organizations, most recently as the chief executive officer of the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board and as interim executive director of Temple Sholom.

He is known for being a creative and innovative leader, with a warm and strong team approach and a people-first mentality. His experience in developing and executing strategy, program development and delivery, combined with his business, governance and financial acumen, will be tremendously valuable to the continued growth of Hillel based on the strong foundation built by Rabbi Philip Bregman and Sam Heller in recent years.

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photo - Jessica Mann Gutteridge is the new artistic managing director of the Rothstein Theatre and Chutzpah! Festival — Jessica Mann Gutteridge is the new artistic managing director of the Rothstein Theatre and Chutzpah! Festival.

The Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver welcomes Jessica Mann Gutteridge as the new artistic managing director of the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre and Chutzpah! Festival. The position was previously held by Mary-Louise Albert, who is leaving after 15 successful years. The JCC thanks Albert for her excellence in service and dedication to the community and the arts.

Gutteridge joins the JCC from Boca del Lupo, where she managed Performance Works on Granville Island. She was also a founding board member of the Granville Island Theatre District. She held positions of managing director and education manager at Carousel Theatre for Young People. Her work as a dramaturg has included new plays for young audiences and playwrights from Shakespeare to Genet to Edwin Sánchez.

She received her master’s in fine arts from the Yale School of Drama’s department of dramaturgy and dramatic criticism, and studied directing at Wesleyan University. Born and raised in New York, she returned to the theatre after nearly two decades as a lawyer specializing in advertising and trademark law. At Columbia Law School, she was editor-in-chief of the Columbia-VLA Journal of Law and the Arts. Her nonprofit board work has included serving as co-president of Landmark on Main Street (a performing arts and community centre on Long Island, N.Y.), the Vancouver International Burlesque Festival, and the Bayview Treehouse Preschool. She was a member of the 2018-19 Cultural Leadership Program at the Banff Centre in Alberta.

“I look forward to continuing to bring diverse, world-quality artists to present their work to Chutzpah! Festival audiences and to reach a new generation with exciting performances. I am also delighted to steward the Rothstein Theatre as a gem appreciated by professional artists and community members throughout Metro Vancouver.”

The JCC is excited to see Gutteridge apply her industry experience and talents to the management of the centre’s fully equipped 318-seat performance venue, and the creative direction of the Chutzpah! Festival, one of the major art events in Vancouver’s cultural calendar.

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At Congregation Beth Israel’s annual general meeting Dec. 5, several volunteers were recognized. Mazal tov to Howard Mickelson and Keren Gertsman (President’s Award), Lloyd Baron (Board of Directors Special Service Award), Michael Harris (Board Recognition Award) and Lissa Weinberger (Special Service Volunteer Award).

The congregation also welcomed its incoming board for 2019-2020: Helen Pinsky (president), David Silver (vice-president), Heather Sirlin (secretary), Keren Gertsman (treasurer), Lisa Averbach, Anton Bloem, Alexis Doctor, Kevan Jacobson, Lisa Marcoe, Christie Menzo, Dale Porte, Jennifer Wolf and David Woogman.

Bahr’s many personas

Writer and comedian Iris Bahr performs at the Rothstein Theatre on Nov. 12 and 13, as part of the Chutzpah! Festival. (photo by Gail Hadini)

Award-winning writer, actor, director and producer Iris Bahr delves into serious issues using humour – and by being someone other than herself. She will bring some of her many characters to the Rothstein Theatre stage Nov. 12 and 13 as part of the Chutzpah! Festival.

Bahr hosts the weekly podcast X-RAE, as alter ego Rae Lynn Caspar White. In her one-woman show DAI (enough), she portrays 11 different characters in a Tel Aviv coffee shop. In her comedy series Svetlana, which ran for a couple of seasons, she starred as the Russian prostitute and political consultant. These are but a few examples of the personas she has created.

“I think I was about 6 years old,” Bahr told the Independent about when she did her first impression. “My family went on a trip to Italy and I began to imitate the tour guide, who kept going on and on in a heavy Italian accent about ‘marble from Carrera’ and so, for years after that, I would always be asked to ‘perform my Italian woman’ when my parents had company over.”

Using the example of the character of Rae Lynn, Bahr explained how an alter ego allows for a better conversation.

“I host my X-RAE podcast in character because I find it puts people at ease and they open up about topics they wouldn’t otherwise,” she said. “Rae Lynn flips from highbrow to lowbrow in a heartbeat and talks openly and outrageously about parenting, marriage and various R-rated topics. During my interview with Lawrence O’Donnell, for example, we veered from Marxism to Penn Gillette’s sex parties in a single breath.”

A magna cum laude graduate of Brown University, in Providence, R.I., Bahr studied neuropsychology, and has done brain research, as well as cancer research.

“I think I gravitated towards neuroscience because the inner workings of the brain fascinate me and I’m equal parts cerebral and highly emotional, and so that translates into all my work,” she explained. “I have a splintered identity, but not in a 50-50 kind of way – I actually feel 100% American and 100% Israeli at all times and that feeling of connection yet constant alienation lends itself to me inhabiting different characters and being able to truly commit to different viewpoints.”

Bahr was born and raised in the Bronx but moved to Israel as a teenager, staying there through military service; she still has family there. Her latest satire, The Olive Tree, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, recently had a soldout reading in New York and is set to open in spring of next year. DAI came to the stage in 2006 and audiences have included the United Nations, in 2007.

“I was invited to perform the show for over 100 ambassadors and delegates and the experience was unforgettable,” she said. “They were highly attentive and laughed at all the right moments, which I was not sure was going to happen. I felt like a diplomat for a day.”

Bahr said she wrote DAI “to communicate the intricacy and complexity of life in Israel, the inner conflicts prevalent in Israeli society, and how they are affected by living under constant threat of suicide bombings/sudden death, which, as any Israeli will tell you, instil not a feeling of helplessness but a vibrancy and love for life. On the flip side, is how that very fact is perceived by visiting outsiders and Palestinians affected by the conflict. The characters we meet in the café – from all walks of life, ideological spectrums and backgrounds – have no idea their lives will be ending abruptly [by a suicide bomber] and so their monologues range from outrageously humourous, vengeful, disillusioned and more.”

She first performed DAI at Baruch College in New York City, “as part of a festival sponsored by the Culture Project,” she said. “I had no idea it would get picked up immediately for a commercial run, and so that was a phenomenal development.

“A lot has changed since I first wrote DAI, in terms of how the conflict is manifesting itself on both sides, and yet the situation has sadly stayed the same. Thankfully, suicide bombings seem to be a thing of the past, but my dear childhood friend and father of four was stabbed to death only last year while out shopping, the Palestinian plight has not improved and the political climate is worse than ever. Nevertheless, the characters in DAI have sustained their relevancy; my German character talks about rising antisemitism in modern-day Germany, for example; my Israeli former military man talks of his son who doesn’t want to serve in the military; and the snooty ex-pat woman who lives in New York City, well, those types of women only seem to multiply by the minute.”

She stressed, “The play is not a polemic – it is a collection of social observations that speak from many different viewpoints. The piece aims to entertain, offer a visceral theatrical experience and, hopefully, also illuminate and enlighten. Thankfully, it has been warmly received amongst extremely ‘pro-Israel’ audiences and also ‘pro-Palestinian’-leaning crowds both in Europe and here in America. Of course, certain right-wingers think it’s too leftist and left-wingers think it’s too right, which is all I could really hope for as a piece about humanity.”

For tickets to see Bahr perform at Chutzpah!, and for more festival offerings, visit chutzpahfestival.com.

Dancing to Beethoven

ProArteDanza’s The 9th will première in Vancouver before heading home to Toronto. (photo by Alexander Antonijevic)

Ten years after its conception, ProArteDanza’s The 9th, a full-length contemporary dance performance, will have its world première in Vancouver at the Chutzpah! Festival Oct. 26-28.

“We were originally planning to première it in Toronto for November,” Roberto Campanella, co-artistic director of ProArteDanza, told the Independent in a phone interview. “We’re opening in Toronto Nov. 6, which is a week-and-a-half after Chutzpah! And then Mary-Louise [Albert] called and said, ‘How do you feel about bringing The 9th here?’ And I said, ‘Well, it would not be a bad idea for everybody involved to have that opportunity…. We love being at Chutzpah! We’ve been before, we have a longtime relationship with Mary-Louise.” (Albert is artistic managing director of Chutzpah!)

Campanella created The 9th with ProArteDanza co-artistic director Robert Glumbek in collaboration with the dancers. Inspired by Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and performed to the score, the show has four movements and is about 70 minutes long, with no intermission.

Each dance movement was created and mounted on its own: the first, then the third, the second and, finally, the fourth, which the company performed this past June in Trois-Rivières, Que., for the festival called Dansencore. Regarding the full-length work, Campanella said “it’s one thing to put on one movement at a time separately, and we’re realizing it’s a completely different beast because we have to also layer [each movement] with the concept of a wall or, in this case, the symbol of the Berlin Wall, so it’s taking almost a different life for me and for Robert…. And it’s only eight dancers and it’s going to be incredibly physical and athletic and intense, so we also have to distribute our dancers in a way that we don’t kill them in the first movement.”

Ten years ago, Dansencore commissioned Campanella and Glumbek to create the first movement. At the time, the festival was celebrating its 15th anniversary, as well as the establishment of Trois-Rivières, with Beethoven’s Ninth, said Campanella. “The idea was that there were different choreographers allocated for the four different movements … and we put the whole thing together probably in one day or two with the live orchestra and the live choir, so it was a mega-super-project. It all came together then.

“What we decided to do, with the permission, of course, of the festival, we said, ‘Can we present out first movement only for our company, ProArteDanza?’ We were granted permission and we presented just the movement itself as part of a mixed program the year after, or the same year, here in Toronto. Then we looked at each other, Robert and I, and said, ‘Why don’t we do a long version of it? Why don’t we continue? But let’s take our time. Why don’t we continue on the same path we’re doing, a movement at a time, we present it, we look at it and see what comes out of it?’

“And then, in 2010, I was in Berlin shooting a movie and I had a few days off,” continued Campanella. “I went to the Berlin Wall, which is essentially rubble, it’s just bricks, there isn’t much, but there are these audio-visual stations, where you can put headphones on and have a look at old footage of when they were building it; it’s pretty much the history of the wall. And there was one image that still, I would say, hit the spot, which was these two families on [opposite] sides of the wall waving at each other, probably they were related to each other … and the waving at each other was different from one side of the wall and the other. And then I thought, could it be that this [image] is actually our Ninth Symphony concept? So, I talked to Robert and I said, ‘Can we explore that and see where it goes?’ And that’s when the ball started rolling for us, but always maintaining the idea that we were not going to present the whole thing until we had all the four movements done and presented.”

The timing of The 9th’s completion comes with a few coincidences, said Campanella. Most notably, the final concert date, in Toronto, is Nov. 9 and, he said, “Nov. 9, 1989, is the actual day of the fall of the Berlin Wall,” so the show will occur exactly 30 years after the wall’s fall. He also noted that ProArteDanza’s show, which is called The 9th, ends on the ninth and that, at the 1989 celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Leonard Bernstein conducted the Ninth Symphony.

For Campanella, the fall of the Berlin Wall is “about freedom, it’s about brotherhood, it’s about unity and diversity, celebrating all of that.”

In addition to the challenges of portraying these concepts, Campanella said it’s been fascinating to reimagine the movements that were created in the early years.

“We look at what we did 10 years ago and we cringe,” he said. When he and Glumbek watched videos of the piece, “you should have heard us, we were thinking, ‘Who choreographed that?’”

The pair have broken through many artistic walls since then in their respective careers, said Campanella, that they decided “this is not us anymore and so we are going to revisit it, reassess it, reevaluate what we’ve done and why.”

He pointed out that the original first movement was also created by a different cast. “There is only, I think, one [dancer] left who’s done everything. So, there are things that are born with a certain cast but there is a turnover of cast, [so] it will inevitably take a different direction naturally, as well as us being different now than 10 years ago.”

Part of what’s great about dance, he said, “is that you have the ability to remount things. A painting, once it’s done, it’s done. You’re going to hang it somewhere and you’ll look at it; it’s done, it’s over. For us, we have that ability to remount and re-look at it and say, ‘Who am I now that’s going to be in this current version of it?’ So, it’s been a very fascinating process.”

Campanella said, in creating The 9th, he and Glumbek “took our time because we really wanted to respect first and foremost the score of this magnificent piece of artwork,” referring to Beethoven’s composition.

In The 9th, more than one version of the symphony is used. Of those that were not chosen, Campanella said, “some of the versions are what we think are excruciatingly slow for us. Maybe they are amazing versions for musicians, for the experts, [but] they’re not conducive to the physical movement part of it.”

For tickets to The 9th, visit chutzpahfestival.com.

Gotta Sing! marks 25

Simone Osborne, left, Tiffany Rivera and Matthew Rossoff are just three of the alumni who will help Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance! celebrate on Nov. 10 at the Rothstein Theatre. (photos from the artists)

“I never thought that Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance! would be so popular and I certainly didn’t think that I would still be involved 25 years later. I love these kids and being involved!” Perry Ehrlich told the Independent.

Ehrlich created the musical theatre summer camp at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver in 1995. Its first quarter-century will be celebrated at the Rothstein Theatre Nov. 10, with 3:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. shows, as part of this year’s Chutzpah! Festival.

“The two shows,” said Ehrlich, “feature opera sensation Simone Osborne, currently living in Germany, who was the youngest winner of the Metropolitan Opera theatre auditions; Matthew Rossoff, from New York and Toronto, who was dance captain for Jesus Christ Superstar on Broadway; Tiffany Rivera, a pop, jazz and soul singer; faculty members Advah Soudack, who just toured Canada in the hit play Glory, and Meghan Anderssen, star of Annie Get Your Gun and Thoroughly Modern Millie at Theatre Under the Stars); my daughter, Lisa Ehrlich Kesselman, winner of the PNE Star Discovery and National Youth Talent Search; Erik Ioannidis, star of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat [at Theatre Under the Stars]; vocalist Andrew Robb; singer and bassist Benjamin Millman; and, of course, my ShowStoppers troupe, who performed with Eric Church and Barry Manilow at Rogers Arena, with the legendary troupe Foreigner at Hard Rock Casino Theatre, [on] Canada Day at Canada Place, [and] singing the anthems for the Canucks and at the PNE.

“Everyone – and I mean everyone, including the kids who will narrate the shows – participated in Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance! in the past. And Wendy Bross Stuart will be on stage with them!”

Since Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance! began, Erhlich said “four things have changed.

“One, the kids are now older. In year one, we accepted 6-year-olds. Now, the youngest are 9 or 10 and over 70% are in high school.

“Two, the curriculum for Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance! has become more intensive each year; the levels of singing, dancing and acting is at an all-time high.

“Three, there has been a great social dynamic among the kids that has increased over the years. I hear over and over again that kids have met lifelong friends at Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance!

“And, four, I am thrilled by the number of non-Jewish kids who participate in the program and love being at the JCC. In early years, I had to explain security and what it means to be Jewish. No more.”

For tickets to the 25th anniversary tribute and other Chutzpah! shows, visit chutzpahfestival.com.

The future requires chutzpah

Inbal Arieli recently published the book Chutzpah: Why Israel is a Hub of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. (photo by Micha Loubaton)

Inbal Arieli has always been fascinated by what motivates and drives people, as well as what blocks their paths. “Throughout my career, which was mainly as a business executive, I always kept an eye on the human factor,” Arieli told the Independent. “And so, the businesses I started were somehow all related to that.”

Arieli, who is also a lawyer, is the owner and co-chief executive officer of Israeli start-up accelerator Synthesis. The company provides leadership assessment, as well as business training and development, in Israel, Canada and the United States.

“It is about the effect of the most critical skills that I think anyone should have today,” said Arieli about her recently published book Chutzpah: Why Israel is a Hub of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. “These are, according to the World Economic Forum, the skills which are required in the future, for anyone, regardless of your profession or future position. These are basic life skills – of critical thinking, decision-making, taking on initiative, etc., etc. There’s a long list of soft skills. The book is about these skills.

“What’s still interesting to me is, when looking at these skills, thinking about the future – the future of my kids, the future of the entrepreneurs here in Israel, the future of the job market in the world – about how can one practise these skills.

“The book shows the journey of a typical Israeli child from a very young age, as young as 3 or 4, until after military [age], young adult.”

In Chutzpah, Arieli shows how, in the five stages of childhood – infancy, childhood, adolescence, military service and then the big trip after the military – Israeli culture and society have produced principles, a framework and settings to foster these skills.

The book is not about Israel in and of itself. It is designed to help readers develop their own set of skills using the Israeli experience as an analogy.

Chutzpah (audacity), an ingrained trait, is very much nurtured in Israeli kids from a young age, said Arieli.

“From a very young age, chutzpah comes into play everywhere and anywhere,” she said. “Most of those skills, Israeli education and mindset … I think of them like muscles we all possess … only here, in Israel, we have access to the best gyms to practise these muscles.

“When you play at the playground, at age 3 or 4, the fact that you stand for your own opinion and find your own way of using the slide – an example I give in the book – that, in a sense, is a little bit of chutzpah. You don’t necessarily follow guidelines or practices. You bring your own personality [into your decisions and actions] at a very, very young age. So, it starts then, and then it fills up as we grow up here.”

Arieli sees Israeli society as being very open to giving freedom to everyone’s chutzpah – encouraging kids to exercise their chutzpah muscle, to be risk-takers, to stand out from the crowd, encouraging individualism along with a strong sense of collectivism. “Definitely, the framework that exists here, the environment, so many social structures are helping the muscles to remain developed and strong,” she said.

Chutzpah can be viewed as either negative or positive, and can be used in a positive or negative way. In Hebrew, one can differentiate between the two, depending on where the accent is placed. Arieli does not think it is important to differentiate between the two concepts of chutzpah. Rather, she contends that, just like any other muscle, the use of it needs to be calculated.

“Chutzpah is not a button you can press on or off,” she said. “It’s a mindset. In the context of innovation or entrepreneurship, I think it’s a very positive thing. And so are the other skills, ideas or principles spoken about in the book. I think it’s all a matter of finding the right balance between using them or not using them, and when to use them. What’s right for certain stages is less relevant for other stages.

“More than anything, I think it’s the combination of having these skills along with other skills is what’s optimal. But, I also think it’s very challenging to create an innovative society or an innovative team or group of people without allowing them to have a little bit of chutzpah.”

According to Arieli, just teaching kids how to work in today’s job market is a recipe for failure, as we have little knowledge of what work will even look like in their generation. The one and only thing we know for sure is that the future job market is uncertain. As such, the only way to prepare children is to equip them with the ability to be highly innovative and creative thinkers, capable of taking on initiatives by shaking things up and changing things.

“I wish for my kids that they will have as much chutzpah as possible when thinking about their future,” said Arieli. “They’ll have to reinvent themselves during their career several times and I want them to be proactive in that.”

Another trait Arieli talks about in Chutzpah is balagan (mess or chaos).

“Anyone who has visited Israel knows what I’m talking about – be it traffic, on the playground, in restaurants – everything is really chaotic here,” said Arieli. “But, that chaos, balagan, propels us toward new order, allowing us to rise every time from that balagan.”

Another factor Arieli discusses in her book is teamwork and “how Israeli society, while sometimes divided, at its core, has a galvanizing mechanism rooted in survival, through our culture … what we endured as a people and our mandatory army service … all of which unite us like no other nation on earth.”

For more information about Arieli or her book, visit inbalarieli.com.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Chutzpah! hosts Bernhard

Sandra Bernhard is at the Vogue on Halloween night, as part of the Chutzpah! Festival. (photo by Brian Ziegler)

“When I was a little kid, I had three older brothers and I got a lot of attention for being cute and funny, and I’ve always had an ability to comment on situations as they unfolded in front of me,” said veteran performer Sandra Bernhard in a phone interview with the Jewish Independent. “I think that’s what kept it going all these years – I find it entirely hilarious when you’re in the middle of something and you’re able to pull it apart and bring the most humour out of it, or the most outrage, and that’s always been the most interesting part of what I do.”

Bernhard is bringing her critically acclaimed show Quick Sand to the Vogue Theatre on Oct. 31 as part of the Chutzpah! Festival, which runs Oct. 24-Nov. 24. The comedian, actor, author and radio host is known for her outspokenness. She said it’s second nature for her to say what’s on her mind. “By being funny and being a character, which I’ve always been,” she said, “that gave me the access to say things that other people wouldn’t say necessarily, or that wouldn’t be heard.”

Bernhard’s daily radio show, Sandyland, which is on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy channel (created by Andy Cohen), earned her a Gracie Award, an honour given by the Alliance for Women in Media to “recognize exemplary programming created by women, for women and about women in all facets of media and entertainment.” Bernhard also stars as Nurse Judy in the award-winning, boundary-pushing show Pose on FX Networks, about “the legends, icons and ferocious house mothers of New York’s underground ball culture, a movement that first gained notice in the 1980s.”

Bernhard has countless film and television credits, has created and performed several one-woman shows, recorded a few albums and performed with or opened for many artists. She also has written three books.

While she knew from a young age that she wanted to be a performer, it wasn’t until her late teens that the goal started to become a reality.

“I moved to L.A. in the mid-’70s, when I was 18, 19,” she said. “I became a manicurist in Beverly Hills, so I had a day gig, but I didn’t really know how I was going to jump into the waters, because I also wanted to be a singer. I really wanted to be an entertainer, the whole package.

“And then I met up with a group of friends and they thought I was hysterical and then there was this woman I met who, I did her nails and she was a cabaret singer and she would go to the open mic nights and she said, ‘You’re really funny. I know you want to sing, but put your material together and I’ll take you to these open mic nights.’ She took me to one and then I met my friend Paul Mooney and my friend Lotus Weinstock the first night I got up and they took me under their wings. And that’s how I started – I literally fell into it, because I was a natural, and then I started doing the hard work, which was getting up night after night after night to do my act, and I honed my act and the material and then, eventually, I got good at it.”

One of the reasons she remains popular and her material fresh is because she keeps working at it, “finding different ways into it. For me,” she said, “the most important thing is being as authentic as I can, year to year, day to day, because you do change, you evolve as a person, you want to peel the layers of the onion away and get deeper into your core as an artist, as a performer, and I think that’s what continues to inspire you and make you a better performer.”

Describing her style as “edgy, funny, strong, no nonsense, but funny nonsense,” she said, “I don’t feel like I have to really temper anything because you shed your skin as you go along, and certain things just don’t work anymore.”

Born in Flint, Mich., and raised in Scottsdale, Ariz., Bernhard was bat mitzvahed, but, she said, “My father, I don’t think he related to being Jewish much at all, except maybe culturally, and my grandparents – my grandfather went to shul every day but I think that was a little bit later in life. When he came over here from Russia, everybody was busy trying to make a living. And, of course, people ended up in some small towns here and there, and you didn’t always have time for your religion and your traditions.”

Nonetheless, Bernhard said, “I find a certain amount of meditative escape just going to Shabbat and hearing the music and the songs I grew up with, and I like the community. Whether it’s the High Holidays or staying for kiddush and eating a bowl of cholent, there’s something very visceral about it. It connects me with who I was as a kid and my grandparents…. There’s all that emotion, it’s vivid and visceral and it’s just a nice place to calm down and go into and have a little bit of a break from the day to day.”

Saying that she’s “thrilled to be coming back to Vancouver,” Bernhard said the Oct. 31 performance will be “a fun night.” Accompanied by the Sandyland Squad Band, she will combine music, comedy and social commentary in Quick Sand, which, she said, offers “endless amounts of room” for her to go off script.

“I’m always prepared to jump off if something happens or inspires me or the thought process, my mind, and that’s the way it’s always been for me,” she said. “But I also have very set pieces that you want to be able to fall back on and have that continuity to the show, so that you’re not standing up there just talking about a bunch of silliness. I want people to walk away having been entertained.”

For tickets to Bernhard and other Chutzpah! shows, visit chutzpahfestival.com.