Skip to content

  • Home
  • Subscribe / donate
  • Events calendar
  • News
    • Local
    • National
    • Israel
    • World
    • עניין בחדשות
      A roundup of news in Canada and further afield, in Hebrew.
  • Opinion
    • From the JI
    • Op-Ed
  • Arts & Culture
    • Performing Arts
    • Music
    • Books
    • Visual Arts
    • TV & Film
  • Life
    • Celebrating the Holidays
    • Travel
    • The Daily Snooze
      Cartoons by Jacob Samuel
    • Mystery Photo
      Help the JI and JMABC fill in the gaps in our archives.
  • Community Links
    • Organizations, Etc.
    • Other News Sources & Blogs
    • Business Directory
  • FAQ
  • JI Chai Celebration
  • JI@88! video
Scribe Quarterly arrives - big box

Search

Follow @JewishIndie

Recent Posts

  • Enjoy the best of Broadway
  • Jewish students staying strong
  • An uplifting moment
  • Our Jewish-Canadian identity
  • Life amid 12-Day War
  • Trying to counter hate
  • Omnitsky’s new place
  • Two visions that complement
  • A melting pot of styles
  • Library a rare public space
  • TUTS debut for Newman
  • Harper to speak here
  • A night of impact, generosity
  • Event raises spirit, support
  • BC celebrates Shavuot
  • Ex-pats make good in Israel
  • Love and learning 
  • From the JI archives … yum
  • “Royal” mango avocado salsa
  • מחכים למשיח
  • Arab Zionist recalls journey
  • Bringing joy to people
  • Doing “the dirty work”
  • JI editorials win twice!
  • Workshops, shows & more
  • Jerusalem a multifaceted hub
  • Israel and international law
  • New tractor celebrated
  • Pacific JNF 2025 Negev Event
  • Putting allyship into action
  • Na’amat Canada marks 100
  • JWest questions answered
  • A family of storytellers
  • Parshat Shelach Lecha
  • Seeing the divine in others
  • Deborah Wilde makes magic

Archives

Tag: Sue Cohene

A tour with extra pep

A tour with extra pep

Elana Wenner (with folder) leads the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia walking tour of Jewish Strathcona. (photo from JMABC)

Having taken the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia’s tour of Jewish Strathcona, I know firsthand how interesting and worthwhile it is. This summer, there will be a little more swing to the July 27 tour – Kol Halev Performance Society will once again take part, but in an expanded role.

“Kol Halev has created a script for theatrical additions to the tour, along with musical components. Actors in full period costume will accompany the group and act out key scenes from the stories told along the way,” Elana Wenner, director of programming and development at the museum, told the Independent. “A full musical dance number is included as well, along with a reenactment of a wedding that mirrors cultural traditions from the past.”

Wenner got in touch with Sue Cohene, co-founder and current president of Kol Halev, after having taken some theatrical tours produced by other museums in the city and elsewhere.

“In the past,” said Wenner, “Kol Halev has put on productions based on BC Jewish history in conjunction with JMABC, before I worked here.”

“Kol Halev has been involved with the Jewish Museum since 2006, performing at their various galas and special events over the years,” Cohene explained. “In 2017, the museum created a photographic exhibit, shown alongside Kol Halev’s historically based play, Two Views from the Sylvia, which was presented at the Waterfront Theatre.

“Kol Halev Performance Society and the Jewish Museum and Archives have a long-standing collaboration and we update the museum on a regular basis about our shows, community teachings and future plans.”

A couple of years ago, said Cohene, Marcy Babins, interim executive director of the museum, suggested that she meet with Wenner, then the newly appointed director of programming and development, to discuss possible joint ventures.

“Connecting with Elana has been like carrying on a family tradition,” said Cohene. “Elana’s grandmother, Irene Dodek, was instrumental, along with Dr. Rabbi Yosef Wosk, in bringing Kol Halev on board to provide entertainment and theatrical historical education for Jewish Museum projects. Elana’s mother, Dr. Gail Wenner, has danced with Kol Halev and continues to share her creativity by creating historically influenced hats for our performers.”

Last summer, Kol Halev added a Yiddish dance performance to complement one of Wenner’s Jewish Strathcona walking tours. This summer, actors from the performance group will portray early Jewish community leaders during the tour, in addition to weaving in some traditional dance pieces.

Cathy Moss, one of Kol Halev’s main writers since the group was established, worked with the research provided by Wenner to create a script.

“Elana shared the tour route and basic information about Strathcona historical community leaders from the early 1900s to the 1940s,” said Cohene. “She kindly led Kol Halev on the tour, where we all looked at locations that could accommodate acting and dancing.”

“Elana did a great job compiling the research on the area,” said Moss. “Once I took the tour, it was easy to see what a compelling cast of characters inhabited Strathcona in the early days. It was fun to write dialogue for such interesting and lively folks.”

Moss relied on the museum’s material for each location along the tour, writing the dialogue for the characters based on the biographical details and context Wenner provided.

“The tour is great and informative on its own,” said Moss. “I would add that inviting Kol Halev to be part of it was an excellent idea. It adds another dimension that makes the experience that much more enjoyable. The wedding dance in particular will be appreciated by the tour-takers. It’s very entertaining.”

photo - Kol Halev rehearses the Patsh dance, choreographed by Santa Aloi. The group will dance and act in the July 27 JMABC Strathcona walking tour
Kol Halev rehearses the Patsh dance, choreographed by Santa Aloi. The group will dance and act in the July 27 JMABC Strathcona walking tour. (photo by Adam Abrams)

Kol Halev has several on-site rehearsals planned before the shows in which they’re participating – the July 27 public tour and a private tour in late June – “particularly to familiarize dancers and actors who were not involved last year,” said Cohene.

“We will have between eight and 10 dancers this summer and a few actors,” she said. “It’s a small working production that has room to grow.”

Cohene will be part of the performances.

“I’ll be playing a mother-in-law role in the 1940s wedding dance, which was choreographed by Tamara Thompson Levi,” she said. “I’ll also tap dance in the Yiddish Patsh dance choreographed by Santa Aloi.”

Wenner leads the Strathcona walking tours.

“This tour is a journey through the footsteps and choices made by the first community leaders in Vancouver,” she said. “It follows in the footsteps of community-building, highlighting the institutions and people who laid the groundwork for today’s thriving Jewish Vancouver institutions. Along the way, we see buildings that held components of the first Jewish community organizations, as well as the homes of some of the first leaders. We also explore the ideas of what Jewish community requires in general, and what it was like to live as a Jew in this part of the world at the turn of the last century. The tour is a synthesis of past and present, weaving together the origins and future of Vancouver’s Jewish community.”

The Jewish Museum has four different walking tours on offer this summer. In addition to the Strathcona neighbourhood tours led by Wenner on July 13 and 27, Aug. 10 and 24, Daniella Givon leads tours of the Mountain View Jewish Cemetery on July 6 and Aug. 10. In Victoria, Amber Woods leads both the Downtown (July 6 and Aug. 10) and Jewish cemetery (July 20 and Aug. 24) tours. All the walks start at 10:30 a.m. For tickets, visit jewishmuseum.ca, email [email protected] or call 604-257-5199. 

Format ImagePosted on June 13, 2025June 12, 2025Author Cynthia RamsayCategories LocalTags acting, Cathy Moss, dance, Elana Wenner, history, Jewish Museum and Archives of BC, JMABC, Kol Halev, Strathcona, Sue Cohene
Stories from the Sylvia Hotel

Stories from the Sylvia Hotel

Left to right: Advah Soudack, Tom Pickett and Adam Abrams co-star in Two Views from the Sylvia, playing at the Waterfront Theatre Nov. 8-12. (photo from Kol Halev)

“For me, the ‘coolest’ thing is Sylvia herself,” Advah Soudack told the Independent. “From everything I have read and heard, she was a dynamite of a woman – fiery, passionate and full of life. The woman lived until 102, for goodness sake, and did so with a heart murmur that caused much concern for doctors and her parents when she was young. I like the story of how she met her husband, Harry. The two were on a Jewish singles cruise and, when Harry witnessed Sylvia dive enthusiastically off the side of the boat, he knew in that moment that she was the gal for him. I only wish Sylvia was alive to see the show.”

Soudack takes on the role of Sylvia Ablowitz, née Goldstein, whose father, Abraham, built the Sylvia Hotel and named it after his daughter. The family’s story and stories about the renowned establishment in English Bay are depicted in Two Views from the Sylvia, which is being presented by Kol Halev Performance Society Nov. 8-12 at the Waterfront Theatre.

“This is the most ambitious show Kol Halev has produced, and their first as a registered society. But it fits perfectly into their mandate to tell stories of Jewish history and local Vancouver history, with music, song and performance, in an engaging and entertaining way,” said Adam Abrams, who plays Abraham in the production, and is also vice-president of Kol Halev. “I’m so excited to be a part of it,” he said.

Two Views from the Sylvia is comprised of two original one-act plays. Its genesis can be traced back some four years, to a Jewish psychology network meeting attended by Kol Halev president Sue Cohene and Ablowitz’s great-niece, Marsha Ablowitz, who pitched the story of her famous great-aunt to Cohene. In mid-2013, members of Kol Halev met with Marsha Ablowitz and her mother, Sally Seidler, who is now 99 years old.

By August 2013, Joan Stuchner had drafted the first two pages of a play. A few months later, Deborah Vogt joined the writing team, with she and Abrams assisting Stuchner. Sadly, Stuchner died in June 2014 of pancreatic cancer and Vogt had to complete the script without her.

Vogt’s one-act play, Sylvia’s Hotel, with music by Britt MacLeod and Kerry O’Donovan, lyrics by MacLeod, is set in 1912, and focuses on the origins of the hotel and on the Ablowitz-Goldstein family. “Both young Sylvia Goldstein and Joe Fortes, the beloved lifeguard who taught Vancouver children to swim, experience the challenges of those who didn’t quite ‘belong’ in the Vancouver of the time,” notes the promotional material. It forms Act 1 of Two Views from the Sylvia.

Act 2, called The Hotel Sylvia, is by Cathy Moss and Kelsey Blair. It focuses on the period after the building of the hotel, and “we meet the characters whose lives and loves became interwoven with the story of the Sylvia over her 100-year history.”

In Act 1, most of the characters are based on real people, members of the Goldstein family and Fortes. In Act 2, most of the characters are composites of more than one person or story, notably the character of Franny, who is a nod to a longtime Sylvia employee.

“Several of the stories told in this one act play are the stories as told to Cathy Moss and me by Huguette Gingras, who was the front-desk clerk at the Sylvia Hotel for 35 years,” said Cohene.

Tom Pickett, who plays Fortes in Act 1, plays the character of John in Act 2. “Though John is an independent character, he cares about the Sylvia the way Joe cares about the kids and English Bay so, in my mind, I imbue a hint of John with a bit of Joe and maybe vice versa,” said the actor.

Pickett – who said he has played Fortes a few times before – was immediately on board when he heard that Christopher King was the director and Shelly Stewart Hunt was the choreographer of the production. “Then I had the pleasure of talking with Sue Cohene on the phone and the connection was instantaneous,” he told the Independent. “And then, as we began rehearsals, the artistic opportunities to honour a Vancouver landmark like the Sylvia and represent a historical figure like Joe Fortes deepened. I think many people know of the Sylvia but don’t know a lot about the Sylvia. I’ve done a gospel concert at the Sylvia, my wife’s cousin from Montreal always stays at the Sylvia, my mechanic, the teller at my bank, the list goes on.”

“It seems that everyone has a story or a connection to the Sylvia,” agreed Abrams, “so it’s exciting to be telling a story about something so iconic, that means so much to people in Vancouver. And though I’m thrilled to have a great role, I’ve been mostly just impressed with what everyone else is bringing to it. There are some really beautiful moments both visually and dramatically, and some wonderful music, too. I think people are going to leave the theatre humming the title theme, ‘At the Sylvia’!”

About his character in Act 1, Abrams said, “Abe is someone who wants more than just personal success, he really wants to make his city a better place and feels the hotel will help achieve that. He’s also proud of his Jewish heritage and wants to show what his people can accomplish – despite facing a lot of the prejudice that was so common at that time.”

In Act 2, Abrams plays Mr. Lowry, “the manager of the present-day Sylvia, [who] is trying out Franny for the front-desk job to see how she does. He just shows up a couple of times, but I’m finding a lot of little moments of humour in his appearances.”

In preparing for the show, Soudack met with Marsha Ablowitz. “I not only flipped through piles of photos and heard stories,” said Soudack, “but also held Sylvia’s hairbrush, mirror and curling iron with her initials gracefully engraved on them in my hands. If the audience is paying close attention, they may even catch a glimpse of these artifacts in the show.”

While Sylvia appears in Act 1, she is only talked about in Act 2. In the second half of the production, Soudack plays Nora, who appears, said Soudack, “as a flashback to the Sylvia during the Second World War.”

“She is an interesting character, not only because of her independent nature, but also because of the times in which she would exercise this independence,” said the actor. “Nora, as explained by her daughter Gloria in Act 2, would visit the Sylvia twice a year. Gloria mentions that her mother, Nora, would come to write in her journal. She made a routine of it and even wore the same blue dress…. It turns out that she didn’t always come to write in her journal, she would also come to the Sylvia to dance.

“For me,” said Soudack, “Nora is an intriguing character to play because there has to be a reason why she came to the Sylvia and did so year after year. In the script, she talks about ‘taking a night off from everything.’ She mentions things about the war, headlines, air-raid precautions, however, as the actress, I choose to dig deeper and find what else she is ‘escaping’ from and taking the night off from…. There is a pure innocence to Nora going to the Sylvia twice a year to write in her journal and dance, but is there also an alter ego or an alternate life she desperately wants to explore?”

Other Jewish community members in the cast are Anna-Mae Wiesenthal and Joyce Gordon, while Heather Martin is associate producer and Gwen Epstein is on the production team. The Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia has created a photo exhibit, which will be on display at the theatre.

“Lots of things are very exciting,” said Cohene, “like watching amazingly creative choreography being developed on the spot. Hearing beautiful singing by the cast makes me want to sing along. I don’t – I am the producer and need to remember my role.

“I hope that people who come to the show are aware that we are a community theatre group. We are so fortunate to have the wonderful participation of two professional actors,” she said, referring to Pickett and Soudack, “who work alongside our very talented group of emerging actors. Kol Halev strives to be inclusive, accommodating performers of all ages, backgrounds and levels of experience. We aim to offer the opportunity to learn and create, in all aspects of our production. I’m hoping that this value is appreciated when the public sees the show.”

For tickets ($28) – and a chance to win free ones with your story of the Sylvia – visit kolhalev.ca.

Format ImagePosted on October 27, 2017October 25, 2017Author Cynthia RamsayCategories Performing ArtsTags Adam Abrams, Advah Soudack, Joe Fortes, Kol Halev, musical theatre, Sue Cohene, Sylvia Ablowitz, Sylvia Hotel, Tom Pickett, Vancouver
Proudly powered by WordPress