Jewish Theatre of Oklahoma fights antisemitism with storytelling: What you need to know

A fledgling Oklahoma City theater company is continuing its mission of fighting hate one story at a time.

"Our mission is ... to present Jewish plays and Israeli plays and playwrights and show Jewish culture and thought to our Jewish audience — and also to a wider multicultural audience," said Roberta Sloan, founder and artistic director of Jewish Theatre of Oklahoma.

Jewish Theatre of Oklahoma is launching its new season amid rising antisemitic activity

Jewish Theatre of Oklahoma is launching its third in-person season — the four shows of its inaugural season were performed virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic — as the Anti-Defamation League is reporting the highest levels of antisemitic activity since it started keeping records in 1979.

The New York-based organization reported in March that antisemitic incidents surged to historic levels in 2022, with 3,697 incidents reported across the United States, an increase of 36 percent compared to 2021, another record-setting year and part of a five-year upward trend of hate directed against the American Jewish community.

"The Jewish community knows about us and has been responsive, but we want to reach out farther into the multicultural community that we live in," Sloan said.

"When we did 'A Radical Friendship,' which is a discussion between Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel — it just went off really well. ... Over half of our audience was African American. I think it makes a difference."

Jewish Theatre of Oklahoma will perform each of its five 2023-2024 shows in a different venue, with titles including the stage version of a best-selling memoir, the first Broadway musical from a theater icon and the Sooner State debut of a one-woman show about life, death and a Jell-O mold.

For tickets, go to https://jewishtheatreok.org.

Here are the shows planned for Jewish Theatre of Oklahoma's new season:

'Tuesdays with Morrie'

When: 8 p.m. Sept. 9 and 2 p.m. Sept. 10.

Where: Poteet Theatre at St. Luke’s Methodist Church, 222 NW 15.

Jeffrey Hatcher and Mitch Albom penned the stage version of Albom's best-selling 1997 memoir of the same name. Then a career-driven sportswriter, Albom wrote "Tuesdays with Morrie" about a series of visits he made to Morrie Schwartz, one of his former college professors, after learning his one-time teacher was dying of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease).

The book has sold in excess of 17 million copies in more than 50 editions around the world and was made into an Emmy-winning 1999 television movie.

Jewish Theatre of Oklahoma specializes in readers theater, in which actors perform dramatic readings of plays with minimal costumes, props and scenery, and "Tuesdays with Morrie" will be presented in this style. The production will star local professional actors Ford Austin as Albom and Hal Kohlman as Morrie.

"Tuesdays with Morrie" is part of a two-show exchange between Jewish Theatre of Oklahoma and Poteet Theatre: Sloan will work as a cultural consultant on Poteet's March 8-17, 2024, production of "Fiddler on the Roof."

'Under the Jello Mold'

When: 8 p.m. Nov. 4 and 2 p.m. Nov. 5. 

Where: Rodeo Cinema in Stockyards City, 2221 Exchange Ave.

A New York native now based in Los Angeles, writer, actor and mother Jennie Fahn will perform the Oklahoma premiere of her award-winning one-woman show as the second title on Jewish Theatre of Oklahoma's 2023-2024 season.

"I am really looking forward to it," Fahn told The Oklahoman. "I've not been to Oklahoma City, so I'm looking forward just to coming and seeing your beautiful city as well."

Fahn debuted "Under the Jello Mold" at the 2017 Hollywood Fringe Festival, where it won Best Solo Performance, a Producer’s Encore Award and was named Pick of the Fringe. She penned the show after her mother's death in 2012.

"There's no actual Jell-O in it. But I will say it's a show that crosses lots of lines. I have not met a person yet who can't find something they relate to in it. Yes, it's about my Jewish mom, but I've performed this show for all colors, races, demographics," Fahn said.

'Meaningless'

When: 8 p.m. Feb. 17 and 2 p.m. Feb. 18.

Where: Oklahoma City University’s Wanda L. Bass School of Music, 2501 N Blackwelder Ave.

After performing it around the country, OKC actor, director and writer Rodney Brazil is bring his mostly one-man show back home, where he previously presented it at the 2022 Theatre Crude Fringe Festival.

In "Meaningless," he stages the unedited and uncensored New Living Translation of the biblical book of Ecclesiastes in a one-act performance. Brazil adapted the Old Testament book for the stage with fellow local theater artist Emily Etherton.

"Ecclesiastes is actually a controversial book, as theologians have dozens if not hundreds of interpretations as to what it means and why it's in the Bible in the first place. But we don't get into any of that in the show. My goal isn't to tell anyone what they should think. It's just to share this amazing, fascinating story in a new way," Brazil told The Oklahoman in an email.

Jewish Theatre of Oklahoma is presenting "Meaningless" in collaboration with OCU's Neustadt Lecture Series and Wimberly School of Religion.

'Milk and Honey'

When: 8 p.m. March 8-9 and 2 p.m. March 10.

Where: UCO Jazz Lab, 100 E 5 Edmond.

"Milk and Honey" was the first Broadway musical from legendary composer and lyricist Jerry Herman, who went on to co-create iconic shows like "Hello, Dolly!" (1964), "Mame" (1966) and "La Cage aux Folles" (1983).

"When you listen to it, you can hear some of the tunes or themes that are going to show up later in his expansive career," said Sloan, whose Jewish Theatre of Oklahoma programmed last year "Jerry's Girls," a musical revue based on Herman's songs.

Featuring songs like "Shalom," "There’s No Reason in the World" and the buoyant title theme, "Milk and Honey" follows a group of American widows who travel to Israel in hopes of finding new love.

The 1961 title was nominated for six Tony Awards, including best composer for Herman and best musical. Herman, who died in 2019 at the age of 88, later became a Tony and Grammy winner, a Tony lifetime achievement award recipient and a Kennedy Center honoree.

The musical will be presented in readers theater style as part of University of Central Oklahoma’s Broadway Tonight series.

'Amsterdam'

When: 8 p.m. April 13 and 2 p.m. April 14.

Where: Oklahoma Shakespeare in the Park, 2920 Paseo.

Israeli playwright Maya Arad Yasur's award-winning drama centers on an Israeli violinist who is nine months pregnant and living in her trendy canal-side Amsterdam apartment. One day, a mysterious unpaid bill from 1944 arrives, stirring up unsettling feelings of collective identity, foreignness and alienation in her.

"It's really an interesting show," Sloan said. "This season, for the first time, we're doing a play that deals with the Holocaust. ... But it deals with the Holocaust in a very subtle way so that the impact doesn't come until the very end of the play."

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Jewish Theatre of Oklahoma to open with 'Tuesdays with Morrie'