The Efrat/Gush Etzion Raise Your Spirits Summer Stock Company has done it again - for the third time, to be precise. Following its successful and popular productions of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," and then the Purim show entitled, "Esther and the Secrets in the King's Court," the all-woman cast is now putting on, "Noah! Ride the Wave!"
The play was written, produced, directed and choreographed by Sharon Katz, Toby Klein Greenwald and Arlene Chertoff, with music written by Mitch Clyman, a graduate of Boston's famed Berklee School of Music. The play is in English, with a line-by-line Hebrew translation available. The proceeds are directed, via the Gush Etzion Foundation, towards families and communities hit by terrorism.
The production of such shows was originally conceived as a morale-builder, following several terrorist murders that rocked Gush Etzion and environs. Producer Sharon Katz said at the time, "It is our gift to the women of Yesha, and in fact, all of Israel."
The musical production features Noah and his family singing of their hope to create a world of "justice, integrity, and kindness to all creatures." The Ark-bound animals put on a talent show, including a notably uproarious "hippopotamus ballet," and both animals and humans put on a "rainbow" finale, singing, "We're riding a wave to a whole new world, a world of love and harmony."
IsraelNationalRadio's Tamar Yonah attended the Sunday night performance in Alon Shvut, and came away "proud and inspired to tears." This is what she told her listeners afterwards:
"...I sat in the audience and watched this production made by women, exclusively for women - and I was just blown away. And I'm getting very emotional now, because it was not only so beautiful, but also, simply, a Kiddush Hashem - a Sanctification of G-d's Name. It was also fun... I am humbled by these women - the actors, and singers, and there were even children on stage; it was like a Broadway production, with maybe 60 women in the cast - little girls, young mothers, middle-aged women, dressed up as the Biblical characters of Noah and his sons and their wives and the animals - Oh, what costumes they had. They take a Biblical story and add songs with Rogers and Hammerstein-style lyrics - cute, and funny, and inspiring ...
"I was blown away. I had to stop myself over and over from crying, and even now I feel the same. Because I was looking at these Jewish women, and I saw so clearly the difference between them and our Arab cousins. These are women who have been suffering - from terrorism, and related financial difficulties, and the like, and yet these women are trying to make the world a better place. And they were singing songs: you'd think that they'd be singing, like the Arabs do, about blood and fire, and killing and vengeance. But no, they were singing, 'Ride a wave to a better tomorrow, to a better place, where there won't be any more cheating and injustice'...
"The difference between the Jewish women and the Arab women is that the Jews are spreading love around the world, a world that is sometimes sick, with cultures that chop off people's heads with knives that are purposely not sharpened in order to make the death longer and more cruel, and with people who dance and celebrate and give out candies when 3,000 Americans were murdered at the World Trade Center. They simply don't have the same values as the women I saw last night, who want peace and want to make the world better, while the others scream of chopping off heads and blood and fire and pushing us into the sea...
"Do you remember the Sbarro's pizzeria bombing? A murderous bombing in a pizza parlor of children and young girls and families. Afterwards, I remember how they commemorated this cause - they made a reenactment of the Sbarro's pizza parlor, like a stage set, and it was filled with blood all over the place, and torn clothes everywhere, with boots with fake legs that were blown off, and the like - and Arab women brought their children to see it! They told their children, 'Look what we did here in Sbarro's? Aren't we just the greatest people on earth?! We will liberate, and fight, and kill - because this is what they value. They value blood, and battle, and victory - not knowledge and values. Look what a contrast with what I saw last night... These women could have been singing about vengeance, about fighting all the persecution against us over all these years and centuries. Instead, we sing about hope, and values, and patriotism, and the coming of the Messiah! What a people we are! I'm so darned proud to be a part of these people, who sing and act this way, despite all the hardships, and everything that we have gone through. I'm so proud..."
The play was written, produced, directed and choreographed by Sharon Katz, Toby Klein Greenwald and Arlene Chertoff, with music written by Mitch Clyman, a graduate of Boston's famed Berklee School of Music. The play is in English, with a line-by-line Hebrew translation available. The proceeds are directed, via the Gush Etzion Foundation, towards families and communities hit by terrorism.
The production of such shows was originally conceived as a morale-builder, following several terrorist murders that rocked Gush Etzion and environs. Producer Sharon Katz said at the time, "It is our gift to the women of Yesha, and in fact, all of Israel."
The musical production features Noah and his family singing of their hope to create a world of "justice, integrity, and kindness to all creatures." The Ark-bound animals put on a talent show, including a notably uproarious "hippopotamus ballet," and both animals and humans put on a "rainbow" finale, singing, "We're riding a wave to a whole new world, a world of love and harmony."
IsraelNationalRadio's Tamar Yonah attended the Sunday night performance in Alon Shvut, and came away "proud and inspired to tears." This is what she told her listeners afterwards:
"...I sat in the audience and watched this production made by women, exclusively for women - and I was just blown away. And I'm getting very emotional now, because it was not only so beautiful, but also, simply, a Kiddush Hashem - a Sanctification of G-d's Name. It was also fun... I am humbled by these women - the actors, and singers, and there were even children on stage; it was like a Broadway production, with maybe 60 women in the cast - little girls, young mothers, middle-aged women, dressed up as the Biblical characters of Noah and his sons and their wives and the animals - Oh, what costumes they had. They take a Biblical story and add songs with Rogers and Hammerstein-style lyrics - cute, and funny, and inspiring ...
"I was blown away. I had to stop myself over and over from crying, and even now I feel the same. Because I was looking at these Jewish women, and I saw so clearly the difference between them and our Arab cousins. These are women who have been suffering - from terrorism, and related financial difficulties, and the like, and yet these women are trying to make the world a better place. And they were singing songs: you'd think that they'd be singing, like the Arabs do, about blood and fire, and killing and vengeance. But no, they were singing, 'Ride a wave to a better tomorrow, to a better place, where there won't be any more cheating and injustice'...
"The difference between the Jewish women and the Arab women is that the Jews are spreading love around the world, a world that is sometimes sick, with cultures that chop off people's heads with knives that are purposely not sharpened in order to make the death longer and more cruel, and with people who dance and celebrate and give out candies when 3,000 Americans were murdered at the World Trade Center. They simply don't have the same values as the women I saw last night, who want peace and want to make the world better, while the others scream of chopping off heads and blood and fire and pushing us into the sea...
"Do you remember the Sbarro's pizzeria bombing? A murderous bombing in a pizza parlor of children and young girls and families. Afterwards, I remember how they commemorated this cause - they made a reenactment of the Sbarro's pizza parlor, like a stage set, and it was filled with blood all over the place, and torn clothes everywhere, with boots with fake legs that were blown off, and the like - and Arab women brought their children to see it! They told their children, 'Look what we did here in Sbarro's? Aren't we just the greatest people on earth?! We will liberate, and fight, and kill - because this is what they value. They value blood, and battle, and victory - not knowledge and values. Look what a contrast with what I saw last night... These women could have been singing about vengeance, about fighting all the persecution against us over all these years and centuries. Instead, we sing about hope, and values, and patriotism, and the coming of the Messiah! What a people we are! I'm so darned proud to be a part of these people, who sing and act this way, despite all the hardships, and everything that we have gone through. I'm so proud..."