Theatrical
Performances
“Creativity takes courage” -Henri Matisse
At The Art of Humanity, our theatrical performances explore culture, history, and the full range of human emotions.
Through powerful storytelling, we connect hearts, spark empathy, and remind audiences of our shared humanity.
Anne Being Frank
In this one woman tour de force written by Ron Elisha, the story of Anne Frank unfolds in a new and poignant manner. “In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.” Anne Frank wrote these famous words a mere three weeks before she met the people who weren’t. Would she still have written the famous line if she had known the fate her family would suffer at the hands of the Nazis? Anne Being Frank moves between three worlds. The secret annex where she and her family are in hiding, Bergen Belsen where she lives out her final days, and an unlived future in a swanky New York publishing house. Here we meet the bright, debut author who with devastating new insight into the depths of human depravity has rewritten her entire diary. On a quest to tell the truth, she crosses swords with the literati, who dearly wish to maintain the innocence of the original.
* Anne Being Frank can only be performed as a full production.
Dancing On Glass
Award winning playwright novelist Gary Morgenstern’s ripped from the headlines play, which confronts antisemitism and political bullying at a private school in Brooklyn. A Jewish teacher is fired by the progressive Jewish Board for not being “balanced enough” to continue teaching his course in Israeli- Palestinian issues. He decides to fight back. This play deals with classroom issues being faced across our country.
A post play Q&A or discussion with the playwright can be included.
Award--winning playwright Gary Morgenstein's plays have been performed throughout the United States, including Dancing on Glass, A Black and White Cookie, Walking Charlie and A Tomato Can't Grow in the Bronx. His latest work is The Silence of Our Friends. Author of seven novels, including Morgenstein's critically acclaimed dystopian trilogy ("1984 Meets Shoeless Joe") begins in 2098 after America and the West have lost World War Three to the Islamic Empire, as well as his Dark Trilogy series.
Club Gelbe Stern
Berlin in 1933 was a vibrant tapestry of art, culture and nightlife. The boundaries between pleasure and excess were often blurred. Club Gelbe Stern tell the story of Ericka Stern, the longtime star of Berlins hottest cabaret club. However, she’s also Jewish and tonight’s performance will be her last. Using German, British and American Cabaret music of the 1920’s and 30’s. Club Gelbe Stern offers a glimpse
into what it may have been like for Jewish performers in the final days of the Weimar Republic. Written by Alexis Fishman and James Millar. Performed by the award- winning Alexis Fishman.
Q&A or discussion after the performance according to your wants.
View a trailer at https://youtu.be/lnjG7T9yxZQ?feature=shared
Go Down Moses
This prophetic work by Dana Leslie Goldstein could not be more relevant to today’s issues on college campuses around our country.
It’s 1985. Ethics professor Philip Hoffman and newly appointed Dean of Students Albert Becker already have a long history. They marched side by side for civil rights, registered voters together during freedom summer, and have maintained a friendship that crosses the boundaries of race, religion and country of birth. Now they work at a small, liberal university, where part of the job is training a new crop of activists. When a star student from the South Bronx , Angela Carter, crosses the administration and invites a controversial speaker to campus, free speech becomes a battle cry, and still festering inequities become impossible to ignore.
Go Down, Moses is a 2021 Jewish Plays Project Finalist in their Regional and National Contests, as well as a semi-finalist for both the Ashland New Plays Festival and the Bay Area Playwrights Festival.
A post-performance discussion with the playwright and our moderator regarding college activism and antisemitism can be included.
Silent Tears: The Last Yiddish Tango
Through music, the project tells stories of Holocaust survivors in Canada. Much of the material is based on Dr. Paula David's Terrace Holocaust Survivor's Group Poetry Project. Others are from Molly Applebaum, a Canadian author of the diary and memoir, Buried Words, who, during her adolescent years, was buried underground in a small wooden box in a barn in Dąbrowa Tarnowska, Poland during World War II. The soundtrack to this performance has won numerous awards worldwide.
The Little Flower & The Last Dinosaur
Award winning playwright, actor and singer, Eleanor Reissa has written two complimentary solo pieces, The Last Dinosaur (or The Last One) and The Little Flower. Both pieces give life to two types of people affected by the trauma of the Holocaust.
In The Last Dinosaur, Eleanor introduces us to the last man. The very last person who was there lived it. The last survivor. The only person in the whole wide world who is still alive and remembers. (Written in the 1990's, well before this was a reality.)
In The Little Flower, the playwright tackles another type of person intimately affected by the Holocaust - the child of a survivor. Now in her 60's, what wounds and injuries have this American born daughter suffered and how has she dealt with it.
Eleanor Reissa is a Tony-nominated director, Broadway/film/television actress, prize-winning playwright, international singing artist in English and Yiddish, and former artistic director of the Folksbiene Yiddish Theater. Recent acting work includes Paula Vogel's Indecent on Broadway, HBO's The Plot Against America, FX's Dead City, and the new award German mini-series, The Zweiflers, winner at Cannes 2023, soon to begin its second season. She hosts the Fortunoff/Yale University podcast, Those Who Were There: Voices from the Holocaust.
Observant
A timely and thought-provoking play by Pamela Grayson. How can we repair the world if we don’t repair ourselves? Three generations of women in a family confront their relationships to their Jewish identities, and to each other, when a 2019 mass temple shooting rocks their suburban New York community. Comedy and tragedy entwine, as family members grapple with what it means to be a Jewish American.
Pamela Grayson is a New York City-based playwright and musical theatre writer, Pam’s award-winning shows have been seen in theatres throughout the country. Observant received a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts, was a Jewish Plays Project Semi-Finalist, and a 2024 BroadwayWorld Best New Play.