The Kinsey Sicks. Photo: AJN file

LEXI LANDSMAN

BEFORE Irwin Keller stands on the bimah as spiritual leader of Congregation Ner Shalom, he prays, but not in the conventional sense.

“I just always pray before services that I’m not really exhausted and confused,” he jokes from California, referring to not mixing up his tallit with his sequinned frock.

It’s not what one would ordinarily think of before entering a synagogue, but there is nothing that ordinary about Keller.

By day, he leads the congregation, but by night he is a professional drag queen and one of the founding members of the Jewish-flavoured Dragapella Beauty Shop Quartet – Kinsey Sicks.

While his two vocations might seem like an unusual mix, Keller says it was his experience as a drag queen that led him to become a queen of the Sabbath.
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Josh Piterman (centre) and cast members from the new Australian production of West Side Story. Photo: Ingrid Shakenovsky

CHANTAL ABITBOL

PERFORMER Josh Piterman may be a good Jewish boy from the right side of the tracks, but he’ll soon be playing it tough when he stars as Tony in the upcoming Australian revival of the Leonard Bernstein classic, West Side Story.

On Monday, the rising star showed a glimpse of the towering vocals that landed him the part, when the musical’s director announced the young cast at Star City’s Lyric Theatre in Sydney.

It’s a quite a coup for the Melbourne-bred singer who, at the age of 24, will be headlining his first major musical production.

“It’s been my dream role since I can remember,” he told The AJN. “It’s musical theatre’s Romeo. I feel like the luckiest guy ever.”

The musical – set in New York in the 1950s and based on Shakespeare’s tale of two star-crossed lovers – will kick off a six-week run in Sydney on July 1. The production will then make its way to Melbourne, opening at the Regent Theatre from August 20, before embarking on a tour of the rest of the country.
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Deborah Leiser-Moore in Cordelia Mine Kind.

DALIA SABLE

IT is set to be a big week for performer Deborah Leiser-Moore. Teaming up with Melbourne theatre venue fortyfivedownstairs, Leiser-Moore’s production company Tashmadada will co-host the second annual five-day Searchlight Festival for which she will perform a play that she also developed, co-wrote and for which she produced video elements.

“It’s exciting because there is a really amazing mix of artists coming together for the festival,” Leiser-Moore says in a brief moment of calm. “It is because of the success of last year that we decided to do it again.”

Leiser-Moore will stage her work, Cordelia Mine Kind on Sunday, February 21. Comprising live performance and video, the play draws on Shakespeare’s King Lear, as well as a lesser-known Yiddish version.

It shows the relationship between father and daughter, in this instance an ageing Holocaust survivor and a modern-day version of Shakespeare’s Cordelia, represented by Leiser-Moore herself.
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The cast of Chicago. Photo: Jeff Busby

LEADING members of the arts community tell LEXI LANDSMAN about their favourite stage shows of 2009.

Jonny Pasvolsky

Actor

THE Wonderful World Of Dissocia was the surprise package of the year for me. The most vivid of imaginative worlds whacked you over the head with light, sound, song and colour in the first act of this two-act play. Justine Clarke allowed us into her childlike realm of experience, one where Alice in Wonderland, Dorothy and Edward Scissorhands could all play together.

Director Marion Potts displayed her wild imagination with two severely contrasting acts, which illustrated the emotional turmoil that often blurs the line between illness and imagination. This was an excellent direction for the Sydney Theatre Company (STC) to take in entering into a more relevant realm of plays.
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Last year’s Kosher Theatresports winners … (from left) Heather Brandon, Dave Bloustien and Matt Foster. Photo: Stephen Reichardt

CHANTAL ABITBOL

START with a Shabbat dinner skit performed in the style of a Shakespearean play. Quickly cut to a scene depicting a spoof operatic bat mitzvah. Then switch gears again to hear a love-song send-up between a liberal and a Chassid.

Anything is possible when it comes to Kosher Theatresports (KTS), Sydney’s long-running Jewish comedy improvisational game show that is set to return to Bondi Pavilion Theatre on Sunday, December 6.

Under such irreverent monikers as “Shmux in Tux” and “Red Hot Chilli Shleppers”, teams of comic actors compete, creating impromptu poems, songs, plays and stories – all inspired by audience suggestions and flaunting their own unique brand of shtick.

But it’s not about winning, says returning champion and comedy writer for Good News Week Dave Bloustien.
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Cabaret performer Reuben Krum

AJN STAFF

CABARET performer Reuben Krum will step away from his usual brand of upfront comedy for a music-driven performance that he says “drowns sorrows and toasts [to] life”.

Titled Reuben Krum Going to the Dogs, the show will be performed in Melbourne at St Kilda’s Dog’s Bar on November 25.

“All the other shows have gone out of their way to be continuously funny. This show is more mainstream,” Krum says.

“It’s got swing and jazz and it’s more relaxed. It’s blending a live music gig with comedy cabaret.

“Sometimes I think I talk too much, so I’ve decided to shut up and sing this time,” he jokes.
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From left: Rachel Elberg, Rachel Pinczower, Romi Freeman, Mikhaela Musat and Ruth Zimmerman in New York’s Times Square.

DALIA SABLE

JEWISH educational theatre company Honey Apple Productions’ 2008 tour of the Big Apple has certainly proved fruitful for the emerging performers -– the group has just been awarded an Australian Trade Commission (Austrade) grant valued at $21,000.

During its three-week trip last December, Honey Apple’s performance troupe, the Meid’ls, staged shows for more than 3000 young students in the New York tri-state area, including 17 schools in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Long Island, Queens and New Jersey.

So impressive were the performances that future tours have been requested, with interest also coming from as far as Chicago, Los Angeles and Toronto.

Honey Apple Productions founder and director Ruth Zimmerman said: “I was very excited to receive the grant. It felt like a real milestone and an indication of our growth.

“It was also very satisfying to see all the hard work that had gone into organising the Meid’ls’ US tour acknowledged. Both the grant and the tremendous response we received from our audience in the US will enable Honey Apple Productions to continue expanding its market overseas.”
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John O’Hare (left) and Patrick Dickson in Address Unknown. Photo: Dan Lumenthal

THEATRE REVIEW: ADDRESS UNKNOWN
REVIEWED BY LEXI LANDSMAN

ADRESSAT unbekannt were the two foreboding German words used during the war years to indicate that the addressee could not be found.

When letters were returned to sender, stamped in bold red ink, it often came as a portent signal that the addressee had met a grave fate.

It is a most apt title then of the term’s English translation for Jewish South-African born Moira Blumenthal’s production, Address Unknown, which is currently being staged at the Seymour Centre in Sydney.

Based on the novella first published in 1938 of the same name written by Katherine Kressman Taylor, the play is set in 1932 and chronicles the friendship between two business partners in a San Francisco gallery.
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Acclaimed soprano Antoinette Halloran plays the title role of Floria Tosca in Melourne Opera's Tosca.

OPERA REVIEW: TOSCA

REVIEWED BY JASON STEVENS

THERE are a few things that I do not want to hear when I go to the opera: tenors that crack, overblown orchestras that drown out the singers and English (unless, of course, it’s written in English).

Unfortunately, I heard all of these things on the opening night of Melbourne Opera’s production of Puccini’s Tosca.

Set in Napoleonic Rome, Tosca features two of Puccini’s most passionate tenor arias Strange Harmony of Contrasts and The Stars Were Brightly Shining as well as the famous soprano aria Vissi d’arte.

Tosca is a big biscuit to chew for any opera company. It is a huge role for the lead soprano (the only female role in the whole production), it has a number of very well-known arias and a long history of performances by some of the most renowned singers in recent history.

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Matt Hetherington stars in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

DANNY GOCS

THE final show by Jeanne Pratt’s Production Company for this year is the comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels starring Marina Prior, Matt Hetherington and Bille Brown which premieres at the State Theatre, Victorian Arts Centre, on September 30.

Bille Brown has taken over the role of suave sophisticated conman Lawrence Jameson from Simon Burke, who is heading to London to star as George in the West End production of La Cage aux Folles.

Based on the 1988 film, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is the story of two con artists living on the French Riviera.

Jameson talks rich women out of their money while small-time crook Freddy Benson (Hetherington) swindles them with tall tales of heroic deeds and sick grandmothers.

When these two meet they realise that the French Riviera isn’t big enough for the both of them and decide that the first one to swindle $50,000 from heiress Christine Colgate (Amy Lehpamer) can stay and the loser must leave town.
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