TERTAIN EN
Photos by Bob McKeown
ENTERTAINMENT
Actor Tom
Chrisopher talks
with Bob Sipher
and Gil Golden.
NEXT DOOR
An actor visits a
JARC home to
prepare for
Stagecrafters'
"The Boys
Next Door."
The actor receives lots of instructions from
the residents.
AARON HALABE
Special to The Jewish News
r
he Stagecrafters thea-
ter in Royal Oak is pre-
paring for their next
production, The Boys Next
Door.
The play describes the
struggles of four mentally
handicapped men who share
an apartment under the
supervision of a compas-
sionate, but frustrated,
counselor.
Four Stagecrafters actors
and the play's director recent-
ly visited three area group
homes administered by the
Jewish Association for
Residential Care (JARC). The
actors wanted to learn about
the residents' lifestyles and
the way they interact.
The meetings were arrang-
ed by Margorie Marks
Gluckman, who portrays
Sheila in the play. "It was
really our intention that we
not portray these people as
caricatures," says Ms. Marks
Gluckman. "We wanted to be
as sensitive to their dignity as
possible. It would be to our ad-
vantage to really get to know
the people we are portraying.
"And it turned out to be the
most wonderful evening I've
spent in a long time. It helped
me not just as an actress, but
personally it also opened up
some doors for me in
understanding these people
in our world."
Ms. Marks Gluckman hopes
that audiences will leave the
theater with a better
understanding of the
developmentally disabled.
"I'd like people to leave their
sense of pity aside and
hopefully gain a sense of wan-
ting to reach out and unders-
tand them a little bit more."
She says she developed a
closeness to the residents of
the JARC home for women
that she visited in Birm-
ingham. "Now when I think
about my character of Sheila,
I think about Gila and Regina
from the home. I think about
how Sheila would incorporate
those two wonderful ladies in-
to her life. They've become a
part of me. They're a strong
part of me. We started a rela-
tionship and I want to see
them all again."
"I thought that meeting
those five men was very in-
teresting," says Tom
Christopher, who visited the
Schecter JARC home in Oak
Park. "I got a lot more insight
as far as trying to develop a
character. I got little nuances
that will add to the character.
"But moreover, it has made
me feel much more tolerant of
people who have a mental
handicap. Don't shrug them
off. Give them a chance and
the benefit of the doubt. You
just don't know what it's real-
ly like until you meet some-
one with this type of han-
dicap."
Mr. Christopher, who por-
trays group home resident Ar-
nold Wiggins in The Boys
Next Door, says the role tests
his acting abilities. "As many
shows as I've done, this is the
first time in my amateur
career that I've been blessed
to play such a complex
character. The other parts
I've played have been boy-
next-door roles, so this has
been a real challenge to play
a character like this.
"My character is a very ner-
vous person and I'm ex-
hausted after rehearsals
because the character is so
keyed-up, precise and ner-
vous." Mr. Christopher has
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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