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Oksana Baiul

Viktor Petren ko

Brian Boitano

Nicole Bobek

Rudy Galindo

Todd Eldredge

Transcending Time

Three short plays —two by Sholom Aleichem and one
by I.L. Peretz— comprise JETS newest production.

SUZANNE CHESSLER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

Sunday • May 11 • 3:00 PM

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T

he settings may take the
audience into the past or
the world beyond reality,
but the essence of the char-
acters often transcends time and
make-believe.
That's the experience planned
by the Jewish Ensemble Theatre
(JET) in presenting three short
plays adapted by contemporary
American television writer
Arnold PeH.
The production — The World
of Sholom Aleichem — includes
an anonymous folk tale, a piece
based on a work by I.L. Peretz
and another dramatization from
the author celebrated in the title.
The triad runs through June 1
at the Maple-Drake Jewish
Community Center.
"Sholom Aleichem represent-
ed the ability to see the tragedy
and defensive life that often was
lived in the shtetl," said George
M. (Mike) Zeltzer, who has served
as an officer of the Sholom Ale-
ichem Institute, the National
Foundation for Jewish Culture
and the Jewish Endowment for
the Arts and Humanities.
"He depicted problems, and he
depicted humor. Out of his writ-
ing came issues of family values.
His interest was to keep the Jew-
ish religion and Jewish people vi-
able."
A Tale of Chelm dramatizes a
folk story about a community in-
habited only by fools.

Bontche Schweig by I.L. Peretz
is set in heaven, where news that
the greatest of good men on Earth
has died and will soon arrive
turns to disappointment as an-
gels meet a bedraggled, forlorn,
wistful tramp.
Sholom Aleichem's play, The
High School, blends humor and
poignancy as a Jewish couple in
czarist Russia try to enroll their
son in a school from which Jews

Aobve: Jaye Cooper, Jan
Waldron, John
Biedenbach, Leah
Smith, Peter Edward
Hopp, Joseph Haynes
and Adam Rochkind
rehearse for "The World
of Sholom Aleichem."

Right: JET favorite Sol
Frieder will act as
narrator.

are barred.
JET is giving this
production its own
signature with the
addition of music.
Popular band leader
Mack Pitt is scoring
the plays, setting the
mood by playing his
clarinet throughout
the program and
even before as people
arrive in the lobby.
`The music should

help tell the stories, so I wanted
to make sure they were not Is-
raeli sounds," said Pitt, who will
mix his original music with some
traditional melodies. "They are
European, Polish, Russian.
"When I play in the lobby, I
want to sound like an itinerant
klezmer musician who walked
from village to village."
Pitt, whose father was an ac-
tor in New York's Yiddish the-