Sara Tugman Bais Chabad Torah Center Presents A MICHIGAN PREMIER of i6 At:Ift Startlingly intimate!" "Lucid, illuminating!" "Entertaining LI deeply moving!" The Lighter Side -MICHAEL MEDVED, NY POST -JANET MASLIN, NY TIMES Playwright Rebecca Ritchie turns tears to laughter in JETS premiere of "The Shiva Queen." -ELIE WIESEL "For a confirmed secular pluralist humanist socialist democratic anti-theocratic Jew like me, A Life Apart was revelatory, exciting and hugely challenging. It's a movie everyone should see." SUZANNE CHESSLER Special to The Jewish News -TONY KUSHNER, ANGELS IN AMERICA A Film by Menachem Dawn and Oren Rudaysky Narrated by Leonard Nimoy and Sarah Jessica Parker Featuring Pearl R. Gluck, Fiction & Poetry Editor, Response A First Run Features Release www.FirstRunFeatures.com MELAVE MALKA (Light Dinner) & SHOW $18 - SAT. DEC. 6th 8:30 PM DINNER & SHOW $18 - WED., DECEMBER 10th - 8:00 PM Show only ... $10.00 Student ... $7.00 Dinner by Jewel Caterers only: $12.50 Children $6:00 Questions & Answers After Each Show I BAIS CHABAD TORAH CENTER 5595 W. Maple Rd. - Maple Rd. East of Orchard Lk. 248 - 855 - 6170 HARMONYHOUSE =10114k HARMONYHOUSE t__JP%0 cc/1.4, a eewitvzi/ al Mtvi.te! $2.00 OFF CASSETTES & COMPACT DISCS Present This Coupon at any HARMONY HOUSE location, and receive $2 OFF any REGULARLY PRICED CD or Cassette ($10.99 or More). No Limit. Void With Other Offers. Excludes Special Orders. This Coupon Must be Presented to Receive Discount. EXPIRES December 4, 1997 JEWISH NEWS * lac BEAT THE SLUSH . . . LIFE AS IT SHOULD BE — CLUB MED Call Bee Kalt Travel for our . January Specials to CLUB MED SINGLES VILLAGES. Prices from $999.00 ra"Poli'2,1) Hurry, Space is going quickly! R 11/21 1997 88 Call Now . k.mb Bee Kalt Travel 248-288-9600 strong sense of humor fills writer Rebecca Ritchie's most recent play, The Shiva Queen. Ritchie describes her two- act work, the next production of the JewiSfi Ensemble. Theatre. (JET), as a black comedy that lets people laugh at-themselves while experienc- ing the satire and irony that can unfold with each new day. The core humor is invested in a character, Shirl Levine, who earns a living by setting up homes for shiva, the tradi- tional week of mourning fol- lowing a loved one's death. In the process, Shirl does a little Playwright Rebecca Ritchie: "I have to emphasize matchmaking, particularly for that the play is a comedy." herself. Based on encounters after the death of the playwright's have found it funny. I think it was sister, The Shiva Queen leaves out the cathartic for me." tragedy of loss. Ritchie is part of a family that has, have to emphasize that the play very large numbers of people with a is a comedy and audiences react very particular kind of cancer, giving her well to it," said Ritchie, who intro- firsthand knowledge of genetics in the duced it during last season's staged Jewish context and motivating her to readings sponsored by JET. "It's not at continue with genetic testing. all an uncomfortable experience, "I am very aware of the Jewish although the events underlying it are community's reaction to the news that not comic. there are mutations prevalent among "My sister was an extraordinarily us," said the playwright, a board funny person, and all through her member of the Jewish Family Servicc_ -_, treatments [for cancer] she maintained in Buffalo. a marveloLis sense of humor. When "There really is not very much any- she died, I wrote this as though I were body can do about it even if the muta- talking to her, and I'm sure she would tion pops up, and that underlies some of the action in The Shiva Queen." Suzanne Chessler is a Farmington Ritchie, 48, had a double, prophy- Hills-based freelance writer.