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JULIE WIENER
StafirWriter

Jr

church that met in a barn," said
Broughton.
"I like the sense of family in
Judaism. I love Passover — it's some-
thing I will always celebrate and will
make sure my daughter does too. I
also love Chanukah. I will always light
the candles and watch them burn to
the bottom.
Although she has not been involved
in religious organizations in recent years,
Broughton drives across town every day
so her 20-month-old daughter,
Alexandra, can attend day care at the
Jewish Community Center of
Washtenaw County.

ohanna Broughton discovered
her life's passion for theater
15 years ago as two actors on
a small stage with only a few
simple props captivated an entire
room of people.
The play was K2, about two moun-
tain climbers waiting to die on the
ropes. It had special meaning for
Broughton, who at age 12 lost her
father to a Himalayan climbing acci-
dent.
__"To sit in the audience and feel them
go through the understanding and
empathy and know what I had
gone through over and over ...,
recalled Broughton, now executive
director of the Performance
Network, a small professional the-
ater on Ann Arbor's west side.
"Two people in a room can do
so much more than a movie to
move people," she continued. "To
know that the energy we're send-
ing them, they're sending back to
us. To feel a room go through that
— from then on, I knew I wanted
to be in theater. I walked across
the parking lot at University of
Michigan the next semester and
declared myself a theater major."
A down-to-earth, intensely talk-
ative woman with long reddish
hair and an obvious zeal for her
work, Broughton tries to bring the Johanna Broughton: "To know that the energy
we're sending them, they're sending back to us
power she felt during K? to every
... I knew I wanted to be in theater"
Network production, adhering
closely to the company's mission of
She chose the JCC program not so
producing "innovative and topical
much because it was Jewish (although
works that entertain and inform."
she likes that her daughter is being
With the company since 1987,
exposed to Jewish traditions), but
Broughton selects all plays (the Network
because she liked the staff there.
stages only original plays or Michigan
"The teachers were real people who
premieres), markets them and feverishly
enjoy
what they're doing," said
applies for grants and other sources of
Broughton.
funding. Until this spring, she also
Although not affiliated with any reli-
directed plays and "basically ran the the-
gion or culture, the Network stages
ater." (Everything bui7acting —
many plays by Jewish playwrights or
Broughton says she's a terrible actor).
with
Jewish themes. This season includ-
Pregnancy with her second daughter
ed
works
by playwrights Paula Vogel
— due this summer — slowed her
and
Rachel
Urist (an Ann Arborite) as
down a little, and her husband and col-
well
as
a
play
that pits a liberal Jewish
league, Daniel Walker, assumed some of
anthropologist against a conservative
her professional responsibilities.
black lawyer.
still crazed, but not dangerously
The upcoming Some of II/Iy Best
so,
so," said Broughton.
Friends Are ... by Joan Lipkin, pokes fun
Broughton grew up in Pittsburgh,
at stereotypes of lust about everyone.
raised in a mix of religious traditions.
"Nobody's left out," laughed
"My mother is Jewish and my father
Broughton.
"But the bottom line.is, it's
was Quaker, so I went to temple, the
funny."
Friends' meeting house and a Unitarian

"

Meet the woman behind
Performance Network's
eclectic and innovative
slate of productions.

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1999

Detroit Jewish News

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