COMMON MAN, MYTHIC VISION:

The Paintings of Ben Shahn

JULY 25- OCTOBER 31

TOURING

Bookshop: Hebrew Books, Holy Day Books, 1953;

The Detroit Institute of Arts
© Estate of Ben Shahn/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

BEN S H A H N championed social justice and made paintings that communicate
the shared experiences and concerns of humanity. His art expresses our joys and
sorrows, reflects his Jewish heritage, and celebrates the strength of the human spirit.

Enjoy Gallery Talks
Friday, September 3 at 6 & 7:30 p.m. (open till 9 p.m. Sept. 3)
Free with museum admission.

This exhibition is sponsored by Ernst &lining LLP. lajor support :'as received throqoh the generosity of The Henry Luce
Foundation. Additional funditto 11415 provided by the :\'ational Endowment for the .1rts, a •deral ,wency. Organi...:ed by The
Jewish museum, ,\T

In Detroit the exhibition is made possible with support from the Michigan Council . lOr Arts and Cultural
Affairs and the City of Detroit.

Mt'

THE DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS

5200 Woodward Ave., Detroit • 313-833-7900 • www.dia.org

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B6 Detroit Jewish News

foie page 85

and appreciate it upon repeated hear-
ings, which is really the test of anything.
"I sing in the opening number,
`Ship of Dreams,' and that song is a
stunner. There are 42 of us, and it's
very exciting.
"I also sing a really terrific number
called 'The Blame' in the second act. It's
the number sung by the characters por-
traying the men who determined the
fate of the ship — E.J. Smith, the cap-
tain; Thomas Andrews, the designer;
and the character I play. It's the final
moment as the ship's going down, and it
shows their attempt to signal other ships
via telegraph to possibly save them."
Green and Heller — along with S.
Marc Jordan, who portrays Isidor
Straus — are among the Jewish people
associated with the production, and
both bring considerable experience to
their professional responsibilities.
"I think there wasn't a day that I
didn't want to be in theater," says
Green, who will precede the show into
Detroit and then return to watch it
toward the end of its Michigan run.
"My father, Stanley Green, was a musi-
cal theater historian and wrote books
about the theater. I grew up in New
York and went to theater quite a lot."
Green attended Sarah Lawrence
College thinking she would be an
actress and was for a short time, but
impatience with the audition process
led her in a different direction.
"I had stage managed some in col-
lege, got a job as a stage manager and
never looked back," says Green, who's
worked off-Broadway, at the Radio
City Music Hall, on tour with
Michael Feinstein and on Broadway
with the play Shirley Valentine.
"I left the theater for a little while to
be an agent and then went our on the
road for a long time with Phantom of
the Opera, which brought me through
Detroit. I toured it to Singapore and
Hong Kong for a year and soon after
started rehearsals with Titanic."
Green, who lives in Manhattan
with a dog named after George M.
Cohan and attends synagogue there,
also has visited the Detroit area many
times to see relatives, including her
uncle, Edward Hunt.
Heller, who has performed in Kuni
Leml at the Birmingham Theatre, also
was introduced to the stage by his folks.
"My parents were teachers, and they
took me to theater as much as other
parents take their kids to sporting
events," recalls Heller, 39 and divorced.
"I went on stage when I was in junior
high, got a laugh and thought, Tve got
to do that again.' It kind of became
inevitable that I took on some terrific

parts in school plays and studied the-
ater arts at New York University and at
Circle in the Square in Manhattan."
Heller, who went to a New Jersey
synagogue with his parents as he was
growing up, started to work right out
of college. His first paying job was in
How to Succeed in Business Without
Really Trying at a Florida dinner the-
ater. His first job as part of the actors'
union was NATith Kuni Leml at the
Jewish Repertory Theatre in New York.
"I did Les Miserables on Broadway
after having done the tour, and I did
Victor/Victoria with Julie Andrews and a
succession of actresses," Heller says. "I've
done three episodes of Law and Order,
and I've got a part in a movie coming
out about the late author Jaquelyn
Susann. Bette Midler plays Susann, and
Nathan Lane plays her husband. I play
one of their mentschy friends."

"I've worked on
many musicals in
the last 15 years,
and one of the
most beautiful
scores is Titanic's.

— Adam Heller

Unlike Heller's current stage char-
acter, the film character is not real.
Experience with a biographical role
came when the actor portrayed the
legendary entertainer Al Jolson.
"When I'm playing a historic fig-
ure, the job is a little easier in that
there are certain facts that I don't have
to invent," he explains. "If I assemble
enough facts about the person's life, I
will be able to recreate that life."
The cast and crew of Titanic have
done considerable studying to prepare
for the production.
"The easy part about touring with
Titanic is that it has been done in
New York," says Green, happy to be
free of all the changes that go along
with rewriting a new play. "The great
thing about doing this tour is that we
get a whole new group of people
[working] on it for the first time and
finding their own ways to the charac-
ters. I worked on the Broadway pro-
duction since its inception, and I hope
to be with the tour until it ends."

fi