arts & entertainment

A Jewish Cook In The King's Kitchen

A scullery maid has a secret about her father and access
to the ruler of England in history-rich play at JET.

I

Suzanne Chessler

Contributing Writer

p

laywright Joseph Zettelmaier
used today's technology to find a
subject that goes back in time.
Deciding to write a medieval drama,
he surfed the Web for the core of a story
he could float through fiction, and he
found one about a Jewish servant named
Miriam, doing double duty as a scullery
maid and a cook (because so many people
have been killed by the Black Plague)
while taking orders from England's King
Edward III.
The Scullery Maid, to be world-
premiered Dec. 18-Jan. 12 by Jewish
Ensemble Theatre, invents a daughter for
the servant and plots her attempt to kill
the king.
"This play goes down a darker road
than I usually walk as a playwright," says
Zettelmaier, 38, based in Milan, Mich.
"It deals with a dark period in European
history, during the Hundred Years' War,
and I thought it was a fascinating era and
wanted to reflect what it was like for the
people.
"The Jewish aspect caught my attention.
Especially at this time, Jewish people have
been persecuted. It was interesting that
King Edward III had Jewish servants.
"I wanted to explore the idea of what it
was like for this Jewish girl to be raised in
the safety of the castle while so many of
her people are suffering all over Europe:"
Directed by Joseph Albright, the play
features Julia Garlotte (Miriam), Jacquie
Floyd (Dulcie), Ruth Crawford (Bess),
Alan Madlane (Pascal) and John Manfredi
(King Edward III).
"I'm always trying to write things I've

"I wanted to
explore the
idea of what
it was like for
this Jewish girl
to be raised in
the safety of the castle while
so many of her people are
suffering all over Europe."

Jews

- Playwright Joseph Zettelmaier

never tried before — new stories, new
styles," Zettelmaier explains. "I wanted to
write a medieval drama because I love the
style.
"I wanted something either during the
Black Plague or the Hundred Years' War
so I started looking through stories about
those times. I finished the first draft about
two years ago and began talking with
Jewish Ensemble Theatre about it.
"The company has done readings and
waited for the right season:"
Zettelmaier, who studied theater at
Shorter University in Georgia, started
writing when he was 22 and an apprentice
at the Purple Rose Theatre in Chelsea,
Mich. Up to that point, he had been focus-
ing on acting and directing.
At that time, Lanford Wilson (The Hot
L Baltimore, Talley's Folly) was working
at the Purple Rose, premiering one of his
new plays," Zettelmaier recalls. "He didn't
drive so I was his chauffeur.

Nate Bloom

Special to the Jewish News

At The Movies
The Hobbitt: The Desolation of Smaug,

opening Friday, Dec.13, is the second
film in director Peter Jackson's film
trilogy adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's
Lord of the Rings prequel, The Hobbitt.
The mostly British cast of the first
film returns, with Martin Freeman
again starring as lead character
Bilbo Baggins. Brit Stephen Fry, 56,
appears as the Master of Laketown,
the leader of a settlement near
Lonely Mountain.
Orlando Bloom has a much bigger
role in this film as the fierce war-

46

December 12 • 2013

rior Legolas. Long story short: While
Bloom's late legal father was Jewish,
his mother and biological father are
not. He's been a Buddhist as an adult.
The film's score is by Howard
Shore, 67, who won three Oscars for
his work on Jackson's Rings films.

TV Highlights

Mob City, an original, three-week, six-
part TNT series, debuted with its first
two episodes on Wednesday, Dec. 4,
followed by the third and fourth epi-
sodes on Dec.11.
It centers on the battle between real-
life Jewish mobster Mickey Cohen and
a chief of the LA Police Department in
the decade after World War II.

"He was so willing and happy to talk
about writing, and I learned so much
from him. I could not have asked for a
better mentor."
In the midst of teaching dramatic
composition and playwriting at Eastern
Michigan University, Zettelmaier keeps
developing scripts. He is a four-time nom-
inee for the Steinberg/American Theatre
Critics Association Award for Best New
Play, beginning in 2006 with All Childish
Things; also recognized were Language
Lessons (2007), It Came From Mars (2010)
and Dead Man's Shoes (2012).
The Stillness Between Breaths and It
Came From Mars were selected to appear
in the National New Play Network's
Festival of New Plays.
"I always come back to wanting audi-
ences to walk out of my plays feeling less
alone than when they walked into them,"
says the writer.
"I love that theater is a communal
experience more than television. People
in theater audiences laugh and cry with
strangers.
"I like to feel surrounded by strangers
all moved by the same things that moved
me. It's a wonderful feeling to be part of
something bigger than myself:'
The character that Zettelmaier feels
closest to is Jason in Salvage, a play that
soon will be staged in suburban Chicago.
Avoiding basing characters on himself,
Zettelmaier loves nostalgia, and Jason runs
a collectibles store in Detroit.
"I had my Georgia premiere earlier this
year with a production of All Childish
Things, and it was a wonderful experience
going back [to the state where I went to
college]," he says.
"I chose Shorter University because I

The series con-
cludes with two epi-
sodes airing back-to-
back starting at 9 p.m.
Wednesday, Dec.18.
You can catch the first
four episodes online,
Alexa Davalos
and I'm quite sure TNT
will run all six together
sometime at the end of the month.
Jon Bernthal, 37, co-stars as police
officer Joe Teague, with Alexa Davalos,
31, as lead female character Jasmine.

'Bear Jew' Levine

On Nov.17, actress Francesca
Eastwood, 20, the daughter of Clint
Eastwood, 83, wed music manager

Giuseppe Maria Crespi: The Scullery
Maid (1710-15); oil on canvas; Galleria
degli Uffizi, Florence

had wanted to go out of state and see more
of the country. I knew someone who had
gone there, and it was a small program
giving students a lot more attention and a
chance to do everything in theater."
The Scullery Maid is Zettelmaier's first
work with Jewish subjects and characters.
"One of my favorite parts about writing
is doing the research," he says. "To learn
about Judaism, I spent time with Jewish
friends. One is a historian, and that was
enormously useful along with the vast
amounts online.
"I always tell my students to write what
moves them and learn what they need to
know to make it real:'

❑

The Scullery Maid runs Dec. 18-Jan
12 in the Aaron DeRoy Theatre
at the Jewish Community Center
in West Bloomfield. Evening per-
formance times are 7:30 p.m. on
Thursdays (and on Wednesdays,
Dec.18 and Jan. 8); 5 and 8:30 p.m.
on Saturdays and 7 p.m. on Sunday,
Dec. 29. Matinees are scheduled at
2 p.m. Wednesday, Jan.1, and on
Sundays, Dec. 22, Jan. 5 and Jan.
12. $41-$48, with discounts for
seniors, students and groups. (248)
788-2900; www.jettheatre.org .

Jordan Feldstein, 35, the brother of
actor Jonah Hill, 29.

She moved a week later to annul
the marriage because the couple were
both drunk while saying their vows.
A dive into Jordan's background
revealed that his most famous cli-
ent, and lifelong friend, singer Adam
Levine, 34, has more of a Jewish cul-
tural background than I thought.
Details magazine says Feldstein and
Hill have been members of Levine's
LA-based "Bris Pack of Jewish show-
bizzers" since all attending LA's
Brentwood High School. They all have
nicknames, and Levine's is "the Bear
Jew," after a fierce Jewish commando
in the movie Inglourious Basterds.

❑