Sleeping Beauty

1 p.m. Sunday, April 3, at the Berman
Center for Performing Arts at the West
Bloomfield JCC. Come early to meet and
take pictures with Aurora plus a few of
her princess pals. $14. (248) 432-5570;
theberman.org.

MORE ON THE STAGE
Named by their university professor
parents after characters from the works
of Russian playwright Anton Checkov,
the characters in Vanya & Sonia &
Masha & Spike are just as aimless and

Ephron and son Jake Bernstein

was one of the courageous diaspora Jews
who flew rickety planes during Israel’s
War of Independence and were critical to
Israel’s survival — a story that was told in
Nancy Spielberg’s (Steven’s sister) film
Above and Beyond.
Premiering last week on HBO was a doc-
umentary (Everything is Copy) about writer/
director Nora Ephron, who died in 2012,
age 71. The filmmaker is Jacob Bernstein,
39, a New York Times writer and son of
Ephron and her ex-husband, famous jour-
nalist Carl Bernstein, now 72. Ephron had
one other child, Max Bernstein, 37, Jacob’s
brother. Max declined to participate in the
documentary. However, Jacob did get a
very large number of his mother’s famous
friends and colleagues to participate. He
even got his father, who had declined to
talk about Nora and his marital infidelity
before, to address these subjects. (Carl’s
philandering was the subject of the
Ephron novel Heartburn, which became a

brooding as their namesakes — but
much funnier, thanks to playwright
Christopher Durang. Winner of the
2013 Tony Award, Drama Desk Award
and New York Critics Circle Award for
Best Play, the biting and slightly off-
kilter comedy of three sparring middle-
aged siblings on a weekend visit to
the family home in Bucks County, Pa.,
is produced by Shari Morgan and
Stagecrafters at the Baldwin Theatre in
Royal Oak. April 8-24. $20-$22.
(248) 541-6430; stagecrafters.org.

*

Mike Nichols film in 1983. Nichols, who
died last year, was interviewed by Jacob.)
First a journalist, Ephron later broke into
screenwriting in a big way (When Harry Met
Sally) and went on to write and direct hit
films like Sleepless in Seattle and Julia and
Julie. Her friends tell very intimate stories
about her — but the film’s most dramatic
angle is the fact that Ephron, known as an
“open book,” kept her battle with leukemia
a secret from all but a very few.

MERRICK GARLAND SIDELIGHT

Not well-known is the fact that long-
serving Iowa governor Terry Branstad,
a Republican and a very big Israel sup-
porter, is the son of a Jewish mother
(who became a Lutheran) and a Lutheran
father. Even less well known is the fact that
he’s a second cousin of Supreme Court
nominee Merrick Garland, 63. Garland’s
late father, an Iowa native, and Branstad’s
late mother were cousins. Branstad did
support Garland’s appointment to the
Federal bench in 1997. However, he is
now deferring to the decision of Iowa
Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, the head
of the Judiciary Committee, not to hold
confirmation hearings. This must be a bit
awkward for Branstad, who met Judge
Garland for the first time about a month
ago when they had breakfast together in
Washington.

*

March 31 • 2016

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