arts&life
theater
From M
Baghdad To
Brooklyn
Performer Michelle Azar brings her life
story to the stage in Ann Arbor.
SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
ichelle Azar recently argued to
send an accused murderer to
death. She didn’t win, but the
outcome was to be expected.
Azar isn’t a lawyer. She was making a
guest appearance portraying a prosecut-
ing attorney on How to Get Away With
Murder, the series that stars Viola Davis
as defense attorney Annalise Keating,
this time winning an argument for a life
sentence.
Azar has taken on guest roles for a
number of TV series, including The
Magicians, Criminal Minds and Bones,
and she quickly morphs into the charac-
ter to be projected.
While fictional characters remain very
much a part of Azar’s career, which also
spans stage and film, she has decided
to get more personal. She developed a
one-person reality musical about her own
life.
From Baghdad to Brooklyn, filled with
Broadway and ethnic songs, will be per-
formed Thursday evening, Nov. 15, at
Temple Beth Emeth in Ann Arbor.
“I’m going to do a 55-minute play that
takes place in Iraq, Brooklyn and the
wider America,” explains Azar, married
to Rabbi Jonathan Aaron of Temple
Emanuel in Beverly Hills, Calif. They
have two teenage daughters.
“The story travels through the music
of my life so there are Sephardic melo-
dies that go back to my father’s younger
years and Ashkenazi songs that reflect
my mother’s background.” Azar will be
accompanied by a local pianist, Dave
Gitterman.
Azar’s Michigan appearance was
encouraged by members of her husband’s
side of the family, who live in Ann Arbor
and attend Temple Beth Emeth. They
include brother-in-law Richard Aaron, a
University of Michigan professor and also
a musical performer focused on the cello.
Azar hopes her audiences will feel an
emotional attachment to her presenta-
tion, which draws on remembrances of
conversations with forebears she knew
as a child. Azar, who portrays different
family members even as she brings her
original songs into the production, has
fine-tuned the piece with the help of pro-
details
From Baghdad to Brooklyn will be performed
at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 15, at Temple
Beth Emeth in Ann Arbor. $15 students/$20
adults. Tickets, sold online at wtbe.org, also
will be available at the door. (734) 665-4744.
Michelle Azar
44
November 8 • 2018
jn
fessional friends.
“I’m asking audiences to feel connected
to things they never really lived,” explains
Azar, who recalls her grandparents speak-
ing Hebrew, Yiddish and Arabic. “What
are the melodies or the stories that come
up for members of the audience although
they don’t know why?
“What’s especially rewarding about
doing the show is the kids who come up
to me and say they get it now — why
their parents want to tell the stories of
their backgrounds. They feel connected
to something in their DNA.”
Azar believes entertaining is in her
DNA.
“I never knew I didn’t want to be an
entertainer,” she says. “When I was 3
years old, my mom was running a choir
in a Chicago synagogue, and someone
couldn’t sing a solo. Suddenly, I was up
there singing it.
“In fourth grade, I was in an acting
class and really felt at home. I got all
the roles I tried out for in junior high.
I studied more seriously in high school
while I also sang with the Lyric Opera of
Chicago.
“I started branching out into all that
Chicago has to offer and decided to go
into straight acting because that was the
texture of who I was. I went to Tisch
School of the Arts at New York University
(NYU). On graduation, I booked my first
off-Broadway show, playing Janis Joplin
in Beehive, and got my Equity card.”
After other New York productions,
Azar took a break and moved to Israel for
a time. She met her husband, and they
moved to California, where she found
roles in TV and movies while doing
about two plays a year. When her hus-
band was attending rabbinical school in
New York, she earned a master’s degree in
drama therapy back at NYU.
“I’m very academic in a lot of ways,”
Azar says. “I did my thesis on the rela-
tionship between the performer and the
non-performer — the need to be extro-
verted in telling your story and the need
to be privately connected to your story.”
Azar’s connections to Michigan reach
back to Three Rivers, where she attended
Habonim Dror Camp Tavor and often
returns for reunions.
“My school year life was about musical
theater, but summers were in-depth exca-
vations into who I am in my core,” she
says. “Three years ago, I was at a reunion
where a woman said that I had an inter-
esting story and suggested I write it. I said
that I did, and she found me a couple of
synagogues that wanted to hear it.” ■