May 30 • 2019 35
jn
CHRIS YOUNG/STRATFORD FESTIVAL
Epstein, born and raised in Toronto,
realized she wanted a stage career as
she sat in Stratford audiences with
family. Her entry into entertainment
came with appearances in choirs and
community theaters. She went to an
arts school in her teens and earned a
bachelor’
s degree in music from McGill
University in Montreal.
It took a couple of auditions before
being chosen for this Stratford season.
“I’
m also in Billy Elliot (through Nov.
3),
” says Epstein, whose brother Jake
appeared in a Chicago production of
the musical. “I play one of the women
of the town. This play also is a big
song-and-dance, rock ’
n roll musical
with a lot of heart.
”
Epstein, who teaches singing private-
ly, has drawn on her Jewish heritage
through productions for the Harold
Green Jewish Theatre Company and
roles in Funny Girl and Fiddler on the
Roof, the introduction to her fiancé,
Jeremy Lapalme.
In addition to performing the songs
of Ashman and Menken, she has done
some concerts with songs by other
Jewish notables, including Irving
Berlin and Harold Arlen.
“Little Shop of Horrors has a little bit
of Yiddish,
” says the 30ish actress, a
member of Beth Tikvah Synagogue in
Toronto. “There’
s also a klezmer feel to
the ‘
Mushnik and Son’
song.
”
As the Epstein family attends this
year’
s Stratford Festival, they will have
the chance to watch productions show-
casing the creativity of other Jewish
writers — The Crucible by Arthur
Miller and The Front Page by Ben
Hecht with Charles MacArthur.
David Goldbloom, also a devoted
Stratford fan, has established a career
as a psychiatrist who speaks about
mental health before many groups, but
his terms as board chair and Senate
member of the festival have placed him
before stage-connected audiences.
This season, Goldbloom brings in
three longtime personal friends for
separate conversations to supplement
the fictional productions: Michael
Bromwich (July 28), a high-profile
lawyer looking into police corruption
and representing Christine Blasey Ford
in the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation
hearings; Harold Koh (Oct. 6), author
of The Trump Administration and
International Law; and Wade Davis
(date to be announced), a National
Geographic explorer-writer.
“The beauty of Shakespeare is always
the ability to find universal themes that
permeate his work,
” says Goldbloom,
a University of Toronto psychiatry
professor and senior medical adviser at
the Centre for Addiction and Mental
Health, Canada’
s largest mental health
teaching hospitals.
“The universal themes make it the
reason these plays endure for more
than 400 years and keep lending them-
selves to new interpretation in the con-
text of the times.
“I can promise audiences that
through the course of these three con-
versations, there will be paths drawn
back to the plays that people came to
Stratford to see,
” says the member of
the Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto.
As Stratford addresses the issues of
religious differences through its pro-
ductions and programs, Goldbloom
reacts to these topics and appreciates
the opportunities to watch them enact-
ed on stage and explored through asso-
ciated discussions.
“I think we’
re living in a time of
heightened awareness of differences for
good and for bad,
” he says. “We’
ve seen
around the world a rise in anti-Semi-
tism, and we’
ve seen a rise around the
world in Islamophobia.
“The stage provides a very power-
ful pulpit for addressing issues. Our
hope is that the playbill stimulates the
kind of necessary discussion around
important issues. It is not simply light
entertainment.
” ■
Gabi Epstein as Audrey and Andre Morin
a Seymour Krelborn in Little Shop of Horrors
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