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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