NOVEMBER 18 • 2021 | 51

JAY SAPER continued from page 49

eventually, Saper says, the 
town’s library was built on the 
spot of his great uncle’s plant, 
with no mention of the Jewish 
business that had stood there. 
Saper aims to keep this legacy 
alive through his art. 

NEW YORK YEARS
After college, Saper studied 
progressive childhood edu-
cation at Bank Street College 
in Manhattan. This was fol-
lowed by teaching children at 
different progressive schools 
in Manhattan and Brooklyn, 
as well as being involved in 
organizing and political proj-
ects. He joined Park Slope 
Kolot Chayeinu, a progressive 
Jewish community. 
“In addition to my work as 
a letterpress printer, I am also 
a papercut artist,
” he says. “I 
created papercuts, a tradition-
al Jewish folk art, to honor the 
remarkable, overlooked sto-
ries of Jewish women in the 
resistance to the Nazis. My 
work was published as the 
chapter ‘Fighting Fascists 
with Folk Art’ in Cindy 
Milstein’s There’s Nothing So 
Whole as a Broken Heart: 
Mending the World as Jewish 
Anarchists (AK Press 2021).
”
Another papercut project 
combined several of his inter-
ests. He wrote a zine called 
Radical Village, a history of 
the Little Red Schoolhouse 
and Elizabeth Irwin High 
School (LREI) founded in 

1921 in Greenwich Village, 
the families associated with it 
and its connections to social 
movements over the past cen-
tury. He became interested in 
the school’s history before he 
worked there and was drawn 
to its Jewish beginnings. 
“LREI was a hotbed of 
Jewish radicalism,
” he says. 
“The school’s first students 
were Yiddish-speaking immi-
grants on the Lower East Side. 
The school served as a haven 
for politically active Jewish 
teachers and families who 
faced state repression and vio-
lence. The school was a cul-
tural center for experimental 
and progressive Jewish artists.
” 
As he dug into the history 
of the school, he decided 
to create a walking tour of 
Greenwich Village that high-
lighted some of the school’s 
famous students (Angela 
Davis, the children of Julius 
and Ethel Rosenberg and 
more), supporters of the 
school and events in the 
school’s history. The zine, 
with its papercuts, became a 
companion piece to the tour. 
Now that he’s back in East 
Lansing, he is restoring his 
traditional letterpress and 
creating wood type, teaching 
online, embracing Jewish cul-
tural art traditions and doing 
his part to keep alive the spirit 
of progressive social activism 
so prevalent in generations of 
Jews before him. 

“I CREATED PAPERCUTS … TO 
HONOR THE REMARKABLE, 
OVERLOOKED STORIES OF 
JEWISH WOMEN IN THE 

RESISTANCE.”

— JAY SAPER

wife Persephone — set against 
a poetically lyrical score of 
American folk, New Orleans 
jazz and blues. Mitchell 
describes Hadestown as 
“somewhere between a concert 
and a theater show.
”
Odorisio, whose mother 
is Jewish and whose father is 
Italian, grew up in the large 
Jewish area of Ardmore, Pa., 
where she and her two sis-
ters were all bat mitzvahed. 
Growing up, they celebrated 
all of the holidays, including 
enjoying the Italian tradition 
of the Feast of the Seven 
Fishes on Christmas Eve 
and eating Chinese food 
and going to the movies on 
Christmas Day.
Four years ago, Odorisio 
got a ukulele for Chanukah. 
With her mission to becoming 
a proficient ukulele player, 
Odorisio took in-person les-

sons in Brooklyn and then 
continued on Zoom during 
the pandemic. Now the owner 
of three different ukuleles, 
Odorisio travels with her con-
cert ukulele on tour and keeps 
it in her dressing room.
“Once I finish my makeup, I 
strum a little before the show. 
It’s very relaxing and gets me 
in the right frame of mind,
” 
she says.
For her Hadestown audi-
tion, Odorisio played the 
ukulele to showcase her musi-
cality since all the Fates play 
instruments onstage during 
the performance.
On some tour stops, 
Odorisio’s boyfriend brings 
her pit bull, Gusto, for a visit.
Odorisio promises 
Detroiters: “You’ll want to 
come see Hadestown because 
you’ve never seen anything 
like it before.
” 

DETAILS

Hadestown runs Nov. 
23-Dec. 5 at the Fisher 
Theatre in Detroit and 
from Dec. 7-12 at the 
Wharton Center in East 
Lansing. Tickets for 
Hadestown at the Fisher 
Theatre start at $59 
and can be purchased 
www.ticketmaster.com. 
Tickets for Dec. 7-12 at 
the Wharton Center may 
be purchased by visiting 
www.whartoncenter.com.
Theater patrons will be 
required to show proof 
of a negative COVID 
test within 72 hours of 
the performance date or 
proof of full COVID-19 
vaccination before they 
will be admitted into the 
venue. Additionally, all 
patrons will be required to 
wear a mask while inside 
the theater, regardless of 
one’s vaccination status.

Shea Renne, Bex Odorisio, 
and Belén Moyano in 
the Hadestown North 
American Tour at 
Detroit’s Fisher Theatre 
Nov. 23-Dec. 5 and East 
Lansing’s Wharton Center 
Dec. 7-12. 

