Einstein

Written by
Gabriel Emanuel

Production originally directed by Roy Higgins.
Additional direction by Craig Hall

Starring
Chris Britton
[Bio]

Not seen by Vancouver audiences since 1987

The critically acclaimed Einstein premiered in Toronto 20 years ago and has since been performed in five different languages and had over 700 performances across Canada, the USA and Mexico as well as the Habima National Theatre of Israel.

From the opening moments — set in his Princeton study on the eve of his 70th birthday — Albert Einstein captures the audience’s hearts, engaging them in humorous and simple experiments to explain his theory of relativity. From there, the great scientist takes a witty and often sardonic account of his life, examining the many conflicting aspects of his personality as a physicist, pacifist, Jew and Zionist. Through Gabriel Emanuel’s script, the man of the century is revealed in all his humanity, morality and simplicity as the play slowly reveals his most painful dilemma.

Toronto-born Chris Britton has performed Einstein more than 200 times on stages throughout Canada and the US. He is an accomplished actor who has performed at Stratford, Shaw, the Astor Place Theatre in NYC and the Grand Theatre in London, Ontario. His television and film credits include a recurring role on DaVinci’s Inquest/City Hall. Chris Britton is based in Vancouver.

"Highly Recommended. Just as newsreel audiences once took Einstein to heart, so will viewers of this program."
The Globe and Mail Review

“Thanks to Britton’s tour de force performance, Einstein proves itself a spirited yet thoughtful tribute to a seminal mind”
The Newton Graphic, Boston

Richard Kline
[Bio]

in Boychik
Written by Richard Krevolin
Vancouver Premiere

Boychick tells the funny and moving spiritual journey of Larry Levin, a middle-aged American Jew, as he confronts the conflicting emotions that surface after the death of his scholarly father. Unable to step inside a Synagogue to say Kaddish, Levin reluctantly visits his father’s bank to retrieve an old safe deposit box instead. The items he finds inside awaken memories and insights that lead to a new understanding of the man his father was and the true legacy he has inherited. His return to his faith opens the door to his future.

A native New Yorker, Richard Kline is best-known as ‘Larry’ on the classic sitcom Three’s Company. In addition to his numerous television credits (including Gilmore Girls, Judging Amy, NYPD Blue and most recently, Inside Schwartz) he is an accomplished stage actor with an affinity for the works of Neil Simon having done six of his plays, including a National Tour of Canada in Jake’s Women. As a singer, Kline has appeared in the musical They’re Playing Our Song, Do I Hear a Waltz and Hello Again. As a director, he won the LA Drama Critics Circle Award for his direction of Noel Coward’s Present Laughter. He has performed Boychik at New York’s Theatre Four and at many venues in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles-based Richard Krevolin is a professor of Screenwriting at USC, has authored books as well as several scripts for screen and stage, including The Law of the Return (The Meyer Lansky Story), which won the Seventh Annual Streisand Festival of New Jewish Plays. Boychik opened off-Broadway in 1997.
"Impeccably mounted, convincing and ultimately moving." Newsday
“A rare theatrical treat!” New York Post
"Rich, powerful, moving and well-crafted...a truly exceptional production." Jewish Ledger

www.profk.com/boychik.html
www.richardkline.net

Yossi Vassa
[Bio]

in It Sounds Better in Amharic
Written by Yossi Vassa and Shai Ben Attar
Translated by Howard Rypp
Music by Tomer Yosef
Produced by Nephesh Theatre of Israel

With an ingenious blend of storytelling and stand-up comedy, Ethiopian-born Israeli actor Yossi Vassa gives a moving, and at times hysterical, personal account of his 700 kilometre journey, on foot, from Ethiopia to a refugee camp in the Sudan, and then finally, via airlift, to the Holy Land. Vassa, “The Eddie Murphy of Israel,” shares nostalgic memories of life in Ethiopia mixed with hilarious perspectives on the adjustments that must be made when moving from a subsistence society to modern-day Israel.

Vassa was born in 1975 in northern Ethiopia. At the age of 10, his family was part of Operation Moses, when thousands of Ethiopian Jews were resettled in Israel. For the last three years, he has been doing stand-up comedy in Amharic with an Ethiopian partner, becoming a popular star within the Ethiopian community in the US and Israel. Yossi was also a regular cast member of Am Yisrael Live, Israel’s answer to Saturday Night Live. His co-writer, Isreali-born actor/writer/director Shai Ben Attar, is also a scriptwriter for television.

“The gangly actor on stage had the Tel Aviv audience in the palm of his hands. His facial expressions, manic hand movements, and pure singing voice have won them over as he slowly weaves the story of his life.” Jerusalem Post

www.nepheshtheatre.co.il

in Fried Chicken & Latkes: A One Woman Experience
Vancouver Premiere

Growing up Black and Jewish in Beverly Hills as the daughter of legendary comedian Richard Pryor, Rain Pryor comes by her sharp sense of timing honestly. But, make no mistake: “This ain’t my daddy’s stand-up — I am my own person up there.”

The cabaret-style show, Fried Chicken & Latkes, recalls Pryor’s tumultuous life, growing up in Beverly Hills as the daughter of the famous comedian and a Jewish mother. Told through song and characters, the story takes us on a journey of racial identity, family, career, spiritual growth and love, providing a glimpse into the universe that was her childhood and is her life, morphing effortlessly into the people around her.

Through storytelling, comedy and a knock-out singing voice, Pryor shows that living an authentic life is not about “where do I stand” but “here I stand” and now standing ovations just keep on coming as this award-winning show is performed all over the US and beyond. In fact, she is off on a month-long tour of Australia right after this Vancouver appearance.

Pryor's show ignites on the sheer force of her explosive talent.
–Frontiers NewsMagazine

Winner of 2005 NAACP Image Award

www.rainpryor.com

Letters from Lithuania
a Chutzpah! and
Mortal Coil presentation
[Bio]

Vancouver’s own Mortal Coil—best known for their imaginative Stanley Park Ghost Train events and dream-like stilt performances around town—will bring a sense of magic and myth to audiences of all ages with their upcoming original production, Letters from Lithuania. Chutzpah! audiences are invited to an exclusive sneak preview of this work in progress which will, in August 2006, become a site-specific Coil happening in Stanley Park.

With a staged theatre excerpts, live music by Zeellia and a stilt dance performance, the artists of Mortal Coil will provide a fascinating and delightful glimpse into the process of creating Letters from Lithuania which will through experimental theatre, song, music, video, puppetry and stilt dance, tell the remarkable true story of how one man’s fear kept news of the existence of World War II Holocaust survivors sealed in envelopes, unread, for 30 years.

Mortal Coil is an interdisciplinary performing arts company with heart and a social conscience whose accomplished artists share a common passion for stilt performance. Since its incorporation in 1991, the company has been dedicated to creating imaginative theatre and spectacle for audiences young and old, with larger-than-life creatures and characters using theatre, dance, music, stilts, masks and fantastic costuming, brought to life in magical and mythical environments. Mortal Coil has presented in theatres, festivals, community workshops and site-specific events across Canada, the United States, and in Europe.

www.mortalcoil.bc.ca

“Watching Mortal Coil was like floating, untethered in the work of Marc Chagall...the delight they invoked in me was childlike and completely luxurious.”
Colin Thomas, The Fringe Review

Dan Joffre
[Bio]

is Glatt to Be Back  

Our Closing Night Show!

Unscripted, unparalleled and unbelievably funny for all ages, “That Improv Guy” is back with a new show to bring our Closing Night audience to its feet as they did in the 2005. Creating on-the-spot comedy with audience input, Dan Joffre and his Kosher Comedy Crew— elite TheatreSports veterans Margret Nyfors, Michael Robinson and comedic composer/musician Patrick Pennefather — are sure to wrap up another successful season with side-splitting aplomb.

An ex-Olympic wrestler, Joffre is a two-time Just For Laughs World Improv Champion, with more than 2500 shows under his belt. He has also appeared in movies and television including Dead Like Me and Smallville.

www.thatshilarious.ca

“Dan Joffre has brought Whose Line Is It Anyway? Out of the television and into downtown Vancouver”
Ubyssey

Chutzpah’s Full of Mishegas

Jonno Katz and Michael Rinaldi in
Mongrel
[Bio]

by Courtney Dobbie

Performed and created by Jonno Katz and Michael Rinaldi
Directed and choreographed by Courtenay Dobbie
What happens when two comedians enter the dance world...as dancers? Employing movement and inspiration from physical theatre, contact improvisation, d'aggio, capoeira, martial arts, and dogs, Mongrel finds beauty in the unbeautiful in a pure expression of infectious emotional energy that will inspire the audience to dance their own dance of convulsive laughter.

Mongrel is the playful pup of three popular performers known to Vancouver’s Fringe-fest and independent theatre scene. Jonno Katz and Michael Rinaldi have an extensive background in physical theatre, dance, clowning and mime and have performed on stages across Canada and internationally. Courtenay Dobbie is an actor, dancer, singer, choreographer and director who most recently directed the Fringe hit Lazy Susan which won The Georgia Straight’s Critic’s Pick Award.

Andrea Gunnlaugson


Conrad Alexandrowicz

Dance, Little Lady!
A Wild Excursions/Chutzpah! co-presentation

Choreographed and Directed by
Conrad Alexandrowicz
[Bio]

Featuring Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg, Ainsley Cyopik, Natalie Lefebvre-Gnam, and Andrea Gunnlaugson.

Choreographer/Director Conrad Alexandrowicz has incorporated the true essence of “chutzpah” into this re-mount of the satirical theatre/dance cabaret Dance Little Lady, a comical and frank exploration of the female dancer/actor experience in Western patriarchal culture. The text, mostly spoken at microphones and in stand up comedy-style, is drawn from the all-female cast’s experiences and connects the courage and nerve of women in North American society with that of the female performer.

Originally from Toronto, Vancouver-based Alexandrowicz is a director, writer and choreographer, and the artistic director of Wild Excursions Performance. To date, he has created over 45 dance and physical-theatre works, some of which have been presented across Canada, in New York City, France and the U.K. His play, The Wines of Tuscany, was produced three times in Vancouver, in Calgary, Victoria and Edmonton, and at the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto and won Jessie, Dora and Sterling Awards.