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High Resolution Production Photos: TWO JEWS WALK INTO A WAR…
TWO JEWS WALK INTO A WAR…
directed by Will LeBow
music consultation by Hankus Netsky, Klezmer Conservatory Band
APR 28-MAY 20/2018
mainstage theater
What do you do if you’re the last two Jews in Afghanistan? You re-write the Torah, of course! Ishaq and Zeblyan are on a mission to save Judaism in Kabul by rebuilding their synagogue and keeping the faith alive, but only if they don’t kill each other first. Jeremiah Kissel (Fiddler on the Roof, Broken Glass, The King of Second Avenue) and Joel Colodner (Regular Singing, Freud’s Last Session, Imagining Madoff) star in this Vaudeville-inspired play, doing their best in a shtick-y situation.
Run time: 90 minutes, no intermission
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MAINSTAGE SEASON
Ideation | Oleanna | Man of La Mancha | The Bakelite Masterpiece | Two Jews Walk into a War…
STATEMENTS OF SURVIVAL SERIES
Unveiled | Statements after an Arrest under the Immorality Act | Lonely Planet | Ripe Frenzy
Seating Chart
Hearing Loop-Enabled
The mainstage theater is equipped with a Tele-Coil Loop System. Patrons with hearing aids and cochlear implants can set their devices to “T-Coil” to take advantage of the assistive listening system. Patrons wishing for assistive listening devices may pick up a headset from the Box Office upon arrival at the theater. Click here to learn more.
Pictured: Jeremiah Kissel. Photo by Andrew Brilliant/Brilliant Pictures.
Pictured: Joel Colodner (left) and Jeremiah Kissel (right). Photo by Andrew Brilliant/Brilliant Pictures.
Pictured: Joel Colodner (left) and Jeremiah Kissel (right). Photo by Andrew Brilliant/Brilliant Pictures.
Pictured: Joel Colodner (left) and Jeremiah Kissel (right). Photo by Andrew Brilliant/Brilliant Pictures.
Pictured: Joel Colodner. Photo by Andrew Brilliant/Brilliant Pictures.
Pictured: Joel Colodner (left) and Jeremiah Kissel (right). Photo by Andrew Brilliant/Brilliant Pictures.
Company
Ishaq
Joel Colodner
*
Joel Colodner
*
Ishaq
JOEL COLODNER* returns to New Repertory Theatre after performing in Regular Singing, Freud’s Last Session, Imagining Madoff, The Elephant Man, Three Viewings, and Indulgences. Other area credits include Sorry and That Hopey Changey Thing (Stoneham Theatre); Sweet and Sad (Gloucester Stage); It’s a Wonderful Life, Glengarry Glen Ross, and Mrs. Whitney (Merrimack Repertory Theatre); Our Town (Huntington Theatre Company); The Chosen and My Name is Asher Lev (Lyric Stage Company); The Light in the Piazza (SpeakEasy Stage Company); and numerous roles with Actors’ Shakespeare Project. Regional credits include Streamers, Comedians, and Hamlet (Arena Stage); The Rainmaker (Guthrie Theatre); An American Clock, Measure for Measure, and Wild Oats (Mark Taper Forum); The Threepenny Opera (Repertory Theatre of St. Louis); and The Seagull (Pittsburgh Public Theatre). Off-Broadway credits include How I Learned to Drive (Vineyard Theatre). Broadway credits include work with the Acting Company and Phoenix Theatre. Television credits include Moonlighting, Remington Steele, Eight is Enough, Highway to Heaven, St. Elsewhere, 21 Jump Street, Cagney and Lacey, and LA Law. Mr. Colodner earned his BA from Cornell University and MFA from Southern Methodist University. Originally from New York, he resides in Portsmouth, NH.
Zeblyan
Jeremiah Kissel
*
Jeremiah Kissel
*
Zeblyan
JEREMIAH KISSEL* returns to New Repertory Theatre after performing in Fiddler on the Roof, Broken Glass, The King of Second Avenue, Imagining Madoff, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Twelfth Night, and Hard Times. Last season in Boston he also appeared in King Lear, Ulysses on Bottles, and Exposed. Screen credits include The Town, The Fighter, The Great Debaters, Stronger, and Joy. He is the recipient of two Elliot Norton Awards (1990, 2014), two IRNEs, and the Elliot Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence (2003).
Creative Team
Director
Will LeBow
Will LeBow
Director
WILL LeBOW* returns to New Repertory Theatre after performing in The King of Second Avenue. Recent credits include Awake and Sing (Huntington Theatre Company); and Act One (Lincoln Center Theater). As an American Repertory Theatre company actor he appeared in more than 55 productions over 17 seasons including The Merchant of Venice, Full Circle (Elliot Norton Award), Nocturne (Drama Desk Nomination), Endgame, Romance, Copenhagen, and Picasso at the Lapin Agile. Other credits include The Rivals, Love’s Labour’s Lost, and Sonia Flew (Huntington Theatre Company); Once in a Lifetime (American Conservatory Theater); and Casey at the Bat, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, and world premieres of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and The Polar Express (Boston Pops). He is a veteran of 15 years with Shear Madness and three seasons with the Boston Shakespeare Company. Film and television credits include Act One (2015 release), Next Stop Wonderland, What Doesn’t Kill You, Second Sight, and six seasons as Stanley on Comedy Central’s Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist.
Assistant Director
Alex Schneps
*
Alex Schneps
*
Assistant Director
ALEX SCHNEPS* makes his New Repertory Theatre debut. Other area credits include Prelude to a Kiss (Huntington Theatre Company). Other recent credits include Romeo & Juliet (Hartford Stage); The Winter’s Tale (Shakespeare’s Globe Education); The Hen Night (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Scotland); and Mornings of April and May (Connecticut Free Shakespeare). Mr. Schneps is currently working towards his MFA in Theatre Education at Boston University where he also received his BS in Film and Television. He received an MA in Classical and Contemporary Text from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
News + Media
Programs
Read the TWO JEWS WALK INTO A WAR… Program online!
Press Releases
Press Release: TWO JEWS WALK INTO A WAR…
Event Information
Talkbacks
Sunday 4/29, 4pm (featuring playwright Seth Rozin)
Sunday 5/6, 2pm
Saturday 5/12, 8pm
Sunday 5/13, 2pm
Thursday 5/17, 2pm
Sunday 5/20, 2pm
SPOTLIGHT SYMPOSIUM: Commonalities of Afghan, Jewish, and Persian music: Performance and Conversation
Saturday, May 19 following 2pm show
MainStage Theater | Mosesian Center for the Arts
Email symposium@newrep.org to reserve your complimentary spot!
PANELISTS/MUSICIANS:
Neema Jan (Oud)
Grant Smith (Percussion)
Neema Jan (Musician, Oud) is an Iranian multi-instrumentalist and composer. As a performer, he has been playing Persian
Classical Music for more than 25 years. He has played in numerous recordings and concerts. He has performed in venues such as Boston’s historical Jordan Hall, MIT, Harvard University, Tuft University, Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY, and many more. As a performer, Neema mostly performs solo recitals with Setar (his main instrument), and frequently with Oud, and Kamanche. Recently, he has published a solo Setar album “The Kiss Belongs to Nobody” with a-side records. Neema holds a Bachelor degree in Performance of Persian Classical Music from Tehran school of Music, Master’s Degree, and a Graduate Diploma in Contemporary Improvisation from New England Conservatory, Boston. He is currently a doctoral candidate in Composition with Minor in Music Theory at New England Conservatory, Boston.
Grant Smith (Musician, Percussion) returns to New Repertory Theatre after performing percussion in The King of Second Avenue. He is involved in many world music, jazz, classical, and dance projects in Boston and New York. Other theatre credits include The King Stag, Shlemiel The First (American Repertory Theater) and Borscht Capades. Mr. Smith has toured globally from Krakow to Thailand and New Zealand. He has performed 2017-2018 season 11 with Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Don Byron, the Violent Femmes, Jane Wang and the Green Bay Packers. A member of the Klezmer Conservatory Band, and Klezperanto, Grant has performed on many stages from Radio City, Wolf Trap, and Tanglewood, to the Hollywood Bowl, MU in Budapest, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
Learn More
Two Jews Walks onto a Stage:
Vaudeville and its legacy
In Two Jews Walk into a War…, playwright Seth Rozin draws inspiration from vaudeville, using the comedic form as a lens to examine meaningful questions of faith and survival.
Vaudeville was the most popular form of American entertainment from the 1880s to the 1930s. Impresarios such as E.F. Albee (grandfather of playwright Edward Albee) built networks of theaters that spanned almost every American city, totalling nearly 2,000 vaudeville houses by the turn of the twentieth century. With massive reach and affordable prices, vaudeville was the pioneering form of mass entertainment, before radio, film, or television.
A typical vaudeville performance would be made up of nine to twelve short acts, or “turns,” ranging from musical numbers to contortionists, dancers to magicians, and everything in between. In many ways, Rozin’s play echoes a vaudevillian staple: the comedy duo.
Vaudeville has a complicated legacy: while its acts often played upon damaging stereotypes, vaudeville also served as a platform for artists from marginalized communities to gain economic security and nationwide recognition, breaking down cultural, gender, and racial barriers long before other industries would do the same.
One such success story: Weber and Fields were Polish-Jewish immigrants who, both born in 1867 and raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, met at age 8 and put together their first act by age 9. Over their long careers, they helped create the formula which later influenced duos such as Smith and Dale, Abbott and Costello, and ultimately, Rozin’s creations of Zeblyan and Ishaq.
Check out this Weber and Fields routine, preserved on a vinyl record:
Learn more about vaudeville
