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THEATRE AT CHUTZPAH! and CHUTZPAH! PLUS THRILLING, SURREAL, MAGICAL, PERSONAL, GLOBAL, MYSTERIOUS, HILARIOUS Festival Artistic & Managing Director Mary-Louise Albert says, “Chutzpah’s theatrical productions this year offer four very different performance experiences – each powerful and intriguing in its own right. I urge you to sample them all! King Matt the First is a fable for all ages that, even though written in the 1920’s, has a message that strongly resonates today. Make it a family outing. Larry Blum’s Blink & You Might Miss Me is commentary of a very different kind. Cheeky, dishy, insightful – Larry gives us an insider’s take on Tinsel Town, a wild world that fascinates us all (whether we admit it or not). Delish! The world premiere of the musical-theatre adaptation of Joseph Skibell’s A Blessing on the Moon featuring Poland’s Warsaw Village Band promises an extraordinary multi-layered encounter that melds music, story and movement in imaginative and evocative new ways, with a story that is surreal, magical and shocking. I’m excited about our Chutzpah! PLUS presentation of Goodness, a celebrated play that intertwines history and the present-day in a tale about truth and lies, the dark parts of humanity, the darkly humourous and deception in all its forms. Having this play in our Theatre Series is simply a thrill. For this festival, we’re also very happy to be working with a number of local, national and international partners to bring these exceptional works to you. I hope you will sample generously from this reach feast of remarkable storytelling.”
— King Matt the First A Chutzpah! / Popular Theatre-Canadian-Polish Society PRO ARTE Co-Presentation The story of King Matt the First is a moving fable of a young boy-king who learns about what is important in life, and a brilliant and thinly-veiled allegory of contemporary and historical events in Poland in the early 20th Century. Matt becomes king when just a child, thrown into an adult world of responsibility. Despite pressures of power, Matt decides to rule and reform his country according to his own ideas and priorities. Ignoring his grown-up ministers, he decrees that children should have seesaws and merry-go-rounds at school and be given a piece of chocolate at the end of each day. He sets about building the best zoo in the world. He visits faraway lands and befriends cannibal kings, fights in battles, braves jungles, and crosses deserts. Whenever his ministers tell him something is impossible, he puts them in jail. But perhaps the most life-altering thing of all is that the lonely boy-king finds true friends. In the end, though, fantasy is tempered by reality – but it’s clear that Matt was a great king. This timeless tale shows that only through the honesty and spontaneity of children can grown-ups begin to imagine and to create a better world. Janusz Korczak was a Polish physician and educator who wrote over twenty books. King Matt the First was one of his most beloved tales. Korczak's fiction was, in his time, as well known as Peter Pan and his non-fiction works bore passionate messages of child advocacy. During World War II, the Jewish orphanage he directed was relocated to the Warsaw ghetto. Although Korczak's celebrity afforded him many chances to escape, he refused to abandon the children. He was killed at Treblinka in 1942 along with those children. His works have not been forgotten, especially by teachers: there are Janusz Korczak societies in over a dozen countries.
Performance Details: Wednesday February 29 @ 7pm; Thursday March 1 @ 7pm; Friday March 2 @ 1:30pm; Saturday March 3 @ 2pm & 7pm; Sunday March 4 @ 2pm & 7pm The exhibit Janusz Korczak and the Children of the Warsaw Ghetto is on view at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre until April 30, 2012. Details at www.vhec.org
— Blink & You Might Miss Me A Chutzpah! / River Rock Casino Resort Co-Presentation Chutzpah! heads to Richmond for the first time with Blink & You Might Miss Me, one-man tour de force written and performed by show biz veteran Larry Blum and directed by Stan Zimmerman. Blink is Blum’s humorous and honest look back at his own journey through Hollywood and the show business world, with engaging stories, rare clips and photos from his long and fascinating career. A one-man tour de force, Blink & You Might Miss Me is Hollywood veteran Larry Blum’s humorous look back at his personal journey through the rough and tumble, dishy, glamorous and sometimes cruel world of show biz. Sharing engaging stories along with rare clips and photos from his long and wide-ranging career in TV and film, Larry reflects on the unique opportunity he has had to experience celebrity up close and personal. Whether acting on every major daytime drama or dancing in A Chorus Line onstage, in the feature film cult classic Xanadu or on TV’s The Tonight Show, Larry’s love of the business has never waned. He also enjoys the honour of escorting the glamorous women of Hollywood as they ascend the stage stairs to accept various awards. Blink & You Might Miss Me is a fascinating insider’s take on show biz you don’t want to miss! Larry Blum began his career dancing in productions of I Married An Angel starring Phyllis Newman, Bye Bye Birdie starring Lucie Arnaz and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying starring Van Johnson. After playing the role of Greg in the international production of A Chorus Line, Larry settled in LA and danced on The Third Barry Manilow Special, The Bea Arthur Special, The People’s Choice Awards and Solid Gold. His film credits include Xanadu and 18 Again (with George Burns), and he has appeared on the TV series Roseanne, The Jeffersons, The Golden Girls and The Garry Shandling Show, among others. Director Stan Zimmerman is also a writer and producer with a storied career in Hollywood. With his writing partner James Berg, Stan has worked on such classic series as The Golden Girls and Roseanne (penning the now infamous ‘lesbian kiss’ episode), The Gilmore Girls and both Brady Bunch movies, among many other shows and series. www.zimmermanstan.com
Performance Details: Wednesday February 22 @ 8pm (Opening); Thursday February 23 @ 8pm; Friday February 24 @ 8pm; Saturday February 25 @ 8pm; and a special Oscar early show Sunday February 26 @ 3pm
— Goodness Chutzpah! Plus A stranger in a seedy London bar hands a man a phone number. He calls it. An hour later, he’s in a woman’s apartment listening to an astonishing story: murder, war crimes, love. He can’t imagine what she’s been through. So he changes it. Part mystery, part ethical dilemma, Michael Redhill’s Goodness is an intricate knot of flashbacks and storytelling by a six-person cast, delicately interweaving South African and Central European folk music as laments from around the world. From Pinochet to Saddam Hussein, from Yugoslavia to Sudan and Rwanda, Goodness resonates deeply with the world and issues of the present moment. In Goodness, Jewish Playwright Michael Redhill provides the audience with a less-than-reliable version of himself as narrator. He then takes us on a brief, uncomfortable visit to Poland to explore the loss of his family in the Holocaust and then on to England where, disillusioned and bitter, he stumbles across the story of a much more recent genocide. With the cadence of a thriller, time-shifting tales-within-tales, and actors stepping in and out of roles, award-winning playwright and novelist Michael Redhill takes the audience on a gripping and, at times, darkly funny journey. Performed to a haunting a cappella score of folk music from around the world, Goodness explores what it means to tell, or even know the truth about one of humanity's most sinister habits – genocide. “One of the top ten shows of the past decade” NOW Magazine “Gripping and important” The New York Times "...Volcano is one of those companies that every great theatre city needs - bold, experimental and bubbling with ideas." The Toronto Star Performance Details: Tuesday March 6 @ 8pm; Wednesday March 7 @ 1pm & 8pm; Thursday March 8 @ 8pm; Friday March 9 @ 8pm; Saturday March 10 @ 8pm; Sunday March 11 @ 2pm
— A Blessing on the Moon – The Colour of Poison Berries World Premiere – Music Theatre Chutzpah! 2012 opens with the world premiere of a musical and theatrical adaption of author Joseph Skibell’s masterpiece novel, A Blessing on the Moon. This new music-theatre experience combines imaginative and physical theatricality with a fiery, folk-infused cabaret-style score that brings Skibell’s daring and original story to surreal life. Andy Teirstein’s composition joins with Poland’s Warsaw Village Band and a cast of five accomplished singer/actors under Jim Calder’s direction. A Blessing on the Moon – The Colour of Poison Berries is the magical tale of Chaim Skibelski. It follows Chaim’s wandering search for an afterlife following his violent death at the hands of a German soldier in wartime Poland. On Chaim’s travels, he is sometimes accompanied by his Rabbi who is now in the form of a crow. This mystical story is a haunting evocation of the Holocaust experience and a journey towards peace and wisdom. The piece is scored for cabaret instrumentation based on the performers of The Warsaw Village Band: 2 Alto Women’s Voices; Violin; Cello; Tsimbl (hammered dulcimer); Percussion. In keeping with the location and cultural milieu of the book, musical interludes for a wordless chorus are drawn from Polish folk roots. Andy Teirstein’s work is inspired by the rich and diverse folk roots of modern culture. His music has been described by The New York Times and The Village Voice as "magical," "ingenious," and "superbly crafted”. In 2004 the six-member Warsaw Village Band received the prestigious BBC Radio 3 Award for World Music as "best newcomer" – and that same year won the European Broadcasting Union Award for the best folk recording and was nominated for a Grammy Award in the world music category. The New York Times has described WVB as one of the most important bands on the World Music stage. Joseph Skibell’s 1997 debut novel A Blessing on the Moon was named one of the year’s best by Publisher’s Weekly, Le Monde and Amazon.com. He has received awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as the Sami Rohr Award in Jewish Literature. His work has been translated into many languages, most recently Ido and Chinese. “Joseph Skibell has created a fantasia both hideous and beautiful, a combination of mysticism, nightmare, and even humor…Though the phrase tour de force has been much abused, A Blessing on the Moon is exactly that: a daring fiction that shouldn't succeed on any level yet works on many.” Amazon.com "Daring in its haunting, often painful honesty, dense in thoughtful observation and unsparing incident, the novel is confirmation that no subject lies beyond the grasp of a gifted, committed imagination." New York Times Book Review “part Holocaust memoir, part ghost story, part Hebrew folklore, part surrealistic road epic.” The Bloomsbury Review “Poland's Warsaw Village Band may be a folk music sextet, but that doesn't mean it employs polite strumming and quaint melodies…the glorious timbres, galloping percussion, the driving pings of the dulcimer and the dissonant staccato stroking of the cello deliver plenty of drama.” Washington Post Performances: Saturday February 11 @ 8pm; Sunday February 12 @ 2pm; Monday February 13 @ 8pm www.ablessingonthemoon.com www.warsawvillageband.net www.josephskibell.com www.andyteirstein.com
TICKETS Tickets can be purchased online at chutzpahfestival.com and ticketstonight.ca Tickets will also be available in-person starting January 9, 2012 at the Chutzpah! Box office at the JCCGV: 950 W. 41st Ave – just 2 blocks west of the Oakridge Skytrain Station. Single tickets are available for all shows or you can purchase Chutzi Packs and see 4 different shows of your choice for just $72 (not valid for music productions Idan Raichel and Vieux Farka Toure Quartet & off-site productions at the Commodore Ballroom and Electric Owl, with the exception of the River Rock Theatre and Firehall Arts Centre). Tickets for Blink & You Might Miss Me can be purchased only through Ticketmaster 1.855.985.5000 / ticketmaster.ca & by phone or in-person through the Chutzpah! Festival Box Office. Tickets for Goodness are also available at Firehall Box Office 604.689.0926 / firehallartscentre.ca and at Chutzpah! Box Office to March 4 only. Online: chutzpahfestival.com Student tickets prices available only with valid ID. Ticket prices do not include HST or service charges.
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