Worth Fighting For: An Evening of Storytelling
An Evening of Storytelling
The Capital Jewish Museum hosts an evening of live storytelling in partnership with The Braid. The performance will highlight the intersection of Jewish values and activism. Each story speaks to the themes and experiences explored in the new museum. Performances by Nadege August, Vicki Juditz, AJ Meijer, Joshua Silverstein, and Kate Zentall.
About the Braid
The Braid, formerly Jewish Women’s Theatre, is the go-to Jewish story company and leading non-profit organization creating, curating, producing and preserving stories grounded in Jewish culture and experience. Through its performances and programming, The Braid empowers artists and audiences to feel pride in Jewish culture while building community and connection between people of all backgrounds. [See below for cast bios.]
This program will conclude with the Museum’s 2021 Annual Meeting for Members.
Schedule
7-7:40 Performance by the Braid
7:40-8:00 Q&A with the Braid
8-8:30 CJM Annual Meeting
Annual Meeting
Review meeting materials
Please email info@capitaljewishmuseum.org in advance with any questions related to the meeting
THE BRAID creates legacy by inspiring Jewish stories that connect us all. As the go-to Jewish story company that pioneered a new art form called Salon Theatre, we give voice to diverse contemporary stories grounded in Jewish culture and experience that can be performed anywhere. Since 2008, our growing collection of 65 original salon theatre shows have illuminated varied themes like forgiveness, food, family, and freedom. Seminal shows newly spotlight women rabbis, Persian, Latinx, and Russian Jews, and Jews of Color. We also commissioned and produced Ovation-recommended Not That Jewish, by Emmy award-winning Monica Piper, which ran more than 16 months in LA and then off-Broadway. Other hit shows include Rain Pryor’s Fried Chicken & Latkes and Vicki Juditz’s Ovation-recommended Sacred Resistance. We ensure the next generation has an artistic platform and community to explore and celebrate Jewish cultural heritage through our NEXT Emerging Artists program. The Braid tours across the country and is accessible globally via Zoom performances, our podcast AudioNosh, streaming on ChaiFlicks, and other online platforms.
Visit us at the-Braid.org.
RONDA SPINAK (Artistic Director) created The Braid’s Salon Theatre Series and has since curated and produced more than 65 original Jewish-themed salon shows, as well as adapted many of the pieces performed. Spinak developed and produced Ovation- recommended Not That Jewish, which ran for 16 months, garnered an LA Drama Critics Circle nomination, and then moved to off-Broadway. She also produced Rain Pryor’s hit show Fried Chicken & Latkes and Vicki Juditz’s Ovation-recommended Sacred Resistance. Spinak co-wrote Stories from the Fringe, putting the stories of women rabbis on stage for the first time. Since then, she and her team have interviewed on videotape 180 national and international women rabbis, and in partnership with Jewish Women’s Archive have made many of the interviews available online at www.jwa.org. She has written for Rugrats, and her plays include Oscar Wilde’s Wife, a favorite at the Ashland New Play Festival. She is on the board of the Alliance for Jewish Theatres and is a member of the Dramatists Guild. She feels blessed to be working with so many creative people who give their hearts and souls to The Braid.
SUSAN MORGENSTERN (Director) began directing in college by staging musical-theatre concert readings while co-teaching American musical comedy with Tom Lehrer at UC Santa Cruz. She went on to teach and direct at the renowned Stage Door Manor, a performing-arts camp in upstate New York. Los Angeles productions: Theatre West – selections from David Ives’ All in the Timing; the musicals Just Too Cool, Saturday Night at Grossinger’s, as well as Barbara Nell Beery’s play, The Socialization of Ruthie Shapiro. Falcon/Garry Marshall Theatre – Leap, by Arnold Margolin; Surviving Sex, by David Landsberg; the hit comedy The Psychic, by Sam Bobrick. Whitefire Theatre – Richard Martin Hirsch’s Memorizing Rome. Skylight Theatre – an INKubator reading of Ghost-s, a Musical About a Musical, book by Kincaid Jones, music by Brian Woodbury, as well as an extended run of Meryl Cohn’s comedy Reasons to Live. In addition, Susan directed Happy Days, a New Musical, for Cabrillo Music Theatre. She co-authored and directed 18 Minutes of Fame: A Musical Journey with Barbara Minkus, which has played in Los Angeles and NYC. Susan works as a consultant show director at Disneyland Parks and Resorts, Anaheim, where she has the privilege of working with Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, and all their pals. She has directed numerous Braid salon shows and is especially proud to be its producing director, working closely with a tremendous group of brilliant and passionately creative people.
NADÈGE AUGUST is proud to be an Abby Freeman Artist-in-Residence of The Braid. An award-winning actress, she is the creator, writer, and lead of Bougie Dilemma, on Amazon, and hosts the podcast What the Fockery? Stage (partial list): CVRep: Good People (Kate) Outstanding Supporting Actress from Desert Theatre League. Antaeus Theatre: Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Emilie); Odyssey Theatre: Sunset Baby (Nina) NAACP Best Lead Actress nomination; Antaeus Theatre: Wedding Band (Mattie); Odyssey Theatre: Desire Under The Elms (Abbie Putnam) NAACP Best Supporting Female nomination; Lower Depth Theatre: Three Sisters After Chekhov (Jean). Television: Series regular “RuthLess”(BET+) Recurring Guest on Young Dylan (Nickelodeon); Alex, Inc (ABC). Guest Star: Key & Peele, Castle, Criminal Minds, Dexter, 1600 Penn, Happy Endings, Mr. Sunshine, The Mentalist, Make It or Break It, The Unit. Series Regular: SilverLake (Lead, pilot). Films & MOW include Out of Time, Undercover Bridesmaid, Raven’s Touch, The Last Letter, The Brothers, Runt. An MFA graduate, Nadège is a lifetime member of the Actors Studio and a member of the Television Academy. For more details, go to imdb.com/nadegeaugust.
VICKI JUDITZ has performed her original stories at theaters and festivals across the country, including the Sierra Storytelling Festival, Flying Leap, Timpanogos, the National Storytelling Festival, Aspen LAFF Festival, Jewish Arts Festival of Hong Kong, Asolo Theater in Sarasota, Florida, and Storytelling Arts of Indiana. She has also been a teller-in-residence in Storytelling Live! at the International Storytelling Center in Jonesborough, TN, and performed with the USA TODAY NETWORK Storytellers Project. Los Angeles audiences see her regularly around town in the spoken-word series Tasty Words, Spark, Tell It!, Tales by the Sea, Backstory, Expressing Motherhood, Off My Head, Story Salon, Poetry in Motion, Strong Words, and at Moth Story SLAMs and Grand SLAMs. Her story “Swing Dancing” aired on the Moth Radio Hour and her story “Boca” was featured on KCRW’s UnFictional. For the past several years, she has had the privilege of being part of many Jewish Women’s Theatre salons. Vicki has written, produced, and toured with a number of one-woman shows, including Teshuvah, Return; Where Do Babies Come From? and Life After Life. For Teshuvah, Return she received a Drama-Logue Award and an L.A. Weekly nomination for Best Female Solo Performer. Ovation-Nominated Sacred Resistance is an adaptation of that well-received show. For several years she wrote personal essays on environmental issues for the online publication Mad As Hell Club. On TV she has had comic roles on Coach, Everybody Loves Raymond, My Name Is Earl and Yes, Dear and has appeared in countless commercials.
AJ MEIJER is an Abby Freeman artist-in-residence with The Braid. Film: The Laundromat (directed by Steven Soderbergh), All About Nina (with Common and Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Life Partners (with Adam Brody and Leighton Meester), Broken Horses (with Vincent D’Onfrio and Anton Yelchin). TV: Sneaky Pete, NCIS:LA, Hannah Montana. He is a member of the original cast of the off-Broadway smash hit musical Heathers and featured on the cast recording. He co-founded the Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble and was seen in their productions of The War Cycle (Ovation Award nomination). Regional: Lennie in Of Mice and Men at TheatreWorks, Silicon Valley; All About Gordon at the Ahmanson; Getty Center with the National Theatre of Greece; Tug of War at the Getty Villa. AJ is a graduate of the UCLA School of Theatre, Film, and Television. More info at ajmeijer.com.
JOSHUA SILVERSTEIN is an award-winning actor, comic, writer, beatboxer, and educator whose performances and productions throughout the country have prompted admiration from creative greats ranging from Norman Lear to Prince. For more than 20 years, Joshua has provided and facilitated theater, improvisation, and spoken-word workshops and in-school residencies designed to create a safe and open space for students of all ages to experience the freedom of creative expression. Joshua brings passion, play, and persuasion to make words, thinking, and expression infectiously fun. He served as the cohost and coproducer of Emmy Award–winning Downbeat 720 for 19 years and currently cohosts The Silversteins’ Show, a daily news program and podcast providing levity and context to current events with his wife, Cinthya Guillen.
KATE ZENTALL is proud to be an Abby Freeman Artist-in-Residence at The Braid, where she has appeared in something like 14 different shows. She has performed in many NYC venues, including the Public Theater, Guggenheim Museum, and Carnegie Hall. In LA, there’s been lots of Shakespeare, Irish plays, English comedies, and modern dramas, at the Taper and other companies around town, as well as movies and commercials plus a good deal of network TV, from series regular on Studio 5B to a recurring role on Hunter to guest spots on Cheers, Lou Grant, It’s a Living, Becker, LA Law, and many more. In recent years she has been a writer, communications manager, and editor—for magazines, books, blogs, websites, and The Braid. As a recent grandmother to toddler Gracie, she reflects that all of the above take their place behind this awesome, blessed event.