JTO in the News
Jewish Theatre of Oklahoma fights antisemitism with storytelling: What you need to know
Jewish Theatre of Oklahoma is launching its third in-person season — the four shows of its inaugural season were performed virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic — as the Anti-Defamation League is reporting the highest levels of antisemitic activity since it started keeping records in 1979.
Jewish Theatre of Oklahoma will perform each of its five 2023-2024 shows in a different venue, with titles including the stage version of a best-selling memoir, the first Broadway musical from a theater icon and the Sooner State debut of a one-woman show about life, death and a Jell-O mold.
Jewish Theatre of Oklahoma presents Oklahoma Samovar by Alice Eve Cohen
With scripts in hand, Roberta Sloan and Kara Luther-Chapman are having a complicated conversation about strawberries and ashes, one that will soon be punctuated with people from the past.
"There's a kind of ghost story with it: Ghosts come in and sit at the Passover table and have a cup of tea. ... So, that really makes it interesting," explained Sloan during rehearsals of the award-winning new play "Oklahoma Samovar" at Oklahoma City's Emanuel Synagogue. The fledgling theater is putting on one of the first productions in the country of the new title, the winner of last year's 10th annual National Jewish Playwriting Contest.
"I chose it because, 'What? A Jewish play with Oklahoma in the title?' I've got to see what this is!' And then the first scene takes place on a farm in Oklahoma ... and the story changes and gets bigger and bigger — as stories do when they're told. And that's fun."
The founder and artistic director of Jewish Theatre of Oklahoma, Sloan is doing double duty as an actor and director for the company's Nov. 12-13 production of "Oklahoma Samovar" at Rodeo Theatre in Stockyards City.
JTO Offers 10-Minute Playwriting Competition
OKLAHOMA CITY, OK (January 10, 2022) – Jewish Theatre of Oklahoma (JTO) is offering a fresh, creative opportunity for playwrights in Oklahoma and around the world. JTO invites playwrights to explore the complexities of mothers in the Hebrew Bible, through the theme “Smart Women, Tough Choices.” Playwrights can submit monologues and/or one-act plays under 10 minutes.
“Motherhood is complex, deeply personal and worthy of contemplation,” said Debra Rich Gettleman, Associate Director at Jewish Theatre of Oklahoma. “The women of the Hebrew Bible deserved to be explored, and we at JTO are excited to bring these stories to light.”
This year marks JTO’s first Mothers in the Bible Festival, a chance to take a reverent but realistic view of mothers in the Hebrew Bible. While it’s simple to see mothers as beacons of goodness, sometimes mothers need to break bonds, commit sins and rebel.
“Smart Women, Tough Choices” is sponsored by The Respect Diversity Foundation, whose mission is to promote tolerance, acceptance and affinity across differences – through communication, education and the arts. Selected works will be announced by March 15 and performed live in Oklahoma City on April 30 and May 1, 2022.
Touring one-man show 'The Scribe' launches in Cleveland
In the beginning, Philadelphia-based theater artist Jesse Bernstein wrote a one-man play about the ancient Jerusalem scribe who compiled the holy, sacred first Torah.
Now he is performing the witty, irreverent work on stage in a national tour that launches Nov. 3 in an event hosted by the Siegal Lifelong Learning Program at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. The production, which will be shown virtually in Cleveland and will receive its first live performance at the Jewish Theatre of Oklahoma a month later, will be followed by a question-and-answer session.
God walks into a psychologist's office: Jewish Theatre of Oklahoma starts second season with comedy
"It's a universal theme about humanity. It doesn't matter that it is Jewish in the sense that everybody struggles with, 'Is it worthwhile?' and 'What's happening to our world?'" said Jewish Theatre of Oklahoma Associate Artistic Director Debra Rich Gettleman, who will star as the psychologist who has a divine encounter in "Oh, God." "If you're going to be a great city, you have to have great theater — I just believe that in the depths of my soul.”