Beit Lessin Open Stage Festival 2010

Open Stage 2010, Beit Lessin’s festival of Israeli plays, will take place on two consecutive weekends, August 26 – 28 and September 2 – 4 at ZOA House in Tel Aviv. Providing a platform for new Israeli plays for the past ten years, the Open Stage festival enters its second decade with an international collaboration – two plays created in collaboration with the Heidelberg Theatre will be performed, in addition to two full productions of Israeli plays and 6 stages readings of new plays. The festival will also host a speed date event featuring leading figures of Israeli theatre.

Open Stage 10:

Israeli Productions

Happy End by Ido Netanyahu, directed by Avishai Milstein
Ido Netanyahu, a doctor who divides his time between writing and medicine, has written his first play about a pair of of German Jewish intellectuals in denial of the approaching Holocaust. Performers: Ehud Shahar, Michal Levi, Dani Iserlish, Yedidya Vital, Dikla Hadar, Keren Siniuk, Dana Lerer.

Nadlan (Real Estate) by Roni Koban, directed by Gili Amitai
A family drama about the fate of a house in the heart of Tel Aviv, whose owner, the matriarch of the family, is dying. Written by journalist Roni Koban, the play was presented in a staged reading in Open Stage 10 in 2009, and received a grant for development as well as the prize for audience favorite. Performers: Rivka Gur, Yoram Toledano, Kobi Livneh, Michael Hanegbi, Yael Hadar, Niso Keabiah, Efrat Liphshitz, Debbie Yablonka, Haike Malca.

International Co-productions

Family Ties is a joint project of Beit Lessin Theatre and the Heidelberg Theatre in Germany.  The project will consist of six collaboratively created plays that focus on the entwined destiny of Jews and Germans, based on personal and family stories. The two plays to be performed this year are:

They Call Me Jeckisch
A group project directed by Nina Gühlstorf, with Michael Hanegbi, Hadas Kalderon, Ute Baggeröhr and Frank Wiegard. The unique story of the “Jeckim”: the immigrants from Germany who zealously maintained their German culture and had difficulty adjusting to the new life in Israel; living in a kind of cultural ghetto between two worlds.

Undercover Tel Aviv
A docufiction created and directed by Stéphane Bittoun, with Dan Kastoriano, Michal Shtamler, Franzisca Beyer, Paul Grill. Four undercover agents are sent on a secret mission in Tel Aviv, yet they do not know its precise purpose.

Staged Readings
Edmonton
 By Ron Gueta, directed by Jonathan Esterkin
An impetuous investment in a high rise in Edmonton, Canada turns into a trauma that haunts the investor at every turn. Performers: Shifra Kornfeld, Ofer Schecter, Avi Hadash, Karin Ben Yaacov, Amitai Kedar, Rafi Kalmar.

Hinei Oleh HaOr Meahorai (The Light Turns Upon Me)
By Oded Liphshitz, directed by Noam Shmuel
A group of young people in an apartment house seek love and happiness. Performers: Albert Cohen, Liat Har-Lev, Hila Zitoun, Ilanit Gershon, Dan Kastoriano, Dror Dahan, Alon Dahan, Tracy Avramovitz.

HaShabbat HaShorah (The Black Shabbat)
By Guy Meroz, directed by Eldad Ziv
A small crime scheme snowballs into a storm of events involving criminals, police, TV stars, politicians, and even some vengeful romantic partners. Performers: Yael Levental, Uri Gavriel, Gadi Rabinovitz, Robi Moskowitz, Roni Belitz, Yaron Brobinsky.

Too Much Sushi
By Dani Radler, directed by Elinor Agam Ben-David
An immigrant couple from Russia, a poet and artist’s model, become entangled in contemporary Israeli high society. Performers: Marina Shveif, Hadas Moreno, Hagit Ben Ami, Vladimir Friedman, Nadav Asoulin.

A Sweet Future
By Shelly Naidich, directed by Keren Tsur
A young woman is tired of her job in a high-tech company and embarks on a sweet and sensual career as a maker of chocolates, much to her partner’s dismay. Performers: Efrat Boimwald, Alon Padut, Hen Danon, Ofir Weil.

A Roaring Silence
By Andrea Bauav, directed by Ori Egoz
A complaint of a hit and run turns into a witch hunt, during which the complainant encounters corruption in the upper echelons of the judicial system and government. Performers: Mali Levi, Dina Blay, Alex Peleg.

Speed Date
Audience members will have the opportunity for a tête a tête with leading figures in Israeli theatre, for five minute sessions each, over the course of an hour. Participants will include:  Zipi Pines, Efraim Sidon, Savyon Leibrecht, Oded Kotler, Goren Agmon, Yigal Naor, Gilat Ankori, Zipi Shohat, Hayim Sela, Shlomo Moskowitz, Uri Vidislevsky, Boaz Gaon, and Roni Koban.

Grants for further development will be awarded to outstanding plays selected from the six staged readings. These grants are funded by the Joshua Rabinowitz Foundation. There will also be a prize awarded to the audience favorite. Open Stage is made possible through the support of the Joshua Rabinowitz Foundation, the Marc Rich Foundation, Friends of Beit Lessin, Tel Aviv Municipality and the Ministry of Culture. Avishai Milstein is the festival’s artistic director and it is produced by the Beit Lessin theatre, whose director is Zipi Pines. Family Ties is supported by the German government, the Baden-Wirtemberg Regional Government, the Municipality of Heidelberg, the Goethe Institute, the Minister of Foreign Affairs – Kashtum and private donors.