Opening Night Performance of Wrestling Jerusalem

Tonight is opening night for the regional premiere of Wrestling Jerusalem, performed by Aaron Davidman on the PRC² stage. It may seem a simple thing to execute a one-man show, but Aaron Davidman, his California-based crew, and all of us here at PlayMakers have been working tirelessly on the heels of the holidays. There’s no such thing as a small show for us!

The set for Wrestling Jerusalem is simply a painted back drop. One actor. No costume changes. No props. So how is it that this production can capture the realities of 18 characters caught within one of the most consuming global conflicts of our lifetime? The answer lies greatly in the work of lighting designer Allen Willner and sound designer Bruno Louchouarn. “The lighting and sound design work together to create the different spaces that I travel in and inhabit,” Aaron explains to us. “The lighting shapes each moment, helping transform the space both in terms of physicality and mood. The sound design is also paramount to this production, creating an audio landscape, sometimes of the realistic sounds of place, other times more ethereal for mood or emotional or spiritual tone.”

With these elements in place, the work each night of course falls primarily on Aaron’s shoulders.

"The mental focus and concentration that is demanded of me is profound, and the physical endurance of this particular piece–90 minutes without pause—is very challenging. But it is the topic itself that has been the most challenge to wrestle with, so to speak."

Though he is alone onstage, Aaron did not work alone on the production. “My director Michael John Garcés and I worked very closely together—he was a wonderful dramaturg—and he helped find the performative modes that keep the piece moving and very theatrical.”

We are proud to be Aaron’s first stop on his national tour. Don’t miss your chance to see it here! Click here for more info or call our box office at 919.962.PLAY (7529).

Wrestling Jerusalem Post-Show Conversations

Join us for the 'Second Act' of PRC².

We've created PRC² as a venue for stimulating, topical artistic presentations and a safe place to talk about the themes they raise pertaining to the challenging issues of our day.

Jan 7 - 11, following each performance of Wrestling Jerusalem, expert panelists joining artist Aaron Davidman and moderator Collin Rustin include:

Panelists

Wednesday, Jan 7

Michael Figueroa
Michael A. Figueroa is an ethnomusicologist who researches the relation between music, place, and violence in the Middle East and Mediterranean regions. His current book project focuses on how national space is musically and poetically constructed in Israel/Palestine, with a focus on the critical moment of the Six-Day War of 1967. A multidisciplinary study of musical-poetic practice (including public rituals of commemoration, festivals, recording projects, and a variety of print and mass media), the monograph will explore the close relation between musical knowledge and spatial justice in the region. His additional research interests include music and memory in/of Muslim Iberia, global popular music, black music, music and violence, music and literature, hermeneutics, and the analysis of song. He holds a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in Musicology from Northwestern University. His research has been supported by the Ford Foundation, American Musicological Society (Howard Mayer Brown Fellowship), and a Fulbright-IIE Fellowship. He currently serves as Co-chair of the Society for Ethnomusicology’s Special Interest Group for the Study of Music and Violence, Assistant Editor for the International Council for Traditional Music’s Mediterranean Music Studies Study Group, and Board Member for the Mayart Foundation.

Thursday, Jan 8

Ari Roth, Artistic Director, Mosaic Theater Company (former Artistic Director at Theater J)
Ari Roth is an American theatrical producer, playwright, director and educator. From 1997 to 2014, he served as the Artistic Director of Theater J in Washington, D.C. Roth grew up on the South Side of Chicago and is a graduate of the University of Chicago Laboratory High School and the University of Michigan where he studied playwriting and received his first of two Avery Hopwood Awards for Drama from noted Michigan alum, playwright Arthur Miller. The Washington Post has described Roth as a “maverick artistic director” noted for staging premiers of new works by both “established and budding playwrights.” The New York Times called Roth's play Born Guilty a "searing drama." The play was commissioned and produced by Arena Stage, directed by Zelda Fichandler and nominated for the 1992 Helen Hayes/Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play. As a producer, with Theater J he produced world premieres by the late Wendy Wasserstein (Welcome To My Rash & Third), Joyce Carol Oates (The Tattooed Girl), Richard Greenberg (Bal Masque), Ariel Dorfman (Picasso's Closet), and Either Or by “Schindler's List” author, Thomas Keneally. As an educator, he has taught at the University of Michigan for ten years and has lectured at Brandeis, Carnegie Mellon and New York Universities. He currently teaches a course in political theater for the University of Michigan's “Michigan in DC” internship program and is the Founding Artistic Director of Mosaic Theatre Company.

Jacqueline E. Lawton, Professor, Department of Dramatic Art, UNC-Chapel Hill
Jacqueline E. Lawton was named one of 30 of the nation's leading black playwrights by Arena Stage’s American Voices New Play Institute. Her plays include: Anna K; Blood-bound and Tongue-tied; Deep Belly Beautiful; The Devil’s Sweet Water; The Hampton Years; Ira Aldridge: the African Roscius; Lions of Industry, Mothers of Invention; Love Brothers Serenade (2013 semi-finalist for the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference); Mad Breed; Noms de Guerre; and Our Man Beverly Snow. Ms. Lawton received her MFA in Playwriting from the University of Texas at Austin, where she was a James A. Michener Fellow. She is a 2012 TCG Young Leaders of Color award recipient, National New Play Network (NNPN) Playwright Alum, and member of Arena Stage's Playwrights' Arena. She is also a proud member of the Dramatist Guild of America.

Friday, Jan 9

Layla Quran, Undergraduate, UNC-Chapel Hill
Layla Quran was born in Jerusalem and raised in Greenville, NC. She is a senior Global Studies and Journalism student at UNC. After her first year at Carolina, she visited the West Bank to complete a research project on the role of the Arts as a form of resistance in Palestine. She interviewed nearly 50 Palestinian artists throughout the West Bank.  She most recently returned from a research trip this past summer where she conducted interviews with Palestinian artists on their thoughts regarding the cultural boycott movement for her honors thesis. She hopes to pursue a career in multimedia journalism after graduation.

Itay Asaf, Israel Scholar, NC Hillel
Itay Asaf, Jewish Agency Israel Fellow to Hillel, earned his BA in behavioral science from Yizrael Valley College in Israel. He grew up in kibbutz Ginossar, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. He worked as a counselor at an after school program for 1st through 6th graders on his kibbutz. He served in the special forces of the IDF for 3 years. He is a former basketball coach and the manager of a basketball school in Emek Yizrael valley basketball club. 

Saturday, Jan 10

Itay Asaf, Israel Scholar, NC Hillel
Itay Asaf, Jewish Agency Israel Fellow to Hillel, earned his BA in behavioral science from Yizrael Valley College in Israel. He grew up in kibbutz Ginossar, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. He worked as a counselor at an after school program for 1st through 6th graders on his kibbutz. He served in the special forces of the IDF for 3 years. He is a former basketball coach and the manager of a basketball school in Emek Yizrael valley basketball club. 

Elyse Crystall, Professor, English and Comparative Literature, UNC-Chapel Hill
Elyse Crystall, originally from Brooklyn, NY, is a long time social justice activist and human rights advocate. She teaches in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at UNC-CH, is a member of Concerned Faculty for Palestine at UNC-Chapel Hill, and co-convenes the Carolina Seminar "Rethinking Israel/Palestine." She is also a member of Jewish Voice for Peace. In the summers of 2006 and 2011, Dr. Crystall visited the West Bank to rebuild demolished Palestinian homes.
 

Sunday, January 11 (7:30pm)

Yaakov Ariel, Professor, Department of Religious Studies, UNC-Chapel Hill
Yaakov Ariel is a native of Jerusalem. He studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of Chicago, where he obtained his doctoral degree. A scholar of Christian-Jewish relations, he teaches at the Department of Religious Studies at UNC.

Conversation Facilitator

Collin E. Rustin, Jr., President – Rustin & Associates, L.L.C.
Collin established his company to help businesses improve productivity and manage conflict; to help community organizations increase their effectiveness in handling controversial issues; and to help governmental agencies improve their efficiency by providing skill-building workshops focusing on executive coaching, diversity awareness training, mediation services and conflict resolution. Prior to operating his own business full time, Collin was director of Human Resources Counseling Services at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where his staff was responsible for providing confidential services, workplace mediation, resolving employee/management conflicts, and approving employment terminations to more than 5,000 staff employees.

Collin also provides management feedback and executive training services at the internationally renowned Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro and for AvoLead, LLC in Durham NC. He co-leads training modules focusing on developing high performance teams and leading people through transitions.

He has used his mediation training to help corporations and governmental agencies manage different conflict situations and reduce tensions among members of different ethnic groups.
A graduate of UNC-CH, Collin received his BA degree in Psychology and his Master of Arts degree in Public Administration/Political Science. Collin is recognized as a Board Certified Coach by the Center for Credentialing & Education, Inc.

All are welcome - join us!

These post-show discussions are free and open to the public (beginning 5 minutes after the end of each 90-minute performance of Wrestling Jerusalem), however, space is limited.

Call the Box Office at 919.962.PLAY (7529) to reserve your seat!

Creating a Dialogue with Wrestling Jerusalem

Wrestling Jerusalem is a piece Aaron Davidman has been working on for a long time. The idea was first sparked when he visited Israel for the first time in 1992. In the decades since, the central idea has had several incarnations, but after repeated trips to the Middle East, Aaron found that there were many stories to be told.

“It feels to me that the Israeli/Palestinian story is the most important story for Jews to understand, and as an American Jewish theatre artist I felt compelled to go deeply into the material to see how I could make sense of this very troubling and often confusing conflict,” Aaron explains. “I was inspired to reach beyond the headlines, beyond polemic, and understand the complexity and nuance, the history and current events, the mythology and the real politik of the ‘situation’ as they call it in Israel.”

The result is a one-man show with 18 different characters (including himself), each with a very different, but very real perspective on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The characters are directly inspired from his interviews of people living on all sides of the dispute and coming to an understanding of it from their unique perspectives.

Aaron Davidman in Wrestling Jerusalem

Though the problem has been there for generations, the “situation” is still actively smoldering, flaring up dramatically on many occasions. As it all develops, so too does the play. Since premiering in San Francisco last spring, the terrible war in Gaza over the summer brought Aaron to do a major rewrite.

“I don’t rewrite the play to speak to current events, but rather, I have to be sure that the tone of the piece remains connected to where our world is—in my subjective opinion of course—in relation to this continually evolving conflict."

It is this immediate relevancy, of course, that draws us here at PlayMakers. The mission of our PRC² series is to bring these hot issues in front of us and our community to engage us all as part of the dialogue. Producing Artistic Director Joe Haj explains, 

“In the first season that I programmed at PlayMakers (2007/08) we included When the Bulbul Stopped Singing, a solo piece that I acted in. That play was an examination of the Palestinian/Israeli divide as viewed from the perspective of a progressive Palestinian civil/human rights lawyer, Raja Shehadeh. Now, in 2015, especially given the recent events in Gaza, it is important to once again look at this area of the world, this time through the lens of a progressive Jewish artist and activist.

“As with Rodney King, which we presented only a few weeks after the events in Ferguson, Missouri, it is my hope that the theatre can be a place for community dialogue, for increased tolerance, and for healing; a safe environment in which to have difficult conversations.”

Discussion will certainly be sparked as a result of Aaron’s provocative piece, and we give our audience a forum in which to participate and process questions raised during the show. Gathering a variety of panelists ready to engage with you, we think of this post-show conversation as our “second act.”

Aaron says, “I hope my audiences come with an open heart. People are very divisive about this issue, understandably. I think we are capable of holding vast complexity and even contradiction. I think we are more connected to our own humanity when we are generous with each other, when we remain curious about the ‘other.’”

Joe is confident that Aaron’s vision will be achieved in the setting of our theatre. “I have known Aaron Davidman for many years, and his deep thinking, his honest, personal and rigorous attempt to understand the situation, gives another voice and another perspective to one of the world’s thorniest issues.”

There are only six performances of Wrestling Jerusalem, January 7-11. Call our Box Office at 919.962.PLAY (7529) or Click Here to buy tickets and find out more.

Regional Premiere of Wrestling Jerusalem

Turning our attention to a new year and a new show, Aaron Davidman brings us his one-man show Wrestling Jerusalem January 7 to 11. We are proud to be the first stop on his national tour, which will go to Los Angeles, Boston and New York City.

Wrestling Jerusalem grapples with identity, history and social justice, exploring the competing narratives at the center of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict that has lasted generations. The San Francisco Chronicle calls it a “remarkable solo performance” [of] “yearning beauty … deep sadness and wistful hope.”

Aaron describes it as following one man’s travels to Israel and Palestine “to try to understand the nuance and complexity that lives in the hearts of the human beings at the center of the conflict. Part personal memoir, part transformational theatre, in addition to myself, I play 17 different characters whom I meet along the way, each with his own story and perspective to share.”

We strive to bring you innovative, topical performances in our PRC² series. Earlier this season, we presented Roger Guenveur Smith’s Rodney King, which was highly relevant given the events in Ferguson, Missouri. The generations-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is the focus of Wrestling Jerusalem, remains fresh with the current situation in Gaza. The questions and dialogues these shows spark are the hallmark of PRC² enhanced by their "second act" of our engaging post-show discussions with the creative artists and expert panelists following each performance.

Performances of Wrestling Jerusalem will be 7:30 pm nightly plus 2pm on Sunday, Jan. 11 in the Kenan Theatre.

For tickets, contact the Box Office at 919.962-PLAY (7529).