Video | Changeover from It's Jewdy's Show to Samuel J. and K.

See what changeover is like at the festival with this time lapse photography.

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Video | It's Jewdy's Show Audience Reactions

A new addition to our blog posts, audience reactions to the shows. Here's It's Jewdy's Show!

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Weekly Preview | June 28 - July 4

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Opens July 1st

June 30 – July 11
book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart
music & lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
choreography by Denis Jones
directed by Jessica Stone

The Romans are coming! With a nod and a wink to Plautus, director Jessica Stone helms an all-male troop of actors into the comic fray with this fresh, “old” take on American master and Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Sondheim’s raucous musical classic. With Tony nominee Christopher Fitzgerald leading the charge as Pseudolus, a slave who must win his freedom by playing matchmaker for his master, this toe-tapping, zany romp through ancient Rome is a paean to the Gods of Comedy.

Cast

Kevin Cahoon
Paul Castree
David Costibile
Christopher Fitzgerald
Zackary Grady
Josh Grisetti
Adam Lerman
Chivas Michael
Bryce Pinkham
Joe Aaron Reid
Graham Rowat
Jeremy Shamos
David Turner
Jon Patrick Walker

Scenic Design | Alexander Dodge
Costume Design | Catherine A. Parott
Lighting Design | Jeff Croiter
Sound Design | Drew Levy and Tony Smolenski
Production Stage Manager | Gregory T. Livoti
Production Manager | Joel M. Krause
Casting | MelCap Casting


It's Jewdy's Show Final Week

Performances run through July 4th, so get you tickets while you still can!


Fridays @ 3 Begins July 2

HOW. WHAT. NOW. written and performed by Michael Warner

Directed by Campbell Scott

How. What. Now. Stories of Redemption and Hope, Killing Gophers, and how Bubble Gum Pop can save your life.

   

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It's Jewdy's Show Opening Night!

Everyone had an amazing time last night celebrating the opening of our first show on the Nikos Stage - It's Jewdy's Show: My Life as a Sitcom  Take a look at our photos from the evening!

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Special Feature | Our Lives as a Theme Song

by Kristin Idaszak

It’s Jewdy’s Show: My Life as a Sitcom chronicles Judy Gold’s quest for a second bathroom, aka her own sitcom, aka the perfect theme song—because the theme song is the secret to a successful sitcom. At least that was what Sherman Schwartz, the creator of The Brady Bunch and Gilligan’s Island, maintained.

Recounting his pitch of Gilligan’s Island to CBS, he explained the necessity of a good theme song: “There would have to be...so much exposition explaining what the hell these seven people were doing on the island and it would be so dull before you ever got to the comedy. [I said,] I will have a song written that will take care of all the exposition in one entertaining minute. That's all you were allowed in those years. Sixty seconds was your limit. I said in 60 seconds I will tell the whole background story so there won't be any exposition. I myself have a saying: ‘Exposition is the enemy of entertainment.’ That's the truth. If you have to keep explaining what people are saying and doing, and why they're where they are, you never get to the story.”

In honor of Judy’s raison d’etre I polled the team behind It’s Jewdy’s Show about their personal theme songs. My findings are best introduced by a song (to be sung to the tune of The Brady Bunch):

Here’s the story of a theatre called Williamstown

That was putting up eight very lovely shows

One of them was about a Jewish lesbian

In search of her own sitcom
But the one day when this lady met her production team

They decided to put on a play instead

All of them have their own theme songs too

Which we’ll now share with you:

Kate Moira Ryan, Playwright – “If Love Were All” by Noel Coward

Judy Gold, Playwright and Performer – “There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This” from Sweet Charity

Amanda Charlton, Director – “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey

Kalyn Lummis, Wardrobe Supervisor – “Pink” by Aerosmith

Alex Neumann, Sound Designer – “I Think It Is Beautiful That You Are 256 Colors Too” by Black Moth Super Rainbow

Wilburn Bonnell, Lighting Supervisor – The Price is Right theme song

Adam Dworkin, Assistant Director – “Harder Better Faster Stronger” by Daft Punk

Sam Hough, Photographer – “Teen Angst” by M83

Marisa J. Barnes, Assistant Sound Designer – “Caterpillar Girl” by The Cure

Phil Tokarsky, Assisstant Set Designer – “Give Me Love” by George Harrison

Josh Hacket, Associate Properties Master – Sanford and Son theme song

Caitlin Griffin, Company Management – “There She Goes” by Sixpence None the Richer

Andrew Layton, Scenic Design Dept Supervisor – “Happy Birthday” by Stevie Wonder

Jeanette Lee Porter, Assistant Scenic Designer – “I Wear My Sunglasses at Night” by Corey Hart

Kristin Idaszak, Dramaturg – “Twentysomething” by Jamie Cullum

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Dramaturgy | A Brief History of Situation Comedy

by Kristin Idaszak, Dramaturg

Lucy and Ricky, Mary Tyler Moore, Archie Bunker, Rachel and Ross, Jerry, George and Elaine—every week America turns on the television to see what shenanigans its fictional friends have gotten into.

Situation comedies developed from popular radio shows—like the Jack Benny Program—and were originally recorded live every week. In 1951, Lucille Ball shook up America with her riotous antics while Desi Arnaz, the co-creator of I Love Lucy, revolutionized the genre by recording the show on film every week, using a live studio audience, and multiple sets. Early sitcoms tended to focus on families, like Three’s Company and The Honeymooners.

By the 1970s, sitcoms increasingly dealt with real world events. All in the Family was particularly groundbreaking for its frank treatment of racism, homosexuality, women’s liberation, and sexuality. The seemingly-bigoted protagonist, WWII veteran Archie Bunker, is considered to be one of the greatest protagonists in television history. Norman Lear, who in addition to All in the Family, created Maude, The Jeffersons, Diff’rent Strokes and The Facts of Life later said, “My shows were not that controversial with the American people. They were controversial with the people who think for the American people.” Lear also considered the sitcom a 26-minute one-act play, and was consternated that it had to get interrupted so frequently for commercial breaks.

In the 1980s and 90s, standup comedians began getting their own shows. Bill Cosby’s sitcom The Cosby Show “revived a television genre (situation comedy), saved a beleaguered network (NBC), and sparked controversy about race and class in America” (http://www.museum.tv). Seinfeld, on the other hand, was acclaimed for the exact opposite reason: its creator Jerry Seinfeld “found comic brilliance in the exploration of ‘nothing’ [and] penetrated pop culture as no sitcom had done before” (http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine).

Ultimately, “the idea of the sitcom is for viewers to form a long-term relationship with the characters and return to view them repeatedly” (http://www.life123.com/arts-culture/television/sitcoms/tv-sitcoms.shtml). So we all share these friends and families every week when they enter into our living rooms, join our dinnertime conversations. They share with us their triumphs and tribulations, so we can feel a little less alone in our own struggles and achievements.

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Video | It's Jewdy's Show

Check out this video interview with writer and actor, Judy Gold and director, Amanda Charlton.

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Interview | Kate Moira Ryan and Judy Gold of ITS' JEWDY'S SHOW

Kristin Idaszak, Dramaturg, had a chance to interview Kate Moira Ryan, playwright, and Judy Gold, co-writer and performer about the creation of It's Jewdy's Show.

Kate Moira Ryan: So are you Jewish?

Kristin Idaszak: No, I was raised very Roman Catholic.

KMR: Me either. But it’s kind of like Stockholm’s Syndrome. So what do you want to know about us?

KI: First I’d love to know how you two started working together.

Judy Gold: We’re friends. Years ago, she met my ex at a party—

KMR: When Henry was eight months old—

JG: And my ex said, I met these really cool people, we’re going out to dinner with them. We went out for Mexican food and had like 400 margaritas. So that’s when I knew Kate and I were going to be friends.

KMR: If we didn’t have alcohol, we wouldn’t be friends.

[laughter]

KMR: We were in Chicago—

JG: And I was doing the clubs and Kate was in town—and we were at this party, where there were free martinis, but I was working so I wasn’t drinking, and I said, Kate, I can’t do the clubs anymore—

KMR: You’d had a martini. You were done for the night.

JG: I’d had a martini.

KMR: And I said, why don’t you do a one-person show—

JG: No I said, I want to do a one-person show.

KMR: And I said, let’s do it about Jewish mothers.

JG: No, you asked what my act was about. It was about my mother, and I was getting ridiculed by the Jewish press for playing into stereotypes.

KMR: So I had another martini and said, well, why don’t we interview Jewish mothers and find out if the stereotype is real. We came up with 25 questions on the back of a cocktail napkin. So she called me the next morning and said, I’m so excited to get started. I asked, on what? Because I’d had too many martinis—

JG: And I’d only had one! But then we started working on 25 Questions for Jewish Mothers, and that was very successful.

KMR: It played in New York for nine months and toured around the country for three years.

JG: We just finished that a year ago. Then I started this project—and this is more standup-y—with my friends Eric and Bob.

KMR: Then Judy called me and said, "I want to go in a different direction." I asked her what she wanted it to be. She said, "I want it to be about my quest for a sitcom and why it didn’t work out." And her relationship with comedy and how that transformed her life. As a child she was bullied because she was different—she was very tall at a very young age, and a little geeky, right?

JG: A little geeky?

[laughter]

KMR: And she wanted her own sitcom because when she was a kid she really lived in this world inside the tv set. I said, let’s write about that. We took the structure that Bob and Eric had come up with and then I stripped it down and we really made it into what she wanted it to be about. And it’s great because every process is really that, a process. A lot of cooks went into the pot. And we worked furiously to rewrite the show for three months.

KI: So what is that process like? Obviously, Judy, it’s your life. What’s it like for you, Kate, to write about someone else’s life—how do you do that?

KMR: Judy and I are so connected. I provided the structure but Judy was really interested in helping shape it. We write really well together. She’ll get up and do something and I’ll watch, so the writing really takes place in the rehearsal room. And we’re always cracking jokes together and having a great time. I love writing with her, and I love writing for her. Of course sometimes we want to kill each other, but that’s not often. I mean, we had such a great time at Stop n’ Shop last night—but we’re also rather demented. I was chasing her down the aisles trying to run her over with the shopping cart. It’s not that we don’t have deep conversations—sometimes we do—but mostly we really just enjoy each other’s company.

KI (laughing): That’s fantastic. And you’re also a well-known playwright in your own right. How does this compare to your other work?

KMR: I’m really eclectic. I’ve written several adaptations—I wrote an adaptation called BeeBo Brinker Chronicles based on lesbian pulp novels from the 40s and 50s, and a play about four women rehearsing Chekhov before they’re executed, called OTMA. I do travel a lot to Eastern Europe, mainly Russia. That’s my fascination. But I do really almost anything. Sometimes it’s successful, and sometimes it’s not. But that’s what a life in the theatre really is. You put it out there and you keep moving forward.

KI: Is this your first time at WTF?

KMR: I was actually here with Bart Sher—about ten years ago now—we did readings for a of a few of my plays.

KI: And you were here last summer at the cabaret, right Judy?

JG: Yes. It’s a very creative, productive, positive atmosphere. You really feel like you’re in the middle of major creativity. And I love the apprentices—they’re so wide-eyed and eager—

KMR: They’re so enthusiastic—

JG: And I just want to go up to them and whisper into their ears, “Get out.”

KMR: “Get out while you still can.”

KI: So I have one last question for you—what’s your drink of choice?

KMR: What is your drink? You like red wine.

JG: Coffee. Black.

KMR: That’s not a drink.

JG: Yes it is. She asked what my drink of choice is. Any drink, right?

KI: Right.

JG: Coffee. Black, strong coffee. I also like ice water. Ice water and coffee.

KMR: Well I like Diet Coke. And I like tequila. But I don’t drink tequila during the day.

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