The Costumes, the Scenery...

As they sang so energetically in Annie Get Your Gun's "There's No Business Like Show Business," "The costumes, the scenery, the make-up, the props..." - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJvwpufbLyM
These are some of the important elements that go into making Show Business so magical. We've got a terrific "magician" working on this year's production - Ilana Epstein - who is coordinating all of this year's costumes.
Today Ilana, plus production manager Eudice Spitz and director Toby Greenwald, walked through thorns and overgrowth to visit Raise Your Spirits' costume caravan. I popped in with my daughter Bati, as well.
Visiting Raise Your Spirits Costume Caravan was like a trip down memory lane.
The shelves at the end of the caravan were filled with the animal heads from NOAH! Ride the Wave! and the cows from JOSEPH & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
There were field hand tunics from RUTH & NAOMI in the Fields of Bethlehem and the dress that Queen Esther wore when she was too pregnant to wear her original costume in ESTHER & the Secrets in the King's Court.
Hanging alone in a white bag were the slippers that I had worn as King Achashverosh in ESTHER ten years ago, along with my scepter. My poor scepter had faded. The globe that showed my (Achashverosh's) domination over the known world had returned somehow to its original form - a tennis ball surrounded with two Slinkies.
The backdrops for JOSEPH were rolled up against the wall, as were Achashverosh's palace, and the harem of Vashti.
The dancing fish of NOAH! lay motionless on a box, their eyes quizzically wondering why they're not flapping once more.
In the NOAH! section, I discovered my black wig and crown, plus my purple costume for Og, King of the Bashan. Against the wall were the colossal feet with which my fellow giants danced. (That number always terrified my granddaughter, and she couldn't enter the theater until it was over.)
The caravan is filled to the rim with treasures. Toby said that she always hoped our beautiful costumes were hang one day in a museum. They would have hanged in a Gush Etzion museum if the Judaica Center hadn't closed. One day maybe something else will spring up, IY"H, especially since over the past 11 years Raise Your Spirits has been such an important part of Gush Etzion history and life.
As we packed costume possibilities into plastic bags, a painting caught my eye - King Achashverosh and Queen Vashti (in happier days).
One day when we all have time :), we're going back to the caravan, and take another trip through 11 years of Raise Your Spirits history. Perhaps we'll make it an organized tour.
I like the sound of that.
For more photos, visit: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.420023331367447.86661.295615200474928&type=1

Everyone!!! ON STAGE!!!

Tonight we staged our opening number for ESTHER and the Secrets in the King's Court. With almost 90 people on stage, staging this number is sort of like a troop movement. It would have been great if we could have put up a tall ladder in the middle of the floor so that our director Toby Klein Greenwald could see how all this action looked from afar.
First the gymnasts flew across the stage. Then the Cool Kids. The Persian Dudes. Etc. etc.
Ninety women and children coming from every direction toward every direction. It was big!!
We did it about ten times, changing little things every step of the way.
And while we moved, WE SANG!! Ya know how difficult it is to sing and dance at the same time?
For that reason alone, everyone should run to see this show.  :)

Looking for our Characters

Whether you're a writer or a performer, you often look to certain personalities or famous characters for inspiration in your work.
You know, like Gene Kelly's swashbuckling Don Lockwood (in Singing in the Rain) was an Errol Flynn type. Jane Mansfield was a take-off on Marilyn Monroe.
So, as we create our latest Raise Your Spirits production, ESTHER and the Secrets in the King's Court, I keep wondering who different characters can be patterned after for inspiration.
I might have told you that I have been looking for someone to inspire my own character of Haman. Is he a Basil Rathbone (my personal choice), a Snidely Whiplash or perhaps a Captain Hook (as Avital Macales, who plays Esther, thinks)?

Tonight I thought about another character in ESTHER - the king's scribe and trusty right hand Charvona. It suddenly came to me who Charvona reminded me of - Radar in the TV show MASH. Suddenly the more I thought about it, the clearer it seemed to me. Charvona was the Radar of his day. Wow. Achashverosh was lucky.

An insight from my son on the Bigtan & Teresh Plot

My son Mati shared a thought about forgotten languages tonight.

He asked how King Achashverosh's guards Bigtan and Teresh were able to plot, and thought they'd be able to carry out, the murder of the king.

Well, my son explained that Bigtan and Teresh were not from Shushan. They were from a far away country, and spoke a little known language, Tarsi. They could plot to their heart's content, because no one would understand. Or so they thought.

Mordechai HaYehudi, Esther's uncle, was one of the exiled Jews from Eretz Yisrael. While he still lived in Israel, Mordechai was a member of the Sanhedrin. 

Since judges of the Sanhedrin were not allowed to accept the testimony of witnesses through an interpreter, all the members of the Sanhedrin had to know the 70 languages of the world.

Because of that, even thought Bigtan and Teresh spoke in a very rare language, Mordechai was able to understand them and interpret their develish intentions. B"H.

The Bad Guy is a Good Guy

My friend told me that her daughter came home very upset from a Raise Your Spirits rehearsal on our new show ESTHER and the Secrets in the King's Court.
Oh no, I thought. Rehearsals are supposed to be so much fun - challenging, but fun.
"Why?" I asked, dreading to hear the response.
She said, "My daughter said, 'Ema, Sharon Katz is playing Haman. Sharon Katz is not Haman!!'"
Firstly I am flattered that someone would feel that I am definitely not a Haman. And I am especially grateful that a child felt that perhaps I reflected goodness, and therefore was miscast as a wicked monster. That's a bit how I felt when my director Toby Klein Greenwald first said they wanted me to play Haman.
I felt like an entry in my high school yearbook - Least Likely to Play Haman.

But firstly, I'd like to remind everyone that a show is make believe. One of the nicest and most beloved women in Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s was Margaret Hamilton, who played the wicked witch of the west in the Wizard of Oz so frighteningly that adults still get nightmares when they think of her.
Secondly, as Toby reminded me, I have never played a hero. I've never even really been a good guy. I've played the all-powerful Pharoah in JOSEPH, the reverberating giant Og in NOAH!, the not-too-bright power-hungry Achashverosh in ESTHER, the selfish Elimelech in RUTH & NAOMI, the confused but dignified Noah in COURAGE and the vicious Mother of Sisera in JUDGE! My characters have been funny, and filled with energy, but they've rarely been good.
So, I have been kind-of bad on stage, and now Haman is the Ultimate Bad Guy. I'll do my best to give my audience the creeps, the willies and the heebie-jeebies, while I strive off stage, just like you, to become the Ultimate Good Guy.

International Rehearsals

We're really getting an international education at our Raise Your Spirits Rehearsals for ESTHER and the Secrets in the King's Court.
All music instruction seems to be in French or Italian - allegro (briskly), bellicoso (agressive), accapella (without accompaniment). I forgot the rest. Truthfully, I'd be making it up if I listed all the European terms that our music director Gayle Berman uses all the time. We all just nod our heads with a soft smile and try to look like we know what she's talking about.
Then choreographer Sarah Orenstein takes over and she's starting it too - releve` (rise to your toes). We eventually caught on to that too.
I liked when director Toby Greenwald said, "Do your ballroom dancing with a swagger." Now, you got me, girl.
Next time, perhaps I'll bring a translation dictionary to rehearsal.

The Heart and Body Remember

Last night we had our first full cast rehearsal of the new production of ESTHER and the Secrets in the King's Court.
It was fun, exciting and great to be together again.
ESTHER is celebrating its tenth anniversary. Mazel tov. Several of the women present last night were in that production a decade ago. Others from the new adult cast members had seen it. And many of the little girls, who were born during or after the run of ESTHER had heard its music on CD.
So, when music director Gayle Berman started playing the introduction to out opening number, bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum (you can hear the melody, right?), every gave a smile of familiarity and launched into song.
We were singing away, "Welcome to Shushan, to Shushan the capital." Suddenly Gayle stopped playing. "The correct pronunciation of that word is like this. The melody should be this way." And on and on, one correction after another.
My friend, Eudice, who is also production manager, hit the nail on the head, "We learned it a different way ten years ago. It's hard to unlearn it." You see, the heart remembers song.
But, B"H, we've got enough newbies who fell right into the groove, learning the new melodies, pronunciations and rhythms with ease. The rest of us will lean on them for a while.
At the end of the evening, we played Show and Tell. That's when smaller rehearsal groups show what they learned the week before.
The first group to perform we're the King and his men. They were singing the King's 70 Years. But the King was at a wedding. Since I had played the King in the original production of ESTHER, they asked me to step in.
I hadn't sung the role in a decade, and the key didn't seem exactly right, but I gave it a try. Who could remember a part that has since been blurred by four other subsequent productions and four other characters that followed it? Yet, soon I was twirling and dancing like I did ten years ago.
The body remembers.
The heart remembers. The soul remembers. Those of us who were lucky enough to be in the original ESTHER are simply going to have to unlearn what we knew, or better...put it in the category of ESTHER1. And we're going to have to embrace the new musical arrangements and all the new surprises waiting for us in ESTHER 2. Or maybe ESTHER TOO.
It won't be easy, but with smiles and good feelings and hard work, we can do it together.
To read more about this year's production, you're invited to visit us on Facebook.