BOSTON, Mass. – A guest speaker series has been added to Shakespeare & Company’s limited run of Golda’s Balcony by William Gibson, presented from February 23 through March 10 at the Jackie Liebergott Black Box Theatre at Emerson Paramount Center, Boston.
Following selected performances, influential members of Boston’s Jewish community will engage in conversation with Elliot Norton Award-winning Annette Miller, who plays the title role. These discussions will occur immediately after each performance, on February 25, 28, and 29, and on March 3, 6, 7, and 9.
Golda’s Balcony is the true story of Meir – a Russian immigrant, American school teacher, and the fourth Prime Minister of Israel. The play begins on the eve of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, with Meir confronting her choices and reflecting on the formation of the state.
All performances of Golda’s Balcony are general admission and tickets are $75; a $25 rush ticket option for patrons under 40 will be offered, in-person only, one hour before each performance. $5 EBT Card-to-Culture tickets are also available. Talkbacks are included in the tickets purchased for those select performances. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit https://emersontheatres.org/Online/default.asp, or call (617) 824-8400.
Guest speakers include:
Sunday, Feb. 25 – Jonathan D. Sarna, the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, and director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass. He’s the past president of the Association for Jewish Studies and Chief Historian of the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, as well as the author or editor of more than thirty books on American Jewish history and life.
Wednesday, Feb. 28 – Rabbi Michelle Robinson, who serves Temple Emanuel of Newton, Mass. Her rabbinic passions include community building, sharing the joy of traditional text study, and facilitating personal connections to the beauty of prayer.
Thursday, Feb. 29 – Laura Conrad Mandel, executive director of Boston’s Jewish Arts Collaborative. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon University with a degree in Art and English, Mandel became the founding director of alumni and parent relations for the Hillel Jewish University Center of Pittsburgh. She is currently Chair of the Board of the Council of American Jewish Museums, co-chair of the Boston Lyric Stage Advisory Committee, a member of both the MASSCreative Advisory Council and the JCRC Boston Council. Mandel also writes a regular arts and culture blog for the Times of Israel.
Sunday, March 3 – Hy Kempler, PhD, had a 40-year career as a clinical psychologist and teacher. In 2001, he joined the Harvard Institute of Learning in Retirement where he studied aging, taking and teaching a variety of courses including several on the U.S.-Israel relationship and American Jews.
Wednesday, March 6 – Dr. Marla Brettschneider, professor of Political Theory with a joint appointment in Politics and Feminist Studies at the University of New Hampshire. Marla’s forthcoming book Revolutionary Legacies: Jewish Feminist Political Thinking, explores the lives of Jamaica Kincaid, Golda Meir, Hannah Arendt, Frida Kahlo, Gertrude Stein, and Emma Goldman. Her newest book is JEWCY: Jewish Queer Lesbian Feminisms for the 21st Century.
Thursday, March 7 – Shulamit Reinharz, PhD, the Jacob Potofsky Professor of Sociology and the Founder and Director of three units at Brandeis University: The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute (est. 1997), the Women’s Studies Research Center (est. 2001), and the Kniznick Gallery for Feminist Art (est. 2001). She supervises all internal programs including the WSRC Student Scholar Partnership Program; the HBI Summer Internship Program; the HBI Artist-in-Residence Program; the HBI Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law, and HBI Project on Children, Families and the Holocaust, as well as several book series and the journal Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies and Gender Issues. In 2001, she opened the physical facility in which all of these activities take place, a 10,000-square-foot section of the Epstein Building. She currently is the co-p.i. on a project in Israel concerned with government mandated advocates for women in all municipalities.
Saturday, March 9 – Rabbi Marc Baker, president and CEO of Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston (CJP). Founded more than 125 years ago, CJP is ranked by the Boston Business Journal as Massachusetts’ largest nonprofit organization, investing and managing philanthropic assets valued at $2.4 billion. Under Marc’s leadership, CJP has raised more than $200 million in annual support and $17 million in emergency funds for COVID-19 relief, humanitarian support for Ukraine, and immigrant and refugee crises. He graduated from Yale University in 1997 with a Bachelor of Arts in religious studies, and received his Master’s in Jewish education from The Hebrew University in 2002. He was ordained by Rabbi Daniel Landes, former Director of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. Before coming to CJP, he served as Head of School at Gann Academy in Waltham. In 2011, he received The Pomegranate Prize from The Covenant Foundation which honors and nurtures exceptional, emerging Jewish educators.
About Shakespeare & Company
Shakespeare & Company was founded in 1978 by Tina Packer. Located in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, the Company offers performance, education, and actor-training opportunities year-round, and attracts more than 40,000 patrons annually with a core of more than 150 artists.
