Celebrating Jewish Pride – A Free Reading of A PEOPLE by L M Feldman at Island City Stage on August 25th

28 Monday Jul 2025

Posted by Carol Kassie in Uncategorized, YI Love Jewish, Yiddishkayt Initiative

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A People, Ana Marie Caise, Autumn Kioti-Horn, Avi Hoffman, Eytan Deray, Free Reading, Island City Stage, Jewish Identity, Jewish Pride, L M Feldman, Laura Turnbull, Lela Elam, LGBTQ+, Rayner Gabriel

Celebrating Jewish Pride

Love Jewish to present a Free Staged Reading of
A People
by L M Feldman
Directed by Avi Hoffman
August 25^th at Island City Stage
Love Jewish is dedicated to give a voice to contemporary Jewish LGBTQ+
artists and content creators.

For Immediate Release
Contact: Carol Kassie
carol@carolkassie.com /561-445-9244

July 28, 2025

WILTON MANORS, FL: In celebration of Jewish Pride, Love Jewish, a division of Yiddishkayt Initiative, will present a staged reading of playwright L M Feldman’s theatrical mosaic A People as their inaugural season presentation. The performance will take place on August 25^th at 7 pm at Island City Stage.

Directed by Avi Hoffman and featuring South Florida favorites Ana Marie Calise, Eytan Deray, Lela Elam, Rayner Gabriel, Avi Hoffman, Autumn Kioti-Horn, Laura Turnbull, and others, A People will take audiences on a magical lyrical journey into heritage, tradition, religion, and humanity.

Feldman holds up a mirror to 5000 years of Jewish identity and history, reminding us that we are all descendants from somewhere, and we can choose to deny our lineage, wrestle with it, or embrace it. Sometimes hilarious and sometimes terrifyingly honest, A People’s ensemble will take on a mass of old and new-world personalities to create snippets of life the way we see it, the way we want it, and the way it is.

Utilizing the performing arts, media, publishing, education, language, and literature, the mission of Love Jewish is to Advocate for Jewish Pride, Build Cultural Bridges and Challenge Antisemitism Through the Arts by promoting Jewish history and life, and their far-reaching impact on the contemporary world. Based in Miami-Dade County, in proud partnership with the University of Miami and Florida Atlantic University, YI Love Jewish builds engagement and forges multicultural and diverse connections through an immersive and varied range of programming for audiences worldwide.

Tickets for A People are free, with a suggested donation of $10, and are now available. They can be purchased online at www.YILoveJewish.org/events. Island City Stage is located at 2304 North Dixie Highway in Wilton Manors (33305).

For more information about A People, Love Jewish, and Yiddishkayt Initiative please visit https://yilovejewish.org. To arrange interviews, photos, or requests to see the performance, please contact Carol Kassie at carol@carolkassie.com / 561-445-9244.

A People
By L M Feldman
Monday, August 25^th at 7 pm
Tickets: FREE ($10 Suggested Donation)
To reserve: https://yilovejewish.org/events
The performance will take place at
Island City Stage
2304 North Dixie Highway
Wilton Manors, FL 33305

L M Feldman is a queer, feminist playwright (and circus artist) who pens plays that are wildly theatrical but deeply intimate. Formally ambitious plays that move and take up space. Plays that are questioning, wrestling, and asking. Plays without answers. Plays about women and queers, plays about outsiders and searchers. Plays grappling with voice and agency, opportunity and access, history and its wake. Plays about the human connection. Plays that seek to be a greater, communal, rare theatrical event in which something transcendent transpires – for those both onstage & off.

Her plays include Thrive, or What You Will (Page 73 Residency, New Georges Audrey Residency); Another Kind Of Silence (Magic Theatre Virgin Play Festival, PlayPenn Conference, Playwrights Realm Fellowship, FEWW Prize Honorable Mention); Amanuensis (Georgetown University); A People (Orbiter 3, Jewish Plays Project); The Egg-Layers (Jane Chambers Honorable Mention, New Georges/Barnard College commission); Grace, or The Art of Climbing (Denver Center, Art House Productions, Nice People Theatre, ATCA/Steinberg New Play Award Nomination, Barrymore Nomination); ensemble-devised works, including Gumshoe (New Paradise Labs + Free Library of Philadelphia + Rosenbach Museum), War of the Worlds: Philadelphia (Swim Pony + Drexel University), And If You Lose Your Way, Or A Food Odyssey (The Invisible Dog, New York Innovative Theatre Award Nomination), and others; and a baker’s dozen of short plays. She has been nominated for the Barrie and Bernice Stavis Playwright Award, Wendy Wasserstein Prize, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and the Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award. She was awarded an artist grant through the Boomerang Fund and a creation grant from the State of Vermont, and she has been an artist-in-residence at Terra Firma, SPACE at Ryder Farm, the School of Making Thinking, Tofte Lake Center, Montana Artists Refuge, Montana Repertory Theatre, Sewanee University of the South, Cornell University, and Theater Emory/Brave New Works Festival. A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, L is also a New Georges Affiliated Artist, a devised-work collaborator, a teacher of playwriting (Bryn Mawr College, Lantern Theatre/Jefferson Medical School, PlayPenn), and a freelance dramaturg.

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THE RIGHTEOUS a New Play by Jeff Cohen at Miami New Drama April 22nd Only

14 Monday Apr 2025

Posted by Carol Kassie in Clients, Uncategorized, YI Love Jewish, Yiddishkayt Initiative

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Avi Hoffman, Chiz Chisholm, Craig Bierko, Dave Corey, Irene Adjan, Jeff Cohen, Laura Turnbull, Miami New Drama, Patti Gardner, Peter W. Galman, Stephen Schnetzer, The Righteous, University of Miami Miller Center for Contemporary Jewish Studies, YI Love Jewish/Yiddishkayt Initiative

Yiddishkayt Initiative and The University of Miami Center for Jewish Studies
in Association with Miami New Drama and Second Serve Productions
to present a staged reading of
The Righteous
A new play by Jeff Cohen

In a World filled with turmoil and amorality, what does it mean to be Righteous?

For Immediate Release
Contact: Carol Kassie
carol@carolkassie.com / 561-445-9244

April 14, 2025

MIAMI BEACH, FL: In honor of Yom HaShoah – Holocaust Remembrance Day – Yiddishkayt Initiative (YI Love Jewish) and The University of Miami Miller Center for Judaic Studies in association with Miami New Drama and Second Serve Productions will present a staged reading of Drama Desk Award-winner Jeff Cohen’s (The Soap Myth) new play The Righteous. The event will take place at Miami New Drama (at The Colony Theatre) on April 22^nd at 7:30 pm.

What would you do if you learned that your country planned to exterminate an entire race of people? That is the horrible question faced by Eduard Schulte, a captain of German industry and member of Hitler’s inner circle. The Righteous is the true story of the man who sounded the alarm of Hitler’s plan to murder all the Jews in Europe. Schulte’s warning reached the desk of President Roosevelt in December 1942. Roosevelt refused to act.

Schulte’s identity was a closely guarded secret for over forty years and his heroic act to stop the Holocaust was kept hidden from his family and from the world. The Righteous tells his story through the lens of Priscilla Schulte, the American granddaughter who never knew him. She uncovers a compelling and poignant portrait of a man who risked his life and the lives of his family to stand up against evil. In 1988, Eduard Schulte was posthumously honored by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations – a Righteous Gentile.

The Righteous will be directed by the playwright Jeff Cohen, and feature Tony Award nominee Craig Bierko (The Music Man) and two-time Drama Desk Award nominee Avi Hoffman (Death of a Salesman), along with an award-winning cast of some of South Florida’s most talented actors, including Laura Turnbull, Patti Gardner, Irene Adjan, Peter Galman, Chiz Chisholm, Stephen Schnetzer, and Dave Corey.

The Righteous will be staged for one night only at Miami New Drama (The Colony Theatre, 1040 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach, FL 33139). Admission to the reading is FREE, however reservations are required, and can be made online at https://yilovejewish.org/events.

For more information about The Righteous, to arrange for interviews, for photos, and/or to arrange to see the performance, please contact Carol Kassie at carol@carolkassie.com / 561-445-9244.
~
The Righteous
By Jeff Cohen
Tuesday, April 22 at 7:30 pm
Admission: FREE (Reservations required)
For reservations: https://yilovejewish.org/events
Or call 954-678-1496
The performance will take place at
Miami New Drama/Colony Theatre
1040 Lincoln Road,
Miami Beach, FL 33139
~

Jeff Cohen (Playwright). Jeff Cohen’s drama The Soap Myth is considered one of the most important plays about antisemitism and Holocaust denial. Ed Asner toured the country in The Soap Myth as a “concert reading” and the play was filmed and broadcast by PBS starring Mr. Asner and Tovah Feldshuh. Other notable actors who have performed The Soap Myth include Richard Dreyfuss, Bob Gunton, John Rubinstein, Harris Yulin, and Jayne Atkinson. His play The Man Who Ate Michael Rockefeller was a NY Times and Time Out New York Critic’s Pick. He received international acclaim and a special 2002 Drama Desk Award for his response to the attacks of 9/11. The Tribeca Playhouse Stage Door Canteen, his 10-week USO-style variety show to “entertain the troops” (the rescue and recovery workers at Ground Zero) featured such stars as Kristen Chenoweth, Phylicia Rashad, Sandy Duncan, Colin Quinn and many more. He produced and directed a number of award-winning new plays including Christopher Shinn’s Four (NY Times Critic’s Pick)and Tristine Skyler’s The Moonlight Room (NY Times annual Ten Best productions). The NY Times Arts & Leisure profiled him alongside internationally acclaimed avant-garde artists Ivo Van Hove and The Wooster Group for his groundbreaking work adapting classic plays to an American milieu. In his five-decades in the theater, Mr. Cohen has helped launch the careers of Laura Linney, Kathryn Hahn, Christopher Shinn, Michael Ealy and DB Sweeney – to name just a few.

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Pigs Do Fly Productions to Present PAINTING CHURCHES – April 11 – May 4

04 Tuesday Mar 2025

Posted by Carol Kassie in Clients, Pigs Do Fly Productions

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Ana Marie Calise, comedy, David Hart, Dean Landhuis, Deborah Kondelik, Donna Pacheco de Castro, Ellen Wacher, Empire Stage, Jessica Kaschube, Joseph Long, Laura Turnbull, Painting Churches, Pigs Do Fly Productions, Preston Bircher, Theater in Fort Lauderdale, Tina Howe, William Mahone

Pigs Do Fly Productions
to present
Tina Howe’s
Painting Churches
April 11 – May 4, 2025

“Beautifully written… A theatrical family portrait that has the shimmer and depth of Renoir portraits.”
~ The New York Times

For Immediate Release
Contact: Carol Kassie
carol@carolkassie.com / 561-445-9244

March 4, 2025

FORT LAUDERDALE, FL: Pigs Do Fly Productions will present Painting Churches,Tina Howe’s moving and hilarious portrait of a family of artists falling apart and coming together at Empire Stage in Fort Lauderdale from April 11^th through May 4^th. Painting Churches was a finalist for the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Gardner Church (a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet), and his wife, Fanny (a flamboyant aesthete) are aging Bostonian bluebloods in the process of moving out of their Beacon Hill home into their summer cottage on Cape Cod due to the shambles their lives have become. They have invited their daughter, Mags, who is on the verge of artistic celebrity as a portrait painter, to come and help them with the move.

“When Tina Howe’s Painting Churches first premiered, it invited audiences into the intimate, poignant, and often humorously complex world of family dynamics,” says the play’s director, Deborah Kondelik. “Set against the backdrop of a New England home, the play explores the shifting tides of relationships between parents and their adult children, all while subtly examining the process of memory, change, and the inevitable passage of time.

“In Painting Churches Howe captures the bittersweetness of life – how we struggle with the past while simultaneously grappling with the responsibility of the present,” she continues. “The play gives us moments of levity amidst its emotional depths – finding laughter in the confusion, in the mismatched recollections, and in the sometimes outrageous behaviors of its characters. Howe reminds us that even in the face of loss or impending change, there is room for wit and tenderness.”

Kondelik has cast Carbonell Award-winner Laura Turnbull as Fanny, William Mahone as Gardner, and Ana Marie Calise as Mags.

“We are now entering our ninth year of operations,” says Pigs Do Fly Productions’ Founder and Executive Producer Ellen Wacher. “I am so proud of what we have accomplished during these past nine years; we are continuing to grow and to explore the many facets of life over 50. I love the fact that unlike in the past, the actor – and the character over ‘a certain age’ is no longer considered ‘old’. We are totally involved in life – we love, we lose, we work, we play, and we enjoy life.”

The Stage Manager for Painting Churches is Joseph Long. Dean Landhuis is the show’s Scenic Designer, David Hart will do the Sound Design, and Preston Bircher will create the Lighting Design and serve as Technical Director. Director Kondelik will serve as both production’s the Costume Coordinator and Property Designer, and MNM Theatre Company will build the sets. Jessica Kaschube is the Company Manager, and Donna Pacheco de Castro will handle the Box Office.

Tickets for Painting Churches are $45 and are available online at www.pigsdoflyproductions.com or by calling 954-678-1496. Performances are on Fridays at 8 pm and Saturdays and Sundays at 5 pm. All performances will take place at Empire Stage, 1140 N. Flagler Drive,Fort Lauderdale, FL 33304.

For more information about Pigs Do Fly Productions, please visit www.pigsdoflyproductions.com. To arrange for interviews, or for photos, or for requests to see a performance, please contact Carol Kassie at carol@carolkassie.com / 561-445-9244. For more information about Ellen Wacher, please visit www.ellenwacher.com.

~

Painting Churches
April 11 – May 4, 2025
By Tina Howe
Tickets: www.pigsdoflyproductions.com
Or call 954-678-1496
Performances:
Friday at 8 pm
Saturday & Sunday at 5 pm
All performances will take place at
Empire Stage1140 N Flagler Drive,
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33304

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Photo credit: Carol Kassie

Primal Forces Productions presents Landford Wilson’s REDWOOD CURTAIN – April 17 – May 3

26 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by Carol Kassie in Clients, Primal Forces Productions

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Amarie Lee, Andrews Living Arts, Bobby White, Drama, Ethan Henry, Ft. Lauderdale Theatre, Lanford Wilson, Laura Turnbull, Post 8195: Black Vietnam Soldiers Tell Their Stories, Primal Forces Productions, Redwood Curtain, VFW 8195, Vietnam Veterans

Primal Forces Productions
production of Lanford Wilson’s
Redwood Curtain
To benefit South Broward Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 8195
April 17 – May 3

“… a little gem that has a pretty satisfying mystery at its center…you get to absorb Lanford Wilson’s terrific dialogue, and appreciate how and when he reveals precisely what we need to know in the natural flow of the narrative.” – MichiganLive

March 26, 2015

FORT LAUDERDALE, FL: Landford Wilson’s Redwood Curtain is a thought-provoking exploration of memories – of families, of secrets, and of war – set in the towering redwood forests of Northern California. The play stunned 1992 Broadway audiences with its unique spin on a Vietnam veteran and the mysterious young Asian woman who tracks him down.

Primal Forces Productions will present this powerful commentary on the effects of war and remembrance from April 17^th through May 3^rd at Andrews Living Arts in Fort Lauderdale. And in keeping with the play’s theme, a percentage of the production’s revenue will be donated to Broward County’s VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) Post 8195.

“With Redwood Curtain Primal Forces concludes its three-play series on the effects of the counterculture on today’s generation,” says producer Keith Garsson. “The play was written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Lanford Wilson, who was an early force in the off-Broadway theatre of the 1960s and 70s. This being the last of our trilogy, we are finishing on a lighter and more hopeful tone than was presented in both The Anarchist and Sunset Baby.

“Wilson’s characters are usually lost or forgotten Americans, left high and dry by events beyond their control,” Garsson continues, “However his characters eschew preaching and sermonizing and have accepted their fate – presented as headstrong forces within the ensuing drama. Redwood Curtain adds a new touch: the character of Geri, a young woman who endures a lonely and mysterious journey into the Redwood Forest to seek answers to her own past, but learns some shattering truths along the way.”

“Redwood Curtain was Wilson’s last show produced for Broadway, however, as in our prior productions we felt the intimacy of the drama would be enhanced by the up-close-and-personal setting of Andrews Living Arts,” Garsson explains. “And we’re fortunate to have a South Florida legend, set designer Tim Bennett, who has recreated one of the most beautiful areas of the country on stage.”

The production will star Ethan Henry, Laura Turnbull, and newcomer Amarie Lee.
Henry who received rave reviews in Primal Forces’ recent production of Sunset Baby, is fascinated by his character, and the play: “This is one of the most challenging plays I’ve ever read,” he says. “My character, Lyman Fellers, has chosen to seclude himself in the woods, and he wants to be left alone; but he’s forced to look inside himself when he’s confronted by someone else.”

The Florida Veterans of Foreign Wars has a rich tradition of serving veterans, military families and their local communities. Twenty-three members of Post 8195, under the guidance of Post Commander Bobby White, recently collaborated on a book titled Post 8195: Black Soldiers Tell Their Vietnam Stories. The entire proceeds from the play’s opening night performance and reception as well as a percentage of the funds generated by all Redwood Curtain ticket sales will be donated to Post 8195; the book will be available for sale at Andrews Living Arts during the run of the play.

Tickets for Redwood Curtain are $25 ($12.50 for veterans) and can be purchased on line at www.primalforcesproductions.com, or by phone at 866-811-4111. Andrews Living Arts Studio is located at 23 NW Fifth Street in Fort Lauderdale.

For more information about Primal Forces Productions, interviews, or photos, please contact Carol Kassie at ckassie@gmail.com/561-445-9244.
For more information about Post 8195 visit: http://myvfw.org/fl/post8195 .

Redwood Curtain
By Lanford Wilson
Performances:
April 17 – May 3
Thu-Fri-Sat at 8pm,
Sun at 2pm
Sat May 2nd at 2pm
Please note: There will be no 8 pm performance on April 25th
Tickets $25
For Tickets: 866-811-4111
Performances: Thursday – Saturday at 8:00 pm
Sunday at 2 pm
All performances will take place at Andrews Living Arts
23 NW 5^th St
Ft Lauderdale, FL 33301
www.primalforcesproductions.com
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Post 8195: Black Soldiers Tell Their Vietnam Stories, by Bobby White
VFW Post 8195 in West Park, Florida, through the Stone of Hope Program, organized services and programs to help Vietnam and other military veterans and their families who had special needs. “The Vietnam War was physically, spiritually and emotionally exhausting for us,” says Post Commander Bobby White. In this unique collection, he has brought together the words of 23 veterans who witnessed the war’s cruelty and brutality. Through their testimonies, White reminds us that the war’s impact has been long-lasting, with both negative and positive results. Readers will be riveted by their narratives of racism, hostile battlefields, ambush zones, fire fights, land mines, flashbacks, search-and-destroy missions, military police operations, working with K-9s, and finally addressing and putting the PTSD issues at ease.
Available at Amazon.com.

Critical Praise for Redwood Curtain:

“Redwood Curtain” is … a state-of-the-nation piece for the early 1990’s. Its disturbing subject is the self-destructive American habit of practicing amnesia about all its past nightmares, not just those of Vietnam. Standing in rootless contrast to the trees around them, the people in this play, and by implication their country, cannot find their way out of the woods until they figure out how they got stranded there in the first place.” – NY Times

“Redwood Curtain is equal parts fairy tale, mystery and comedy. Wilson skillfully blends fantastic, magical, suspenseful, and human elements to produce an intimate human drama.” – Variety

“A journey into the American psyche . . . The gritty and/or down home realism of Wilson’s best plays has been combined with magical qualities that make the work a kind of folk/fairy mystery tale.” – Seattle Times

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Carol Kassie

~ Theatrical Marketing & Public Relations

Tag Archives: Laura Turnbull

Celebrating Jewish Pride – A Free Reading of A PEOPLE by L M Feldman at Island City Stage on August 25th

THE RIGHTEOUS a New Play by Jeff Cohen at Miami New Drama April 22nd Only

Pigs Do Fly Productions to Present PAINTING CHURCHES – April 11 – May 4

Primal Forces Productions presents Landford Wilson’s REDWOOD CURTAIN – April 17 – May 3