Theatre and War 1 – Doco-drama :
Guest host : International writer & journalist James Inverne.
A hard-hitting look at how conflict shapes the themes, styles, and voices in Israeli theatre. Featuring creators whose works directly grapple with unimaginable realities that were imposed on them, bringing life to the stage and then tossing it back to the audience, with no answers but many questions.
Theatre and War 2 It’s not funny!
Guest host: Lee Kern – Academy nominated writer.
A panel exploring the complex role of humor in times of conflict. Through theatre, creators find ways to use comedy to process the unthinkable, survive emotionally, and connect with audiences in turbulent times. With creators who know how to walk the fine line between laughter and pain, this discussion dives into the importance of humor to endure and make sense of challenging realities.
An exploration of current productions of Levin’s timeless works (including an Opera!). With his signature dark wit and sharp-eyed cynicism, Levin’s plays feel more prophetic than ever (and not in the good way). This panel dives into how the legacy of Israel’s most influential playwright continues to inspire, provoke, and hold up an uncomfortable mirror to both today’s theatrical world and the messy political realities we live in.
Moderated by Prof. Roy Horovitz
Chair of Drama and Theatre Program, Bar-Ilan University.
An acclaimed Israeli actor, director, translator, dramaturge and scholar.
An expert on Hanoch Levin, performs and teaches Levins’ works both in Israel and abroad.
“Mary and Charlie are lovers, the circus is their home, She rides the trapeze up in the air, he stands in the ring below, One night, she decides to just let go…”
How do you deal with loss?
The circus of nothingness is a meta-world where the acrobat is a floating memory, the elephants are tremors of anger, the clowns are longing, and the horses are the neigh of madness. Mary’s spirit leads Charlie through memories, emotions, and fantasy, on his way to find redemption.
More than 80 puppets, an empty circus tent and two performers seeking solace.
Shahar Marom is the artistic director of Hanut Theater Company – an interdisciplinary theatre located in south Tel Aviv. He has directed a number of productions, and is also a performer himself. His show Machine Man Spectacle performed at the Edinburgh International Festival, 2023.
Shahar is also the artistic director of Train Theater and the Jerusalem International Puppet Festival.
Naomi Dekel, a recent divorcee from Eilat, a city in the south of Israel, has to move to Metula, a town near Israel’s northern border, a six-hour drive, for her new job, caring for Norma: a lonely and bitter old lady, a former lawyer who has recently fired one caregiver after another. When Ethan, Naomi’s ex-husband, discovers that Naomi has left their daughters with a friend, he calls social services and threatens to take full custody. Naomi, fearing she could lose custody of her daughters, has no choice but to hurry back to Eilat, dragging a reluctant Norma along. Their journey, which starts out as a power struggle between the two protagonists, develops into a surprising, funny, and powerful relationship that will completely change the lives of both women.
Irit Kaplan is a leading stage and screen actress, as well as an award-winning playwright. For the past twenty-five years, she has been a member of the Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv, and has appeared in a wide variety of roles, ranging from world classics to contemporary Israeli plays, films, and TV series and films. Presently, she can be seen worldwide on the Netflix series The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem. Kaplan co-wrote with Yoav Bar-Lev the plays Genius Bound and Naomi and Norma, for which they won the Cameri Theatre Award for Playwrights of the Year in 2021 and 2024. Kaplan’s prestigious awards include Best Leading Actress at the Israeli Academy Awards for the film A Matter of Size (2009), and Best Supporting Actress at the Israeli Television Academy Awards for The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem.
Yoav Bar-Lev graduated from Nissan Nativ Acting Studio, and is a playwright, director, and actor (theatre, film, television). Writing for the stage: Genius Bound, The Witch Next Door (with Irit Kaplan), The Farewell Party, Take the Dog Out (with Shlomit Arnon), Ach Ach Boom Trach (with Norman Issa), A Trip to the Cheese Star, Bialik 22, and The Brothers (with Hanoch Reim).
Directing: The Three Musketeers and The Witch Next Door (Mediatheque Theater), Romeo and Juliet in the Square (The Jerusalem Khan Theatre), On Stage (an independent production), A Trip to the Cheese Star (Orna Porat Theater for Children and Youth), and Improv 2021 (Haifa Municipal Theatre). Alongside his writing and directing, Yoav has been a leading actor for the past thirty years at Haifa Municipal Theatre, The Cameri Theatre, The Jerusalem Khan Theatre, and Habima National Theatre, among others.
Tamar Keenan is a theatre director, playwright, translator, dramatist, and winner of the Yosef Milo Award for Best Director in 2022 and 2023. Fresh out of Nissan Nativ Acting Studio, Tamar joined the world-famous Gesher Theatre. She was a prominent member of the Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv for eighteen years before embarking on her directing career. Since 2016, she has directed over a dozen plays in Israel’s leading theatres. Tamar also serves as artistic director at Tzavta Theatre in Tel Aviv, and as co-artistic director of the theatre’s celebrated One Act Play Festival.
In the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War, fierce public criticism is leveled against Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan, blaming them for the government’s failures that led to the war, and the military failures that caused such extensive loss of life.
A desperate Golda tries to fight these accusations, while Dayan, wants to resign.
Golda’s daughter Chana tries to support her mother, who is ill and exhausted after the war, and uncovers her doubts and guilty feelings.
Despite being absolved by the Agranat Commission, Golda ultimately decides to step down.
Creators note:
Rehearsals for The First Lady began in August 2023. In them, we tried to better understand the days leading up to the Yom Kippur War. We researched the public mood and political atmosphere, and the prevailing national mood during the war and the Agranat Commission. We felt a great sense of responsibility as we prepared to stage the play.
On October 7, a week before the play was scheduled to premiere, we woke up along with everyone else to a Saturday that would change our lives. In a single instant, the play had become reality – the shock, the fallen and the hostages, the terrible rift, and our leaders’ responsibility. Israel, for the second time, was caught unprepared. The surprise, which brought with it immense pain, shocked us all. Bertolt Brecht wrote: “In the dark times, will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times”.
Motti Lerner is a playwright and screenwriter whose plays and films mostly deal with political themes. They include Kastner, Pangs of the Messiah, Paula, and Pollard at the Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv, Exile in Jerusalem, Passing The Love of Women, Doing His Will, and The Abandoned Melody at Habima National Theatre, Autumn at Beit Lessin Theatre, Hard Love at Haifa Municipal Theatre, The Hastening of The End at The Jerusalem Khan Theatre, and The Admission and On the Edge at Jaffa Theater. His productions abroad include Kastner, Autumn, and The Murder of Isaac at Heilbronn Theater, Germany, Exile in Jerusalem in Stuttgart, Berlin and Vienna, Hard Love in New York, Rome, and Berlin, The Murder of Isaac at Centerstage, Baltimore, Passing the Love of Women and The Admission at Theater J, DC, Pangs of the Messiah at Theater J, Silk Road, Chicago, Theater of Ideas, NY, Benedictus at Golden Thread Theatre, San Francisco, and in Theater J, Paulus at Silk Road, After The War at Mosaic Theater, DC, and Eichmann’s Trial at The National Theatre in Bucharest. He is a recipient of the Award for Best Play (1985), the Israeli Motion Picture Academy Award for Best TV Drama (1995 and 2004), the Prime Minister of Israel Award (1994), and the Landau Prize for The Performing Arts (2014).
Moshe Kepten is one of the most renowned directors in Israel, and currently the artistic director of Habima National Theatre. For three consecutive years, he was the artistic director of the Israel Festival in Jerusalem, an interdisciplinary celebration of art from around the world. Kepten has directed numerous plays and musicals for all Israeli theatre companies, including Spring Awakening, Bent, Behind the Fence, Shakespeare in Love, Les Misérables, Love Love Love, Evita, Taken at Midnight, My Fair Lady, Fatal Attraction, Birthmark, Beaufort, The Dinner Game, Labor of Life, The One My Soul Loves, and most recently The Father I Could Have Been.
A bible lesson turns into a puppet show, an ars poetic confession, and a series of thoughts about Jewish-Israeli reality. A fringe-theatre creator finds himself in a midlife crisis, teaching bible in high school. The two worlds, the subversive and the pedagogic, create friction and collision, and the biblical scenes mix with the daily life of an Israeli classroom, intertwined with the students’ stories and the teacher’s personal life.
The show deals with a range of personal and collective conflicts: religion vs. secularity, the significance of acquiring knowledge in the digital age, sexuality and violence in the lives of teenagers (and in general), intimacy in an alienated reality overloaded with virtual experiences, disintegrating family ties and relations between various sectors of Israeli society, and more.
Moti Brecher is an artist, actor-creator, and teacher. In his works, Brecher designs puppets, and uses them to dramatize performances that combine autobiographical details with political and historical events, in a visual language that draws inspiration from various artistic genres and media.
Brecher has written and produced numerous shows and performances for adults and children. He has participated in several museum exhibitions, presented a solo exhibition, and initiated and directed community projects. He has written satirical television sketches, and performed in the television series Srugim and Shtisel. Brecher is a graduate of the Excellence Program in Teaching and Art Studies, with emphasis on digital media, at Kibbutzim College of Education, Technology and the Arts, and graduated with honors from the Department of Visual Literacy (MEd). His MA thesis Puppets, Monsters and Education focuses on the subversive use of puppets on the television series Sesame Street.
“I created this show when the Russian army began bombing the Ukrainian power plants. Ukraine plunged into cold darkness, and the world started donating blankets and generators. This gave the show its name – Light. I wondered, like everyone else, what I could do to stop the war. It’s quite simple: in order to overcome darkness, you need to turn on the light. Some do so with a match, a flashlight, a candle, a piece of charcoal; others think good thoughts or just smile. Laughter is my weapon. Laughter kills fear; laughter brings forth goodness and light. These are my good thoughts about a bad war”.
Alexey (Losha) Gavrielov was born in Yakutsk (USSR), and studied Theatre at the Sophie Moskowitz School of the Arts. He directed numerous clown shows and received international awards for his work, including First Prize at the Toronto Fringe Festival for The Hag with a Bag. He tours internationally with his solo clown show for children Apchee, performed over a thousand times and nominated for the Award for Best Children’s Theatre Show in Israel, and with the two-man show for children, That Round Thing, performed over three hundred times in Russia, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Germany, Turkey, and elsewhere.
An intimate event around a shared table revisits and reconstructs stories from the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, and that of October 7, 2023. Those present and absent in the room shape the memories of past, ongoing, and future wars.
In October 2023, Yoram’s story resonated deeply, reflecting the new reality that has transformed us: a severe injury from a missile strike in 1973 divided Yoram’s life into two. His long journey of healing, driven by willpower and his love for life, led him to write a book asking: Can one truly return home?
The performance unfolds as a series of actions that change with each presentation, allowing the narrative to transform each evening. It invites both performers and the audience to gather, build a table, sit around it, and engage in a collaborative exploration of our new reality through a variety of actions, rituals, objects, and stories.
Danielle Cohen Levy is an independent director, writer, performer, and lecturer. She is a co-founder of the WCS group, and her work with Namer Golan, Worst Case Scenario (2015), won multiple awards at the Acco Festival for Alternative Theatre, and the Golden Hedgehog Award for Group Work. The production was presented at the Brighton Fringe Festival and various international festivals in England, France, Germany, Bulgaria, Slovenia, and Estonia. Cohen Levy has received several grants for original playwriting, and her play The Advocate premiered in 2018 at The Jerusalem Khan Theatre under her direction. She founded the homemade publishing house PostcardPlay, distributing over six hundred copies worldwide. Danielle is the Artistic Director of Teatronetto Festival for Solo Performances, and a member of the artistic committee at Tmu-na Theater. She is the director of the Acting Preparatory Program at Kibbutzim College of Education, Technology and the Arts, where she also teaches in the Directing and Acting Departments. She earned an MFA with distinction from Tel Aviv University, and a BEd with distinction from the School of Performing Arts at Kibbutzim College of Education, Technology and the Arts.
Winner of the Award for Best Play at the Kishon Israeli Comedy Festival 2023.
A poetic comedy about a family, with quite a few communication problems, on a train fleeing their homeland. The parents unsuccessfully try to break some bad news to their daughter. The train travels – no one knows where it’s going, and why it isn’t stopping. At one point, a man enters the carriage, and further destabilizes the relationship between the girl and her parents. How long has he been on the train? Two years? Fifty? He was forgotten there, and his entire family was destroyed. At one point, the girl jumps off the train. This jump, possibly to her death, allows all the characters a kind of “rebirth”. The play shifts from the realm of the personal and psychological to the fixations of the “nation” – Nazis. Holocaust. Refugees by train, etc. This creates a movement between the real and concrete towards the abstract and symbolic. (From the article by Udi Ben Saadia)
Eldad Cohen was born and raised in Jerusalem.
Books: Look At Me (1998), At Least You Would Have Died in An Orderly Manner (2003), and Wake Up Mum (2019), all published by Yedioth Books. His children’s book Blue Melody with Curls (2012) was published by Am Oved. Many of his short stories and monologues have been adapted for the stage and won awards. Plays: Look At Me (an adaptation of his book), Balloon, Areas and Farewells, and Repertory Theatre. Awards for this play include Playwright of the Year, Golden Hedgehog Awards 2013; First Prize, Stockholm Fringe Festival 2013; and First Prize, International Comedy Festival, Romania 2017. It was one of the finalists for a prize at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2012, and has been translated into English, Romanian, French, and Swedish, among others. His plays for children were performed at Haifa International Children’s Theater Festival: My Summer Holiday (First Prize), and End, Beginning and Cat in collaboration with Jordan Bar-Kochva, and Maybe an Elephant (Directing Prize), which became a successful television series.
Sharon Stark is a playwright and director, after being a dancer and an actor for many years. At thirteen, she left home to study at the School of American Ballet in New York. After graduating, she joined Scapino Ballet Rotterdam. Following an injury, she returned to Israel and studied acting at Nissan Nativ Acting Studio. Her credits include dozens of critically acclaimed roles at Haifa Municipal Theatre and The Jerusalem Khan Theatre. This led to her becoming an independent creator, exploring the paradoxes of modern life, self-definition, and contradictions that are part of our identity, often involving a slightly surreal parallel reality, and focusing on love, parenting, and education. Her work has been presented in theatre festivals and at prominent independent theatre venues, including Tmu-na Theater and Tzavta Theatre in Tel Aviv, as well as Haifa Municipal Theatre. Her plays have been translated into English and Georgian (Trulove Ltd.)
A musical theatre show that delves into the story of two women who find solace, comfort, and adventure in their burger-shaped beds. Within this setting, they embark on a journey through their implosive fears, visions, and fantasies. Mirroring each other’s experiences, they navigate the complexities of their close friendship. As they confront the full spectrum of themselves, they also compose the narrative of their future together through a rehearsal that is trying to be the medicine for the violent triggering chaos of their experience. The show becomes a poignant love letter to the essence of true friendship. Hamburgirls celebrates the myth of “being together”, and seeks to romanticize a renewed appreciation for the beauty and resilience of connections.
Maya Landsmann is a theatre and television actress, creator and performance artist, poet, and musician. Her latest roles in theatre since graduating from Nissan Nativ Acting Studio (2016): Peter Pan and Angels in America directed by Gilad Kimchi, The Constant Mourner directed by Ari Fullman, and God of Vengeance directed by Itay Tiran.
On television, she appeared in Dismissed, Sad City Girls, The Lesson, and Bear, among many others. Maya collaborated as a creator and actress with Ariel Brown in the show Zola 2000 and in The Water Boy and the Water (Hazira Performance Art Arena).
In her works, Landsmann explores the medium of live performance and the human encounter that theatre enables in a post-internet world, and is interested in topics such as fringe culture and rave culture, poetry, technology, and politics. She is a drummer for the band Power Strangers, whose album Apes Together was released in 2023. Awards include the Directors’ Award for Zola 2000 (Acco Festival for Alternative Israeli Theatre, 2018); and two Academy Awards for a leading role in The Lesson, (Best Actress at the Canneseries International Series Festival, and at the German International Series Festival).
Hila Gluskinos is a multidisciplinary performing artist, theatre maker, musician, and poetic psychonaut. With a background in acting and movement, she graduated from the Sadna Professional Dance Program in Kibbutz Ga’aton (2009), and from Nissan Nativ Acting Studio (2016). Since then, Hila has engaged in a range of experimental collaborations, including choreographing, performing, and composing for hakahaLahakah – Mythos of Company under the direction of Ido Feder, alongside collaborators Dudi Maayan, Michal Helfman, and Jonathan Omer Mizrahi (2020). She also contributed to Sacred Servixx, a project with vocalist and healer Faye Shapiro (2022), exploring the intersections of sound expression and healing. Her theatre work includes performances in Birthday by Danny Neymen at Hazira Theatre (2024), Name Drop by Jason Danino Holt at the Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv (2023), and A-hole Fucking Loser by Ariel Sereni Brown at Habait Theatre (2017). Hila’s artistic practice emphasizes the exploration of her experience and the deepening of personal connections through performance. Additionally, she has collaborated with musicians such as Daniel Neshama Itach, Avshalom Ariel, Gilbert Broid, and Haim Vitali Cohen. Her solo musical piece Troubadour premiered at the Diver Festival in 2021, reflecting her commitment to merging mystery with meaningful expression.
The play captures one moment in time when the ground falls from under your feet after a traumatic event such as the massacre of October 7. The event threatens to destroy the cornerstones of your painstakingly built personality, and marks the eruption of a struggle between consciousness and reason, and the forces of survival: How do you remain humanistic?
This is a woman’s guide to herself. How do you bring such an internal struggle to the stage?
How do you capture one moment in time when something collapses, and something else struggles to hold on?
The play creates a performative struggle through the body. The entire experience is of the struggle between the human forces necessary for a person to remain a humanist in the face of events, but at the same time, the importance of this struggle also becomes more acute.
Maya Arad Yasur is a dramaturge and playwright. Her plays have been produced in Israel (Habima National Theatre, Haifa Municipal Theatre, Beit Lessin Theatre, etc.), translated into twelve languages, produced in theatres around the world, and published in books and magazines in Israel and abroad. Her play Amsterdam was produced in some twenty countries around the world. She earned an MA with honors in Dramaturgy from University of Amsterdam, after which she worked as a dramaturge in various Dutch productions, with an internship in Johan Simmons’ La Grande Bouffe at the Toneelgroep Amsterdam. Her plays include Dependent (2010), God is Waiting at the Station (2014), Ten Minutes from Home (2015), Amsterdam (2018), A Light Trembling in the Wing (2020), Those Seeking Out (2020), and Triage (2023). Arad Yasur is the winner of the UNESCO International Theatre Institute Award for Dependent (2011), the Ella Dan Stage Award for God is Waiting at the Station (2014), the Theatertreffen Stückemarkt Berlin Award for Amsterdam (2018), and the Rosenblum Award (2022). Her plays have been staged and publicly read in various theatres in Israel, Germany, Austria, Norway, and the US, and have been published in leading theatre magazines in Germany, Poland, and Israel.
Sapir Heller completed her theatre and opera directing studies at the Academy of Music and Theatre in Munich in 2008. Her directing credits include various productions in theatres throughout Germany – Munich’s Volkstheater, Frankfurt, Berlin’s Maxim Gorki Theater, Mannheim, Dresden, and Regensburg, among others. Recently, she staged The Good Soul from Sichuan in Essen. With Arad Yasur’s German premiere of Amsterdam, she won the Critics’ Prize at the Radikal Jung Festival in Munich (2019). She staged two more plays by Maya Arad Yasur in Germany, to critical acclaim: Those Seeking Out in Memmingen (2020) and A Light Trembling in the Wing in Lubeck (2023).
Long before people turned their gaze to screens, they looked up to the skies in search of answers. We Are Not Alone is a journey from the here and now into space and beyond, towards the points of light in the dark sky that may host entire worlds, from which our world might appear as a faint glimmer. This performance utilizes the audience’s mobile devices, allowing them to inquire about the unknown, imagine answers about the future, or simply gaze together at the light of distant stars. It emphasizes the wonder and connection of contemplating our place in the universe through a communal, interactive experience.
Lior Zalmanson is a researcher, digital artist, curator, playwright, and screenwriter. He is a senior lecturer at Tel Aviv University. As a senior lecturer in the Technology and Information Program at the Coller School of Management, Tel Aviv University, Lior initiated and founded the Print Screen Festival for Digital Culture at Mediatheque Holon. He also chairs the Israel Museum Association’s Digital Forum. Additionally, he is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and artist whose works address topics such as the information society and the relationships between humans and non-humans. His play (with Maya Magnat), I Don’t Want to See This, was nominated for the Golden Mask Award (Russian Theatre Awards) in 2021, and his film works have been featured at the Tribeca and Cannes Film Festivals.
Maya Magnat is a theatre director, performance artist, educator, and lecturer. She earned a BA in Education and Theatre from Kibbutzim College of Education, Technology and the Arts, an MA in Theatre from Tel Aviv University, and another MA from the Educational Technology Program at the University of Haifa. Through art and research, Maya explores the impact of technology on our lives, and the intersection of technology, intimacy, and sexuality. Her artistic works often incorporate technology in live performances, or address technology-related themes. Maya creates interactive performances where the audience plays an active role, and her works have been showcased at festivals, galleries, and cultural events both in Israel and internationally.
Liron Meshulam, known as Flora, is an Israeli singer, songwriter, producer, and composer for dance and theater, celebrated for her unique fusion of indie, electronic, and pop music. She studied at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, refining her skills in music theory, composition, and production. Flora’s music blends organic and electronic sounds, and her live performances showcase her versatility, moving from acoustic guitar to dynamic live looping with Ableton Live. She has released several albums, including Happy Today (2010), Everything is Here (2013), Place (2017), and These Little Moments (2024). Flora has collaborated with top Israeli artists like Yuval Banai, Rona Kenan, and Asaf Avidan. Beyond her music, she founded the Women in Sound community and the podcast Worth Listening To, which promotes and empowers women in music production and audio engineering.
Whether we sing at full volume in front of other people, croon in the shower, belt out tunes in our car, or hum to ourselves, singing is an intrinsic part of our lives. Specific songs play a huge part in our personal and collective memories. They can magically transport us back in time to moments that were key in the formation of our identity.
And then there’s the question that divides most people. Is karaoke mortifyingly embarrassing or a good laugh? In Karaoke, members of the audience are guests at a karaoke party. Hosted by three performers who sing through critical moments in their lives, members of the audience are invited to sing along, pick their favorite karaoke number, or sit back and enjoy. The show never quite ends, the mic is left on, and the audience is invited to carry on singing karaoke for as long as they desire.
This work premiered in a bar with a small stage, and can be adapted for different types of spaces. It originally premiered in Hebrew, but an English version is available, and it can also be adapted to include music from different countries.
Rachel Erdos is an award-winning independent choreographer. She earned an MA from The Laban Centre London. Rachel won first prize in the AICC International Choreography Competition, Aarhus, Denmark, in 2008, and in 2009, she won the CityDance Ensemble Commissioning Project, Washington DC. In 2012, Rachel was awarded the Prize for Artist of the Year by the Israel Ministry of Absorption. In 2014, she won the NorthWest Dance Project Pretty Creative Commission, Portland, USA, and in 2015, she was awarded the Prize for Independent Choreographer of the Year by the Israel Ministry of Culture. Her work has been shown in some of the most prestigious venues, including The Kennedy Center, Washington DC, The Joyce, New York, and the Royal Opera House London. Rachel also teaches extensively, and in 2018, she was a visiting artist at Brown University, USA. In 2019, she was artist in residence at Catapult Dance Choreographic Hub, Newcastle, Australia. During 2020, Rachel collaborated with Panta Rei Dance Theatre (Norway), NorthWest Dance Project (Portland), Company E (Washington DC), and Backhaus Dance Company (Los Angeles).
Even outside the judo hall, where she trained as a child, Kitzis’ life felt like a battleground: fighting for a place, a voice, a narrative. In her first full-length theatrical work, she seeks to break out of this combative mindset, only to discover that she doesn’t know how. On stage, Corinne lays out her life’s battles on a huge judo mat: the first round is against her ex-partner, the second against her mother, and the final and hardest round of all? Against herself. The battles on stage become a coming-of-age journey, during which Kitzis searches where to direct her power, how and where to unload it, and how to learn to surrender. Through this process, she breaks life down into its universal elements: love, family, identity, and freedom.
Corinne Kitzis is a creator, artist, and content producer, known for her successful podcasts Potchot HaKol (The Podium) and Shomaat Rega (Relevant). She earned an MA in Visual Communication from Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. Kitzis is also a host, lecturer, theatre and film creator, and a mother of three. As a multidisciplinary artist, Kitzis has created web series, social media content, and a documentary film exploring mother-daughter relationships, intergenerational dynamics, motherhood, and being a woman. In her work, Kitzis grapples with the complex question of what lies between everyday life and its artistic representation, delving into the internal dynamics of daily life, relationships, and family life. She constantly seeks the fine line between the private and public, striving to create a new and meaningful dialogue with her audience. Through her work, she combines humor, sensitivity, and innovation, finding ways to reveal and present the complexity and beauty of simple life.
Shiry Journo founded a theatre group that explored an alternative creative language. Through the group’s continuous work and artistic research, Hayadit Theatre was created in 2002. She is the theatre’s founder, director, and artistic director. As a director, Shiry has developed a unique and captivating stage language that characterizes all her productions, and reflects her distinctive vision for theatre. As an artistic director, her creative vision focuses on the intersection of theatre, art, public space, and community. This vision is deeply embedded in the foundations of Hayadit Theatre’s work, making it a unique cultural and social center, with a profound dialogue between the artists and the public. In addition, Shiri is often invited to lecture at artistic and academic institutions, where she shares her insights on the development and implementation of her artistic vision.
Who was Stefa Wilczyńska, and why have most of us never heard of her? Despite her significance, the devoted educator, who dedicated her life to Dr. Janusz Korczak’s orphanage, is absent from history’s chronicles. The performance follows Stefa back and forth between Warsaw and Kibbutz Ein Harod. The show addresses women’s status then and now, the roles of education and theatre, and that which lies between them. The play intertwines the testimony of the author, who is a character in the play, with Stefa’s – both played by the same actress. The end reveals Stefa’s secret, the real motivation of the three women who created the show.
Dr. Amela Einat is an author, researcher, and a renowned expert in learning and attention disorders. To date, she has published over fifty books – fiction, nonfiction, and research. Many of her books have been translated into different languages, and published internationally. Three of her books have been adapted into plays performed on various stages in Israel. Pizza in Auschwitz gained significant international attention. Amela received various awards for her literary achievements, including the Prime Minister’s Prize, the Hadassah Prize for Children’s Books, the ACUM Prize for her contribution to Israeli literature, the Deborah Omer Prize for a book for young adults, and others. Her book Stefa, My Love was written after extensive research, and with profound identification with her character and actions.
Hagit Rehavi Nikolayevsky, a graduate of Tel Aviv University’s Theatre Department (Directing), is a playwright and director. She wrote, adapted, and directed many plays for children, youth, and adults. In the past, she was the Artistic and General Director of the Orna Porat Theater for Children and Youth, as well as Chairperson of Assitej Israel, the international Association for Theater for Children and Youth, and a member of Assitej’s International Community for two terms. She is the recipient of the Rosenblum Award for Theatre Arts from the Municipality of Tel Aviv-Yafo.
Rejin Shoshan is a theatre and performance art creator and educator, a Gaga dancer, a photoslam instructor, and an Inner Voice mentor. In the past twenty-five years, she has participated in numerous shows as an actress, director, and dramaturg, while teaching performing arts. She developed an acting and directing workshop combining theatre and photography, called PhotoDrama.
The play describes a private acting class given by a well-known teacher to a young student. The encounter slips in and out of crossing professional and personal boundaries.
The story is based on the method of a well-known Israeli theatre director, teacher, and artistic director. The show presents in a hyper-realistic way how the teacher invades the student’s soul, using her yearning for recognition and success, thus causing her to commit acts that go beyond her free will.
The choice of performance space is site-specific and not coincidental, as this is the actual space where these private meetings originally took place. This is a story about art and the fine, almost invisible, line between the legitimate and the illicit.
Maya Koren is a graduate of the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School’s Screenwriting Department (2022), and ERACM – École regionale d’acteurs de Cannes et Marseille (2019), where she studied acting. She worked with Laurent Brethome, Gerard Watkins, Guillaume Severac, Jeanne Sarah Deldicq, and Aurelien Desclozeaux. In 2017, she graduated from Nissan Nativ Acting Studio. She participated in a screenwriting workshop led by Asaf Zippor (2023), a playwriting workshop led by Roy Maliach Reshef (2020), and others.
She wrote The Teacher – a series currently in development with production company Endemol Shine. Winner of the Award for Best Script for a TV Series from YES TV.
She teaches acting at the Cameri Theatre’s New Generation Group, and at The Studio led by Gal Amitai.
Yael Goldberg Shimoni is a theatre director. She graduated from Tel Aviv University – Theatre Directing and Communal Theatre (2010). She directed Bomb Shelter Stories (Habima National Theatre, 2023), and Amiram (Acco Festival of Alternative Israeli Theatre, 2023; winner of the directing award); Singing with Ariela (Tzavta Theatre), Problems in the Philosophy of Morals (Habima National Theatre), Gently (Haifa Municipal Theatre), and Not Funny (Tzavta Theatre). Staged readings include, Don’t Tell Mama by Noam Gil (Beit Lessin Theatre), and My Wife by Arnon Weiss (Cameri Theatre).
Yael was a teacher and director at Platforma – an activist theatre for women who suffer from violence, and a member of the Tzavta Fringe Theatre Artistic Committee.
The Consulate of the Golden–Tooth Kingdom is a ClownX modular theatrical performance that provides the audience with a captivating, exciting, and laugh-out-loud experience.
The Kingdom’s Honor Guard (a trio of musical clowns) is preparing for the inauguration of a consular post that will issue the kingdom’s passports.
The Golden Tooth Kingdom is a surreal monarchy that hovers over Earth, and offers friendship and solidarity to anyone it encounters on its endless journey across the universe, striving for peace, brotherhood, and freedom.
Eldad Prywes is a theatre creator, and a graduate of Nissan Nativ Acting Studio.
His acting credits include theatre, cinema, and television in Israel and around the world.
He has served as artistic director of festivals and cultural events in the public sphere (Acco Festival of Alternative Israeli Theatre, The Pavilion Jerusalem, etc.)
Adaptation and direction for Nissan Nativ Acting Studio includes The Good Soldier Schweik, Everyman, Benjamin’s Missions, and The Frogs, among others.
He is the founder and leader of the ClownX Group.
Arab and Jewish creators, native Israelis and those born in exile, on a journey of memories tracing their parents. We all long for something – the story of the grandfather who was expelled from Biram in 1948 intertwines with that of the mother who immigrated from Cairo, and wishes to go back to be buried there. The story of the daughter who returned to Vienna, while her uncle chose to stay in Ein Hod and work the land. Together they meet Telenovela, a fictional character who longs for a better future.
Exile can be a state of mind, a cultural exile, or an inner one.
The performance takes place on several stages that surround the audience. The audience creates their own play by watching the four stories of displacement and longing from different cultures. At the end of the performance, the actors offer the soothing flavors of their traditional food.
Igal Ezraty is a theatre director, founder, general manager, and co-artistic director of Jaffa Theatre, Arab-Hebrew Culture. He earned a BA in Education and Community Theatre and an MFA with honors in Theatre Directing from Tel Aviv University. He is a former teacher of acting and directing at Tel Aviv University and Kibbutzim College of Education, Technology and the Arts, and co-founder of the Theatre Artists Union.
He directed the musicals Farid El Atrash and Umm Kulthum, which premiered at The International Mediterranean Festival in Ashdod, and have been performed successfully in Paris and Marseille (2019). Igal mentors veteran and upcoming actors and theatre professionals, and is a recipient of the Golden Hedgehog Lifetime Achievement Award for 2021.
Stempenyu is a gifted violinist who plays with his klezmer band at weddings. He is known not only as a player who enchants listeners with his sounds, but also as a heartbreaker. When he falls in love with the beautiful and married Rachel, the story gets complicated. Stempenyu’s wife doesn’t intend to give him up for a moment, but the beautiful Rachel also wants him, forever. Edna Mazya has woven a beautiful and touching play, with colorful characters, all of whom want to fulfill themselves through Stempenyu and his music. A free adaptation of the classic Yiddish novel from 1888 by Sholem Aleichem, one of the greatest Jewish writers.
Edna Mazya (1949-2023) was a playwright, director, screenwriter, and author. She held an MA in Philosophy and Theatre Studies from Tel Aviv University. Her credits include – writing: Games in the Back Yard, Vienna by the Sea, The Rebels, Aristocrats, A Couple, and Pregnancy, inspired by Lorca’s Yerma; writing and directing: Herod, Bad Kids, A Family Romance, The Nouveau Criminals, and The Back Room; directing: numerous plays by the highly esteemed playwright, the late Anat Gov: Oh, God!, Best Friends, Happy End, and others. Mazya’s award-winning plays have been repeatedly produced and performed in Israel and around the world. She wrote screenplays for Amos Gutman’s films, Afflicted, Bar 51, and Himmo, King of Jerusalem. She published two novels and four children’s books.
Ronnie Brodetzky is a director and writer. She graduated from Kibbutzim College of Education, Technology and the Arts (Directing), and from the Interdisciplinary Arts Program at Tel Aviv University (MA). She is a recipient of the 2020 Rosenblum Performing Arts Award. Her works include, at The Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv: Tartuffe, Birthday Candles (Heidel), Hubeza – Etgar Keret’s stories with The Revolution Orchestra; Haifa Municipal Theatre: Aquarium – young actors lip sync elderly people in a swimming pool, How to Get Up From A Chair – an original play based on instructional YouTube videos, Circus of Jews (an adaptation of Nathan Englander); Beer Sheva Municipal Theatre: Short Circuit by Noa Lazar Keinan; Salzburger Landestheater: Aquarium, 1000 Tutorials, WhatsApp Stories; and Tzavta Theatre: Typing…. – a play based on original WhatsApp conversations.