Association for Jewish Theatre
The Association for Jewish Theatre is a non-profit cultural/educational organization based in the United States and a worldwide alliance of theatres, performance groups, and independent theatre-makers dedicated to the creation and production of Jewish and Israeli theatre in all of its forms.
AJT serves as a catalyst for networking, providing showcase opportunities, supporting workshops on theatre education and intercultural performance, working with boards and their development, enriching and measuring community engagement, finding and nurturing emerging theatre-makers and supporting Jewish values with an emphasis on theatre and the performing arts — for the transformation of the world.[1]
Members include theatres, Artistic Directors of theatres, solo performers, playwrights, and any other theatre practitioners interested in Jewish content.
Organization
The Association held its first general meeting and first annual Jewish Theatre Festival at Marymount Manhattan College in June, 1980.[2] Norman Fedder and Steven Reisner are credited with being the prime movers behind the founding of the AJT.
The President of AJT is David Chack. The association sees itself as part of the ethnic theater movement, inspired especially by the black and Latino theatre movements.[3]
According to the New York Times, the Association had “more than a score of members representing theater groups in the United States and Canada, from Phoenix, Ariz., to Winnipeg, Manitoba” by 1989 and was held to exemplify the “comeback” of explicitly Jewish theatre in America.[4]
Festival and conferences
The organization sponsors yearly conferences, which are at times accompanied by theatre festivals.[5]
Recent conferences:
- 2016 – St. Louis
- 2014 – Washington, D.C.
- 2013 – Minneapolis
- 2012 – Los Angeles
- 2010 – Chicago
- 2009 – New York
- 2007 – Vienna
- 2006 – Phoenix
- 2005 – New York
- 2003 – Washington, D.C.
- 2002 – St. Louis
- 2001 – Sarasota, FL
- 2000 – Montreal
- 1999 – Atlanta
- 1998 – Phoenix
External links
Notes
- ↑ http://www.afjt.com/about/mission/
- ↑ http://www.afjt.com/about.htm
- ↑ "Jewish Theatre Festival 1980," by Tina Margolis and Susan Weinacht, The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 24, No. 3, Jewish Theatre Issue (Sep., 1980), pp. 93-95
- ↑ “Jewish Theater Is Making a Comeback, by Richard Shepard, March 24, 1989, New York Times
- ↑ http://www.afjt.com/conference/