[BOSTON, MA] Boston Theatre Works Artistic Director Jason Southerland and fellow A.R.T. Institute alums Ryan McKittrick, Rebekah Maggor and Siobhan Brown traveled to Tel Aviv in late-November to join 60 delegates from around the globe as guests of the Israeli Ministry of Culture and Sport. The purpose of the weeklong visit was to attend IsraDrama, a festival designed to expose Israeli Drama to the international theater community, where the Boston group met theater artists from throughout Israel and sampled the diverse work being written and performed there. Southerland and his colleagues saw over a dozen productions from a variety of theater companies in Tel Aviv including the internationally renowned Cameri Theatre, The Arab-Hebrew Theatre of Jaffa, The Jerusalem Khan Theatre and Beit Lessen Theatre of Tel Aviv.

“I was honored to be invited by the government of Israel to attend such a prestigious gathering of artists,” said Jason Southerland. “As a Jewish man, there is something incredibly special about going to Israel, but it was exciting to be there as an artist as well.”
 
Southerland begins rehearsals for Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize winning Angels in America this week. It is a story infused with Jewish culture and spirituality. Southerland has said his visit to Israel gave him fascinating new perspective on the Jewish experience and a renewed passion and energy towards BTW’s upcoming production of Angels in America.

The Israeli symposium was organized by The Institute of Israeli Drama and included several workshops about various trends in Israeli theater, discussions with well-known playwrights such as Savyon Liebrecht and Hillel Mittelpunkt, and meetings with artistic directors and producers in Tel Aviv to talk about the possibility of collaboration on future projects.

The group saw 14 productions including Tel Aviv’s most popular drama Master of the House, the new hit comedy Goodbye, Africa! (starring recent European Film Award winner Sasson Gabay who won Best Actor for The Band's Visit) and Requiem, Hanoch Levin’s internationally performed adaptation of three Chekhov short stories.

About The Institute of Israeli Drama

Noam Semel, General Director of the Cameri Theatre, founded the Institute in 2000 after the death of Hanoch Levin, a playwright, author, poet and director whose oeuvre stands as one of the basic foundations of Israeli cultural history. The Institute’s overarching goal is to promote Israeli Drama and raise awareness of its crucial role in the formation of Israeli culture, both at home and abroad. Primary activities include publishing Israeli plays for domestic production, translating these plays into foreign languages to promote their production internationally, organizing symposiums and conferences for the general public and special seminars tailored for specific target groups, and IsraDrama: Spotlight on Israeli Drama.

About IsraDrama

Once a year The Institute organizes a festival to expose Israeli Drama to the international theater community. The project is held in German, Hebrew and English, depending on the year. IsraDrama brings approximately 75 artists from around the world to Tel Aviv, including festival directors, theater directors, actors, writers, dramaturges and journalists. The project is sponsored by the Israeli Ministry of Culture and Sport, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Municipality of Tel Aviv/Yafo and the Tel Aviv Foundation for the Arts.

Contact: Kirsten Amann
Dalyn Miller Public Relations
617-733-2791

updated 12/10/2007