To find out more about Echoes Theatre Company and Joyfully Jewish, please click here

Joyfully Jewish:
Strangers in a Strange Land

A night of new jewish writing about leaving home, settling in and finding the perfect beigel.

Creative Team:

Producer | Echoes Theatre Company:
Rachel Gaffin
Producer & Musical Superviser | THE JEWish CABARET:
Shachar Shamai
Producer & Stage Manager | THE JEWish CABARET:
Ashley Racov

Creative Director:

Ralph Bogard

Associate Producer:

Orange Shade Productions

Musical Director:

Antonina Migunova

Assistant Stage Manager | THE JEWish CABARET:

Adi Hendler

Creative Assistant | THE JEWish CABARET:

Ayelet (Lilly) Sheffer

1 Nov | 19:00 | JW3

341-351 Finchley Road, London NW3 6ET

5 Nov | 19:45 |

New Wimbledon Theatre - Studio

93 The Broadway,

Wimbledon, London

SW19 1QG

8 Nov | 19:00 | Redbridge Drama Centre

Churchfields

South Woodford

E18 2RB

Get your tickets here!

The Directors

Antonina Migunova - Musical Director

The Plays

Exit Us by Dana Schwartz

Hagar and Gad have, like, 18 minutes before the Red Sea parts and they can get the F out of E. That’s enough time to do a lot of things when you’re 15. Will they figure out their lives and relationship and answer some big big questions, or is there, like, a better way to spend those 18 minutes?

Forth Wall by Alexandra Hart

When four famously fictional Jewish characters find themselves locked in a single room, they realise that they’ve been pulled out of their stories and into someone else’s. They might be the ‘chosen people’, but how much choice do they have over their own happy endings…

Immigration Act by Shachar (Shar) Shamai

When an interrogation at border control makes you question your life choices.

Land of my Fathers by Annabel Gaba
Proud Welshman Geraint makes a discovery in his father's attic that leads him somewhere he never expected to go.

The Great Beigel Smuggle by Danielle Wirsansky

As a train prepares to depart early 20th-century Russia, sharp-witted Jewish grandmother Dvorah desperately searches for someone—anyone—to carry her beloved beigel recipe to her daughter fleeing the country. With written recipes forbidden by suspicious customs officers, she must convince a grumpy stranger to memorize it before the train leaves the station. What follows is a chaotic baking lesson, a beigel-fueled bribe, and a cross-border act of culinary resistance.

Dana Schwartz

The Songs

Christmas in London by Emily Rose Simons

Christmas in London was written in 2018 for Xmas Factor at St Paul's Church. It is not autobiographical. Though Emily Rose did work in Everyman Cinema when she suddenly had to move back to the UK when her US visa was rejected. And her closest tube station at that time may have been Golders Green. And she might have sent it to a certain someone whom she had no business sending it to. Who may have lived in Ohio. And worked for a bank.. but it's not autobiographical. ... BH he didn't take up the invitation!!

Heaven on Earth by Shachar (Shar) Shamai

"Heaven on Earth" is a homage to the immigrant soul, zooming in on the universal gravitation toward the familiar. It explores the magnetic pull of one's homeland that never truly fades, capturing the bittersweet reality of the immigration experience, and pushing that longing right to the edge, or perhaps a step too far.

Mockingbird by Tamar Arnon (music & lyrics) & Noya Noam Tal (arrangement)

Mockingbird was born out of the frustration of dealing with an entirely new environment and language. Yet, equally, it arose from the amusement and playfulness of finding tricks to assimilate and say the right thing at the right moment. There is no better way to do this than to listen carefully to your surroundings and copy what you hear.

What We Carry by Eden Tredwell (music & lyrics) & Rachel Bellman (book & lyrics)

In 1525, Jewish cousins Rosa and Esther abandon their small Italian village for vibrant, progressive Rome. Using family knowledge to make and sell their own cosmetics, they get drawn into a new world of high society, beauty standards, and poison…

Pretty Poison' is a musical that pulls from real historical figures and events, with a score inspired by contemporary female singer-songwriters. It is a collaboration between composer-lyricist Eden Tredwell and bookwriter-lyricist Rachel Bellman. The pair were awarded an MGCfutures bursary, Arts Council funding and an Artsdepot residency to develop the piece, which they continue to do alongside producer Beth Cooper and director Emma Jude Harris.