The Jewish Cabaret London
Café Named Desire - Lyric Video
Café Named Desire is an original new musical about love, sexuality, and self discovery. This demo album, recorded in October 2018, captures the musical as it was first performed in July 2018, under the name “Jew You Love Me?”. A new iteration of the musical is currently under development.
In the opening number “Café Named Desire”, we meet the owner and manager of the Café by Samira (Martha Pothen), a young queer woman who comes from a strict Muslim background, which she abandoned following the backlash of her coming out as a teen. Sam runs the café with her two flatmates – Gabi (Ashley Racov) & Will (Jack Reitman). We also meet some of the café’s regular customers.
Café Named Desire was conceived, written, and directed by David Djemal & Shar Shamai with additional songs by Emily Rose Simons.
Musical Director - Kieran Stallard
Assistant Producer - Anna Oggero
Photography - Yue Wang
Developed and produced in a collaborative process with our original cast (in order of appearance):
Martha Pothen (Sam), Ashley Racov (Gabi), Jack Reitman (Will), Batel Israel (Rachel), Josh Becker (Yakov), Alex Ayliffe (Ethan), Ido Gonen (Alon), Tanya Truman (Bracha), and Adi Loya (Dina).
Michael Dahl Rasmussen joined the original cast for the purpose of recording this demo album.
You can buy the track or the full album here:
https://www.thejewishcabaret.com/album?wix-music-track-id=5161114653425664&wix-music-comp-id=comp-kafs026x
Café Named Desire explores the life of the Jewish community of North London. It tells the story of a local independent café in Golders Green, and the intertwining lives of its customers. Through humour and poignance, Café Named Desire encourages its audiences to cherish love in their lives, no matter in which way it may choose to manifest itself.
With a refreshingly new take on the challenges of relationships, romance, and religion, Café Named Desire is sure to touch audiences near and far as we take it further.
Looking forward:
Since its earlier iteration, the piece has undergone extensive rewrites to the book, music, and lyrics, and we are looking to develop it further by workshopping it with a director and a cast of actors prior to a full production, and is sure to touch audiences near and far as we take it further.
For more information check out our website:
http://thejewishcabaret.com
If you liked the video or would like to have your say in what we record next, contact us!
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