The Bat Yam Festival of Musicals to Begin 12/11

The Bat Yam Festival of Musicals will begin on December 11 and will nationally premiere three original musicals which were created especially for the singular festival, founded by Uri Paster which is also the artistic manager of it. This year's festival theme: "Exile Judaism - East and West". The first place winning musical will celebrate its win with two performances which will take place on December 21st at The Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv. In addition to that the winning musical will receive a prize of 50,000 ILS , courtesy of the Israeli Ministry of Culture and Sport.

The Bat Yam Festival of Musicals is celebrating its fourth year with many victories after the sweeping win of the musical "Billy Schwartz", which was created at last year's Bat Yam Festival of Musicals, who won four awards at the 2016 Israeli Theatre Awards (Best Musical, Best Actress- Tali Oren, Best Supporting Actress - Miki Kam and Best Composer- Ohad Hitman). This is the first time in the history of the Israeli Theatre Awards where a play that was created outside the repertory theater wins four important awards and not only that but also be a huge success on the stage of the Haifa Theatre.

On opening night the show "From Musical to Musical" will be performed starring winners of the festival's past years: Miki Kam, Tali Oren, Amir Hilel ("Billy Schwartz"), Ohad Shragai, Daniella Lugassy ("Greta and the Race to Space"), Hanny Nahmias and Adi Cohen.

Throughout the evening excellence awards will be presented to original musicals stars from the 70's: Edna Goren, Aryeh Moskona and Dori Ben-Ze'ev, who will all perform known numbers from the musicals in which they starred. Dori Ben-Ze'ev will perform the song "Radio Talk to Me" from the rock opera "Attrition", Edna Goren will perform the song "Accountant" from the musical "The Outsider Children" and Aryeh Moskona will sing "Hakol Beseder" (Everything is alright) from the rock opera "Benny Boom".

The 2016 Bat Yam Festival of Musicals

"Budapest Boats" - December 12

Cast: Dana Frider, Rona-Lee Shim'on, Rami Baruch, Erez Regev, Ziv Zohar Meir, Lior Zohar and Refael Abbas.

An original musical by Roee Cohen, Nir Faivel and Assaf Shlomo, directed by Lechay Bekerman.

The musical takes place in the year 1940 in a labor camp on the Hungarian border. A relationship between the Hungarian camp's commander and a Jew, a former boats maker, leads to a painful encounter with both their past and future.

"The House of Mitzvahs" - December 13

Cast: Raphael Weinstock, Efrat Cohen, Dar Rosenbaum, Ziv Shalit and Ben Yosipovich.

An original musical by Yasmin Even and Ido Setter, directed by Amir I. Wolf.

A loose adaptation of the play "The God of Vengeance" by Shalom Ash which describes the story of a sinful Jew, an owner of a fancy brothel, who simultaneously tries to keep his only daughter's purity and to find her an adequate matching.
Shalom Ash spent his last years in Bat Yam and his renovated house will reopen for tours on the musical's opening night.

"Soulika" - December 14

Cast: Nasreen Qadri, Ofir Ben Shitrit, Adi Zorea, Gil Cohen, Esti Asraf and Yakir Eliahu Vaknin.

An original musical by Maor Sabag and Tair Sibony, directed by Eli Kaplan-Wildmann.

A story about an Israeli tourist group's journey from the year 2016 to 1834 following the real and multi-version story about the young Jewish girl from Tangier who was forced to fight for her principles, faith and honor actually during the rich days of the Jewish-Arab coexistence in Morocco.

Each one of the musicals will be performed three times on its mentioned date, at 17:30, 19:30 and 21:30.
The Bat Yam Festival of Musicals will take place on December 11-15 at the Bat Yam Cultural Center, 3 Ofir Street.

For tickets to the festival visit Pashbar or call *8023 (Israel) or 03-5745005.

Photo Credit: Rafi Delouya.

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