GOOD JEW at Edmond J. Safra Hall

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2. GOOD JEW

A sold-out hit in NYC’s 2022 United Solo Festival, this true story of WWII survival is back for One-Night-Only at the remarkable Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in downtown Manhattan. Good Jew features Frank Blocker as Holocaust survivor Henryk Altman and is co-authored with his late partner Murray Scott Changar. Based on multiple interviews with Mr. Changar’s late father, this solo play is directed by Jamibeth Margolis, granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, and produced by Peculiar Works Project.

Welcome to Henry Altman’s St. Louis den, 1986, where he reveals extraordinary adventures of survival during the Holocaust. He’s a man of quick wit, many skills, and the ability to speak four languages. Coming from the Warsaw ghetto, he escaped the Treblinka death-camp (twice!), joined the Resistance, blew up trains, and played cat-and-mouse with the SS throughout WWII. There will never be enough stories of Holocaust survival, but there are none like the ones of Henryk Altman.

He navigated World War II using false papers, ingenuity, guile, and was blessed with a lot of luck. He traveled through Poland, Russia, Ukraine, and Denmark, even passing through Germany at the height of the war. Continually avoiding and denying his own heritage, Henryk’s journey offers a much-needed historical perspective, as he gets away with... well, a lot of things. Good Jew offers hope and humor while keeping audiences on the edge of their seats. But Henry doesn’t see himself as good; no one survives war by being good.

Good Jew will be performed ONE NIGHT ONLY on Thursday, June 6, 2023, 7:00pm EDT, at the Edmond J. Safra Hall, 36 Battery Place, New York, NY. The show runs 70 minutes, and $36.00 tickets are available at mjhnyc.org/events/goodjew/. For more information visit: https://good-jew.com/

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Frank Blocker has performed solo works throughout the US for more than 20 years, and he brings Henryk to penetrating life, revealing the chards of courage and perseverance that push him on. An award-winning playwright and Drama Desk Award-nominated performer, he is best known for character roles and multiple personalities in solo performances. He enjoys his part-time work as an Assistant Pastor for the small congregation of Jubilee Fellowship of Naples, where he lives with his rescued greyhound Razmus, and his partner, artist/thinker Ted de Clercq.

Co-author Murray Scott Changar is Henryk’s son. Blocker and Changar were partners in theatre and in life until Changar’s passing a decade ago. The two worked together as editors of the Stage THIS! series of short play collections and Blocker edited Changar’s only novel, sci-fi thriller The Slaves of Votarus. Changar has the distinction that all the plays he wrote have made their way to production, including The Gates of Helen which premiered at Whole World Theatre in Atlanta, a year prior to his death.

Jamibeth Margolis’s theatrical directing credits include Do I Hear a Waltz? and Jekyll and Hyde at the Arvada Center Theater in Denver. Recent Staged Readings: Stalled, Bonjour Mon Amour, and Good Jew. Jamibeth served as assistant director to Tony Award winner Jerry Zaks on The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (Broadway) and also on Jules Feiffer's A Bad Friend  (Lincoln Center Theatre). She has also helmed developmental productions of the new musical works: Winesday (currently running in NYC), Save The Palace, Owl Creek, Great Googly Moo, and Warsaw. Casting credits include the Broadway and National Touring Companies of such hits as Les Miserables, The Phantom Of The Opera, Miss Saigon, Cats, and Jane Eyre among other shows on Broadway, on tours, and in regional theaters. Jamibeth won an Artios Award for her casting of Fiddler On The Roof In Yiddish (directed by Joel Grey).  She cast Harmony on Broadway this season. www.jamibetharts.com

The play is being produced by Peculiar Works Project in SoHo/NYC. Blocker worked with PWP on their OBIE Award-winning production of West Village Fragments/East Village Fragments that took over the streets of lower Manhattan for two summers and on The Don Quixote Project which took over the Merchants Building’s 13th floor and involved 100 artists and performers. Since 1993, PWP has originated both intimate theatrical works and large-scale performance events, favoring the use of multi-media. www.peculiarworks.org

Frank Blocker stars as Holocaust survivor Henryk Altman

Director Jamibeth Margolis

Good Jew features Frank Blocker as Holocaust survivor Henryk Altman

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