Ronda Spinak News

Growing up, Iranian-Americans like Ora Yashar often saw themselves depicted only as the exotic Other: in her words, “either terrorists or Princess Jasmine.” But Yashar's generation was raised in the United States — Iranian in heritage living their own American stories. “Now we're bridging the gap between our old world and our new,” remarks another millennial Iranian-American, Asal Akhondzadeh.

Two famous genealogists will give you tips on tracing your Jewish roots across the diaspora at a new Sunday Morning with The Braid Zoom event on Sunday, June 13.

He gave Meghan Markle her first kiss, and now everyone wants to know him. She lost some of her hearing when she contracted COVID and worries she won't be able to keep singing lullabies to her four-year-old daughter. He had to tell parents that their sons had just died in Vietnam. She fell in love with a woman at a time when that kind of loving was unacceptable.

Today’s Jewish mother is nothing like the one-dimensional stereotype that plagued her predecessors.  She’s inspiring, collaborative, and successful—and three of them and their successful kids will be featured in a new Sunday Morning with The Braid event (formerly Jewish Women’s Theatre) on May 2, a week before Mother’s Day.

The new show, The Rest Is History, is the culmination of a year of mentoring and creativity from The Braid’s NEXT Emerging Artists’ Fellowship Program.  Each year, a cohort of aspiring young theatre professionals are chosen to explore how to create meaningful Jewish culture from their own perspective, under the guidance and mentorship of The Braid’s artistic director, Ronda Spinak, and veteran director and The Braid’s producing director, Susan Morgenstern.  

Architecture shapes how we see our environment. It influences our ideas about home and workplaces, and it can show us a vision of the future.  On Sunday, April 11, at 11:00 am PDT, 2:00 EDT, internationally acclaimed architects Bob Hale and Michael Lehrer will share stories about what inspires their work as Jewish architects in a special Zoom event for The Braid (formerly Jewish Women's Theatre).

Recognizing the need to come together in new ways, The Braid (formerly Jewish Women's Theatre) will deliver an updated version of its popular salon show “Crossing Our Red Sea” to Passover celebrants all over the world on Thursday, March 25, at 7:00 p.m. PDT.

First an author, then the producer of such musical hits as Stormy Weather: The Story of Lena Horne, An American in Paris, and soon the international smash An Officer and a Gentleman, which she co-wrote and produced, Sharleen Cooper Cohen has been called a true Jewish Renaissance Woman.  Now she's going to tell virtual audiences how she does it all when she visits Sunday Morning with The Braid (formerly Jewish Women's Theatre) on March 14.

Los Angeles conceptual artist Marleene Rubenstein is known for creating a connection between the past and present with roots in Judaism.  After showcasing her distinctive and beautiful creations at galleries across the country and in Israel, she will now be sharing her art and stories on Zoom with audiences at The Braid (formerly Jewish Women's Theatre).

The original stories and songs that have been assembled by both new and experienced writers to form The Braid's new salon show Family Matters reveal the complex and complicated relationships that come together to make up the loaded word “family.”

Melanie Chartoff has done it all.  Broadway, soap operas, hit TV series, movies, and cartoon voice-overs.  Now she's an author, and she will perform and discuss stories from her new book, Odd Woman Out, when she visits Sunday Morning with The Braid (formerly Jewish Women's Theatre) on Valentine's Day.

The Braid (formerly Jewish Women’s Theatre), the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony Chamber Players (LAJSCP), and Temple Isaiah will honor International Holocaust Remembrance Day with the world premiere of Stories From the Violins of Hope.

Santa Monica and Virtually Everywhere (January 4, 2021) Expanding its unique responses to the pandemic, The Braid (formerly Jewish Women’s Theatre) will be showing off its first-ever Zoom Art Talk, during an in-depth interview with renowned Los Angeles artist and USC art professor Ruth Weisberg.

Refusing to let COVID deprive audiences of wonderful theatre, the new salon season of The Braid (formerly Jewish Women's Theatre) will kick off its 13th (bat mitzvah) year with an all-new, powerful, and hilarious Zoom show about the time you “just knew” that life was about to change, for better or maybe for worse.

Best selling author and biographer Michael Posner, author of the just-released Leonard Cohen, Untold Stories, which chronicles the breadth of Cohen's extraordinary life, will share stories at a new Sunday Morning with The Braid Zoom Event on Sunday, December 6, at 11:00am PT/2:00pm ET.

The duo behind the creation of ChaiFlicks, the “Jewish Netflix,” will tell a Zoom audience about their new streaming service at The Braid (formerly Jewish Women's Theatre, JWT) on Sunday, November 22, at 11 am PST, 2 pm EST.

Emmy-nominated TV writer Bess Kalb saved every voicemail her grandmother Bobby Bell ever left her. Then, at ninety, Bobby died. She lives on in Kalb's critically acclaimed debut novel, Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A True (As Told to Me) Story, where Bobby is speaking to Bess once more, in a voice as passionate as it ever was in life. 

The Alliance For Jewish Theatre announces the performance lineup for its 2020 Annual Conference, being held online From Sunday, October 25th through Tuesday, October 27th.

In three weeks it will be time to vote, and women can now cast their ballots because of the hard-fought right that suffragists won for all women one hundred years ago. 

When a Jewish girl turns 13, her community joins together at a bat mitzvah to celebrate her coming of age.  When Jewish Women's Theatre/The Braid (JWT) turns 13, its community will also gather to celebrate its coming of age and transformation from a small local theatre into a national voice for contemporary Jewish culture.