Jewish-themed Plays

           Jewish themed plays by Janet S. Tiger
                                                                         Playwright-in-Residence 2006-8
                                           Swedenborg Hall, San Diego

*Teachers- a free lesson plan is available, please call 858-274-9678 or
           tigerteam1@gmail.com and I will send it with your purchase

The following plays are available via e-mail and snail mail.
All prices shown are for snail mail. Special - buy one and receive it by email only
                                                                   - get one free!

If you purchase any of these plays and want to save a tree - I will send the script via e-mail - and give an extra play as a thank you. (The price/shipping/handling is the same - you just get more, and help the environment.)

This web site is under construction, but if you need to contact Janet S. Tiger immediately, please e-mail tigerteam1@gmail.com or call 858-274-9678.

THE AFFIDAVIT
    Running time – 15 minutes            $6.00/script
    Set – pawnshop 1940’s
    2 characters   1 man – 40s
        1 woman – 25-35

*Teachers- a free lesson plan is available, please email tigerteam1@gmail.com and I will send it with your purchase.

    A desperate woman brings a cherished family heirloom to a pawnbroker to try and get money to rescue her father from Nazi-occupied Austria. Will she get the money? And at what cost? Fast-paced with a surprising end.

This play has won numerous awards including DFAS National 1-Act Playwriting contest –(First Place)and Gassner Memorial One-Act Playwriting Competition (Honorable Mention.)

THE AFFIDAVIT is published in ONE-ACT PLAYS FOR ACTING STUDENTS edited by Norman A. Bert (Meriwether Publishing, Colorado)

The productions are too numerous to list at this point, but include New York (Off-off Broadway, New Zealand, Canada, Austria)…..if you have had a production in another country and want it listed here, please e-mail tigerteam1@mail.com

DAY OF ATONEMENT

Special note -

This play is also available as part of Building Bridges Intermarriage Workshop
More info on the workshop will be available soon.

Running time – 15 minutes            $10.00/script
    Set – kitchen, living area middle-class New York late 1970s
    2 characters    2 women, both 60s, both with Polish accent

Winner - 2006 DFAS National One-Act Playwriting Contest (2nd Place)

Finalist - Fritz Blitz Contest for One-Act Plays, San Diego, CA

Produced - Dubuque, Iowa August 2006
                     San Diego 2006 Swedenborg Hall

*Teachers- a free lesson plan is available, please email tigerteam1@gmail.com and I will send it with your purchase.

Two women, lifelong friends, face Yom Kippur (the Jewish New Year also known as the Day of Atonement) with different ideas. Great showpiece for two older actresses.

RENNY'S STORY -
RENNY'S STORY premiered in San Diego in 2006 to sold-out houses at Swedenborg Hall in San Diego.

It was produced again at Ohr Shalom Synagogue in 2007.

Reviews -
SAN DIEGO THEATRE SCENE

"CURTAIN CALLS" #188

By Pat Launer

www.sdtheatrescene.com
04/13/07

http://www.patteproductions.com/Reviews/rev07/ts070413.htm

FAITH, HOPE AND CHARITY

THE SHOW: Renny’s Story, written by San Diego playwright Janet S. Tiger, premiered locally in 2006. It was commissioned by Dr. Howard Kurshenbaum, Renny’s son, a local physician.

Renny Greenblatt Trajman was born in Warsaw, Poland, in the 1920s. She was a spirited and courageous young Jewish woman. When the Nazis occupied her country, she became an actress of sorts. She dumbed down her intelligence and disguised herself as a Catholic farmgirl, hiding out as a houseworker. She fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. She even managed to escape from a death camp, though her husband, sister, brother-in-law and their three children weren’t so lucky. She had a young son, Joseph, born in 1941. She never found out what happened to him. After she moved to America, remarried, and had a second family, she continued to search for any record of her firstborn child, last seen when he was two years old. Besides telling the story of this remarkable woman, who died just six weeks ago, the play is a plea for assistance in obtaining further information, for use of the internet to spread the word and maybe locate Joseph after all these years. The website for information is given out at the end, as part of the text: www.rennysstory.com.
The play is set from 1939 to the present, chronicling Renny’s life and her philosophy of life: upbeat, filled with compassion and hope. There was a bit of backstage drama, too. Last year, the play was performed by local actor Kimberly Kaplan. But for the last few performances this month, she was constrained by laryngitis and couldn’t appear. Understudy to the rescue: Laurie Lehman-Gray, whose father was a German Jew also forced to come to America to avoid the Nazis. She did an excellent job in this one-woman show, making us feel like we were visiting in her parlor as she told her tale of fear and fabrications, terror and narrow escape. The script, the actor and director Diane Shea make every effort, as it’s likely Renny herself would (Tiger spent many hours interviewing her), not to become maudlin, self-serving or self-pitying. But by avoiding sentimentality, there is some loss of sentiment. There’s often a bittersweet smile on Lehman-Gray’s face and it isn’t always perceptibly backed by pain. But, in the face of Holocaust deniers, these stories must be told. The principals are dying off; the relatives still haven’t been found. This is one brief, telling tale that should be seen and heard.

This play is available by special arrangement with the author and Dr. Howard Kurshenbaum.


THE WAITING ROOM (also available in full-length)
Running time –    45 minutes        $10.00/script
    Set – living room/dining room European, circa 1938
    Characters   2 men –25-50
      3 women – 25-75

Productions - Awards -

This play has won many awards, including the Gassner Memorial and the DFAS National . THE WAITING ROOM has been produced numerous times, from San Diego to New York. For more details, please e-mail tigerteam1@gmail.com

*Teachers- a free lesson plan is available, please email tigerteam1@gmail.com and I will send it with your purchase.

A Jewish family in Vienna, Austria, just before World War II, is faced with crucial decisions about taking the opportunity to leave - or staying behind with an aged and ill relative. Basic human questions about the value of life and importance of family are confronted. Poignant drama.

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PRODUCTION INFO -
For more details, click on PRODUCTIONS button at the top of the page

Plays by Janet S. Tiger have been performed throughout the world including United States, Canada, England, Austria and New Zealand. If your group has performed a play by Janet S. Tiger and would like to have it listed on the PRODUCTIONS page which will include international productions, please e-mail details of the production to tigerteam1@gmail.com.

Unusual facts about some of Janet S. Tiger's productions-
1st Reading - UGANDA at a Scripteasers meeting in....a long time ago. (See info about the one-act SCRIPTEASE.)

1st production - SCRIPTEASE (one-act) in 1981 was directed by William Virchis

Janet S. Tiger's plays have won awards six times in the DFAS National One-Act Playwriting Contest -

THE WAITING ROOM -2nd place 1982
THE AFFIDAVIT - 1st place 1983
BLIND WOMAN'S BLUFF - 3rd place 1984
SAVE A PLACE FOR ME - Honorable Mention 1989
CURSE OF THE DUCHESS- 2nd place 1990
DAY OF ATONEMENT - 2nd place 2006

The first three prizes were won by Janet Schechter (the 'S' in Janet S. Tiger), the others after she married Stanley Tiger. Janet traveled to Dubuque, Iowa to watch the productions in 1982, 1983 and 1984, and made many friends that she still is in touch with today. In 2006, DAY OF ATONEMENT was a winner, and she traveled back to see the wonderful production and catch up with friends. For more info on the DFAS dbqoneacts.org/