A Directory for All Seasons

by Sandra Fenichel Asher

AJT's Directory of Plays of Jewish Interest for Young Audiences isn't just for kids anymore. In fact, it never was! Like the four that preceded it, the most recently updated Directory – available on the AJT Web site in June, 2006 – is packed with scripts written with young people in mind, but sure to please entire families.

Since its debut in Washington in 2003, the ever-expanding Directory has been distributed in hard copy at AJT gatherings, American Alliance for Theatre and Education national conferences, and the Bonderman Playwriting Symposium at Indianapolis's Indiana Repertory Company. It's also available electronically as an e-mail attachment and has been posted on-line since the creation of AJT's Web site at http://www.afjt.com. A link is provided from Drury University's USA Plays for Kids site as well, at http://usaplays4kids.drury.edu. Although there's been no formal survey of the Directory's impact, I've had "grapevine" reports that it's inspired inquiries, productions, and even new AJT memberships.

Individuals, theatre organizations, and publishers are welcome to suggest plays for inclusion by submitting them to me (sandyasher@earthlink.net) in the body of an e-mail or as a Word attachment. Those submitting plays are asked to consult the Directory itself for the standard format (no more than 75 words), and to limit suggestions to plays written with young audiences in mind, pre-school through high school. ( Brighton Beach Memoirsmight well be enjoyed by young audiences, but it was not written especially for them and would not qualify.)

Whether you're searching for plays for next season or playwrights to whom you might like to offer commissions, the directory contains all you need to get started: contact information for both playwrights and publishers, plus synopses of well over 100 scripts, including length, cast size, and technical requirements.

What kinds of scripts? You name it, we've got it! There are full-length, straight plays, such as Sharyn Shipley's The Dybbuk of B'nai Torahand Deborah Lynn Frockt's The Book of Ruth.

You'll find all manner of musicals, from Frumi Cohen's comical Frankenteento Hindi Brooks's biblical Captain Noah toVictor Eydus's The Story of Estherset in Soviet Russia.

One acts abound from skits to full programs, from small cast to huge:

David Eliet's Magda and Josephasks the question"What could I have done?" and plays alone or with its companion piece, The Spirit of Life.

The delightfully daffy Chelmites show up in several guises, including Capture the Moonby Ernest Joselovitz and Michael Bagdasian, Tales for the Rebbe's Tableby Flora B. Atkin, and my own Wisemen of Chelm.

Modern teenagers grapple with questions affecting their Jewish identity in Nancy Gall-Clayton's Discovery, Barry Kornhauser's Stop and Small the Rosens, Robert Caisley's Letters to An Alien, and my own Today I Am, five one-acts based on stories by Carol Matas, Lois Ruby, Jacqueline Dembar Green, and others.

You'll also see adaptations of well-loved books: Barbara Cohen's Molly's Pilgrim, adapted by Sandra Eskin; Lois Ruby's Number the Stars, adapted by Douglas W. Larche; Eric Kimmel's Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins, adapted by Linda Kaufman and Carla Silen, to name only a few.

Some of the plays listed are well-known and often produced (James Still's And Then They Came for Me; Cherie Bennett's Anne Frank and Me). Others are newer and perhaps awaiting that all-important first, second or third production before publication, among them Monica Raymond's HIJAB; Miri Ben-Shalom's I Want the Whole World to See That I Can Cry, and, yes, my own To Life: Growing Up Jewish in America.

So give a look for yourself, and help spread the word about the Directory – and about AJT — by sharing your copy, alerting others to the list on-line, or sending it as an e-mail attachment. It's a valuable resource, it's a recruiting tool,
and it's absolutely free!