L'CHAIMMay 2021

Star-Studded Lineup for San Diego Repertory Theatre’s 28th annual Lipinsky Family San Diego Jewish Arts Festival

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San Diego Repertory Theatre has announced a star-studded lineup for the 28th Annual Lipinsky Family San Diego Jewish Arts Festival (JFEST), which brings another fantastic year of Jewish music, theatre and art to the community. This year’s festival will last from May 13–June 23 and features a slate of 15 virtual and live performances celebrating San Diego’s diverse performing arts community.

“This is our most accomplished and most accessible Festival,” Festival Artistic Director Todd Salovey said. “I’m so proud and excited by the nationally acclaimed artists in our diverse line-up. With most shows ‘suggested donation only’ we invite everyone to enjoy our shows.”

This year’s festival includes plenty of virtuosic music from Tony Award-winner Ben Platt and his brothers Jonah and Henry in Ahavat Olam, four-time Tony Nominee Tovah Feldshuh singing favorites in Virtually With You, Soulfarm celebrating the music of The Grateful Dead live and in person at The Hive at Leichtag Commons, Perla Batalla returning with Songs of Love & Protest, and of course the return of the festival favorite, the Klezmer Summit: Sweet Home Anatevka. This year also celebrates the 12th Annual Women of Valor with music, stories and images of four women who have made a significant impact in San Diego.

This year’s lineup will also feature a brand new festival of new Jewish plays, called The Whole Megillah. This two-day new play festival highlights unproduced and unapologetically Jewish work for the American Theatre. Each powerhouse playwright explores Judaism and contemporary issues with a unique point of view. The Whole Megillah features Zoom readings of 4 diverse plays, and three expert panels of artists and scholars. Join to discover Jewish stories brimming with humor, drama and original voices expressing Jewish ideas from many perspectives: The Whole Megillah.

“This year, we are so proud to inaugurate The Whole Megillah, a new Jewish play festival that celebrates diverse and vibrant new Jewish voices in the American Theater,” said Festival Associate Artistic Director Ali Viterbi. “As a Jewish playwright whose work has been cultivated at JFEST, I’m so thrilled to be a part of developing the next generation of great Jewish plays.”

This year’s JFEST will also see the return engagement of two festival favorite plays from recent years, both of which have been developed and perfected even further, with the hope that they’ll appear in The REP’s season in the future. First, on June 9, San Diego REP Playwright-in-Residence and JFEST Honorary Jew Herbert Siguenza’s intergalactic comedy Isaac Asimov Grand Master Funk is back, directed by Thomas W. Jones II. Then on June 13th, Festival Associate Artistic Director Ali Viterbi’s inter-generational comic drama In Every Generation returns for an online reading.

Reservations for the 28th Annual Lipinsky Family San Diego Jewish Arts Festival are currently available and can be made at sdrep.org/jfest or by calling (619) 544-1000. Certain events require ticket purchase.

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