Welcome to the Shiva House, 2020
Writer, Co-Director, Performer, Technologist, with Ben BehrendFringeArts Philadelphia, PA; Arthur Ross Gallery, Phila, PA; OCJAC, Phila, PA; Jewish Federation of Sarasota, FL; and Melbourne Fringe, Melbourne, Australia
Welcome to the Shiva House is an interactive virtual performance. We join together as a community through tears, laughter, and good memories, as we explore what it means to grieve collectively.
Shiva (/shiv-UH/) is the seven-day Jewish mourning period following the burial of a loved one; this traditionally involves joining the bereaved in their home for recollection and comfort. This hybrid experience utilizes digital performance, a guided walking meditation, and a companion booklet to help you follow along. Welcome, as we memorialize and celebrate the larger-than-life Sam Bloom, on this, the seventh and final day of Shiva.
Click here for access to the digital version of the Shiva House Companion Reader.
“one of the best theatre experiences I’ve had all quarantine. It is an intimate, emotional ritual with complex meditations on grief, love, and memory. Smart, nuanced marriages of form and content.” -ANG BEY, artistic director of Shoe Box Theatre Collective
“It was bashert (Yiddish for “fate”) that I reviewed Welcome to the Shiva House...I had glanced at the [audience] faces in the gallery, looking for tear-filled eyes. I saw pensive, sad expressions, and I wondered whether we would have been freer with our emotions if
we had been sitting in the safety of a darkened theater. Each of us in the audience today did our own delicate dance, teetering between letting go, fully grieving, and holding back...” -DARCY GRABENSTEIN, critic
Read more show press here!
