Jewish Ensemble Theatre

Off-Broadway Theatre in West Bloomfield

(248) 788-2900

6600 W. Maple

West Bloomfield, MI 48322

God of Carnage

by Yasmina Reza

Translated by Christopher Hampton

Presented in the Berman Center for the Performing Arts

December 14, 2011 – January 1, 2012

This dazzling comedy has a deeply serious message to it, but there is so much fun getting there.  A tour de force, this play also won the Tony award for Best Play of the year, and now it’s here for JET subscribers and patrons.

Civilization’s thin veneer gets mercilessly stripped away in Yasmina Reza’s savage comedy about two urban couples attempting to maturely resolve an altercation that occurred between their 11-year-old sons in a neighborhood park.

The general agreement is that God of Carnage is more puncturing than Art, Reza’s international blockbuster that won the 1998 Tony for Best Play.  It’s sleekly schematic, designed to make a big cynical point about those most pompously self-deluding creatures known as homo sapiens.  Who will you recognize?

God of Carnage: Performance Schedule

Preview Week:

Wednesday: December 14 at 7:30pm

Thursday: December 15 at 7:30pm

Saturday: December 17 at 5:00pm

Opening Night:

CALL FOR PRESS TICKETS

Saturday December 17 at 8:30pm

Regular Performances:

Monday: December 19 at 7:30

Tuesday: December 20 at 7:30

Wednesdays: December 21 and 28 at 2:00pm, December 21 at 7:30

Thursdays: December 22 and 29 at 7:30pm

Saturday: December 31 at 6:00pm and 9:00pm *SPECIAL NEW YEARS SHOWING, CALL FOR DETAILS*

Sundays: December 18, January 1 at 2:00pm and 6:30pm

JET performs in the Aaron DeRoy Theatre, 6600 West Maple Road in West Bloomfield (corner of Maple and Drake).  Tickets range from $36 to $43 with discounts for seniors and students. 

There is ample free parking and handicap accessibility.

Race

by David Mamet

Directed by Christopher Bremer

Presented in the Aaron DeRoy Theatre

January 25 – February 19, 2012

On full display in this important play are David Mamet’s rapid-fire dialogue, plot twists and the ultimate realization that most people have their own agendas, weighted down by self-interest, and have no reluctance to betray each other.

This dazzling, instant classic concerns a would-be client accused of rape and his defense that is plotted by a very small law firm with its two lead lawyers and young associate.  And yes, it comes complete with  the bad-faith twist and the sustained surge of words rushing toward collision that are guaranteed to let you know that this is a Mamet masterpiece.

Whether Mamet is endlessly inventive or just a careful observer in a world where everybody is on the make, you won’t want to miss this.  In the meantime, you’d better not trust anyone or you’ll get a terrible surprise, and it won’t just be in the theatre.  Whatever David Mamet touches turns into the truth.

Please be advised: This play contains provocative language and racial and sexual references.  As with all of our JET produced shows, ticket exchanges are welcome prior to your performance date.

Race: Performance Schedule

Preview Week:

Wednesday: January 25 at 7:30pm

Thursday: January 26 at 7:30pm

Saturday: January 28 at 5:00pm

Opening Night:

CALL FOR PRESS TICKETS

Saturday January 28 at 8:30pm

Regular Performances:

Wednesday: February 15 at 2:00pm

Thursdays: February 2, 9, and 16 at 7:30pm

Saturdays: February 4, 11, and 18 at 5:00pm and 8:30pm

Sundays: January 29, February 5, 12, and 19 at 2pm and 6:30pm

JET performs in the Aaron DeRoy Theatre, 6600 West Maple Road in West Bloomfield (corner of Maple and Drake).  Tickets range from $36 to $43 with discounts for seniors and students. 

There is ample free parking and handicap accessibility.

My Brooklyn Hamlet

by Brenda Adelman

Directed by Brenda Adelman

Presented in the Berman Center for the Performing Arts

March 3 and 4, 2012

Some people have said this is the most amazing play of the 20th Century, some say not, but all agree it is one of the most astonishing occurrences.  Listen to this: Brenda’s mother is shot by her father.  He is jailed.  But once released, he marries her mother’s sister!  Oy Vey!  This is Brenda Adelman’s true tale of forgiving the unforgivable.

My Brooklyn Hamlet is Brenda’s acclaimed one-woman show about family, murder, love, betrayal and the awesome power of forgiveness.  This astonishing evening is about love and hate, passion and numbness, and how to find joy after you’ve lost everything.

My Brooklyn Hamlet: Performance Schedule

Two Perfomances Only!

Saturday, March 3 at 8:00pm

Sunday, March 4 at 5:00pm

JET performs in the Aaron DeRoy Theatre, 6600 West Maple Road in West Bloomfield (corner of Maple and Drake).  Tickets range from $36 to $43 with discounts for seniors and students. 

There is ample free parking and handicap accessibility.

M. Butterfly

by David Henry Hwang

Directed by Gillian Eaton

Presented in the Aaron DeRoy Theatre

May 2 – May 27, 2012

Constructed as a series of flashbacks narrated by imprisoned diplomat Galimard, the play is an intricate series of realities inside themselves, turned inside out.  Even as we follow the narrative of the lovers’ affair, it is being refracted through both overt and disguised burlesque deconstructions of Madame Butterfly, both the original David Belasco play and Puccini’s opera.  As we watch, the question becomes, “Who is Butterfly – the beautiful Song Liling or Galimard?”  And yes, this Drama Desk “Best Play” winner and Pulitzer Prize nominee that originally starred John Lithgow and B.D. Wong is exceptionally startling because of its truth.

Please be advised:  This play contains adult language and themes along with brief nudity.  As with all of our JET produced shows, ticket exchanges are welcome prior to your performance date.

M. Butterfly: Performance Schedule

Preview Week:

Wednesday: May 2 at 7:30pm

Thursday: May 3 at 7:30pm

Saturday: May 5 at 5:00pm

Opening Night:

CALL FOR PRESS TICKETS

Saturday May 5 at 8:30pm

Regular Performances:

Wednesday: May 23 at 2:00pm

Thursdays: May 10, 17, and 24 at 7:30pm

Saturdays: May 12, 19, and 26 at 5:00pm and 8:30pm

Sundays: May 6, 13, 20, and 27 at 2pm and 6:30pm

JET performs in the Aaron DeRoy Theatre, 6600 West Maple Road in West Bloomfield (corner of Maple and Drake).  Tickets range from $36 to $43 with discounts for seniors and students. 

There is ample free parking and handicap accessibility.

For more information, ticket reservations, or to arrange a press interview, please call the Jewish Ensemble Theatre at 248-788-2900.

JET Theatre, a Michigan non-profit corporation, is a professional theatre company performing in English. JET receives grants and support from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, the National Endowment for the Arts, MASCO Corporation Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, The Henry S. and Mala Dorfman Foundation, Franklin Bank, The Schubert Foundation, and The Detroit Jewish News.

The Whipping Man

by Matthew Lopez

Directed by Gary Anderson

In co-production with Plowshares Theatre Company

Presented in the Aaron DeRoy Theatre

September 7 – October 2, 2011

It is the first night of Passover, 1865.  Time for a Seder.  Where?  A half-destroyed house in Richmond, Va.  The wine?  Stolen.  The matzo: a small square of hardtack, the tough soldier’s bread.  Uncooked collard greens play the role of the bitter herbs.  And the three unlikely participants?  All Jewish: two newly freed slaves and a Confederate soldier whose family home that all three are uncomfortably inhabiting in the reordered aftermath of the just-concluded Civil War.  It is Simon, the elder of the two former slaves and a man of strong, unswerving faith who leads the ceremony.

This arresting new play blazes with intelligence, making everything we think we have always known new again as Simon hauntingly intones, “Let all who are in need come celebrate Pesach.  This year we are slaves, next year may we be free.”  And then with an emotionally potent few verses of “Go Down Moses,” makes the connection between the suffering of enslaved Jews and the African-Americans sold or born into slavery.

The Whipping Man: Performance Schedule

Preview Week:

Wednesday: September 7 at 7:30pm

Thursday: September 8 at 7:30pm

Saturday: September 10 at 5:00pm

Opening Night:

CALL FOR PRESS TICKETS

Saturday September 10 at 8:30pm

Regular Performances:

Wednesday: September 28 at 2:00pm

Thursdays: September 15, 22, and 29 at 7:30pm

Saturdays: September 17, 24, and October 1 at 5:00pm and 8:30pm

Sundays: September 11, 18, 25, and October 2 at 2 and 6:30pm

JET performs in the Aaron DeRoy Theatre, 6600 West Maple Road in West Bloomfield (corner of Maple and Drake).  Tickets range from $36 to $43 with discounts for seniors and students. 

There is ample free parking and handicap accessibility.

Imagining Madoff

by Deborah Margolin

Directed by Yolanda Fleischer

Presented in the Aaron DeRoy Theatre

October 19 – November 13, 2011

This Midwest premiere of Deborah Margolin’s smart, important new play is something you’ll never forget.  This is the play that Elie Wiesel famously demanded he be removed from as a character.  And he was.  But what remains is a lesson in honesty and Judaism so searing it may change what you think forever.  In a dazzling, electric and highly theatrical structure, Margolin conjures a fantasia about the world’s greatest Ponzi schemer, fiddling minimally with the facts, but still telling the story she wants us to hear.  Madoff’s secretary is here as a witness at his trial.  The writer/survivor, Soloman Galkin, is musing in his study where he also meets Madoff, and Madoff is talking with a journalist in his jail cell.

But this is no dry treatise, this is theatre!  Forget monologues as the actors break the rules of time and space addressing others rather than simply speaking their minds.  There are only three characters in the play, but the feeling is there could be hundreds on stage.

Imagining Madoff: Performance Schedule

Preview Week:

Wednesday: October 19 at 7:30pm

Thursday: October 20 at 7:30pm

Saturday: October 22 at 5:00pm

Opening Night:

CALL FOR PRESS TICKETS

Saturday October 22 at 8:30pm

Regular Performances:

Wednesday: November 9 at 2:00pm

Thursdays: October 27, November 3 and 10 at 7:30pm

Saturdays: October 29, November 5 and 12 at 5:00pm and 8:30pm

Sundays: October 23, 30, November 6 and 13 at 2pm and 6:30pm

JET performs in the Aaron DeRoy Theatre, 6600 West Maple Road in West Bloomfield (corner of Maple and Drake).  Tickets range from $36 to $43 with discounts for seniors and students. 

There is ample free parking and handicap accessibility.

Red Diaper Baby

by Josh Kornbluth

Directed by Josh Kornbluth

Presented in the Berman Center for the Performing Arts

December 3 and 4, 2011

The phrase “red diaper baby” describes a child of parents who were members of the United States Communist Party (CPUSA) or were close to the party or sympathetic to its aims.  Enter comedian/actor and motion picture star Josh Kornbluth, the only child of a Communist fringe couple in New York.  Relentlessly pursued by political correctness even before there was such a thing, Josh takes us through his unique childhood as a red diaper baby.

This is out and out fascinating.  The Jews’ need for radicalism and social change is examined closely in this performance piece that you will remember forever!

Red Diaper Baby: Performance Schedule

Two Performances Only!

Saturday December 3 at 8:00pm

Sunday December 4 at 5:00pm

JET performs in the Aaron DeRoy Theatre, 6600 West Maple Road in West Bloomfield (corner of Maple and Drake).  Tickets range from $36 to $43 with discounts for seniors and students. 

There is ample free parking and handicap accessibility.