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| In the Maze of Our Own Lives |
Filmmaker Sam Ball and The Jewish Theatre co-founder Corey Fischer collaborated to create a new play with cinematic elements, In the Maze of Our Own Lives, based on the history of the Group Theater (1931-41). The country’s first modern ensemble theatre, the Group also was the first theatre in the United States to present work in which large numbers of previously unrepresented Americans could recognize themselves in the characters portrayed. For the first time the language of immigrants, of taxi drivers and schoolteachers was heard on stage. The Group broke down barriers of class and ethnicity, and dispensed with an exhausted set of conventions to discover new ways of being on stage that matched the intensity of the changing world around them.
The collaborators worked closely through a series of improvisational workshops to develop the script and determine in what ways the cinematic elements would be incorporated. The writer, Corey Fischer refined the script following each workshop and Sam Ball then created, designed, produced, acquired, and edited the video elements for the work, including original material and archival footage.
Sam Ball recently collaborated with the Jewish Museum of New York on the multi-media exhibit, Marc Chagall and the Artists of Russian-Jewish Theater. His films include Pleasures of Urban Decay (on Ben Katchor), Joann Sfar Draws from Memory, and Balancing Act.
This season, which will be TJT’s last, is the company’s 34th year of creating, producing, and presenting more than 40 original works of theatre. In 1990, TJT was one of the first American theatres to tour post-Communist Eastern Europe. Two of its original plays have been anthologized and the company has won many awards, including the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays award and a lifetime achievement award from the Foundation for Jewish Culture. In 1994 the company shifted from being primarily a touring company to producing plays in its own theatre in San Francisco.
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