“For the Love of Animals” at The Braid

The theme of The Braid’s latest True Jewish animal stories — and the humans who love them — are at the center of The Braid’s latest salon theatre production. “For the Love of Animals” features 12 captivating animal stories that showcase the best of Jewish values. 

“The love we show our animals reveals a lot about who we are as people,” the Braid’s founder and artistic director Ronda Spinak said. “I originally conceived of this show as a love letter to animals. … But, as I collected these true stories from the Jewish community, I realized this show has an even more important mission … to overturn [Jewish] stereotypes and give the world a real window into the Jewish soul.”

Co-directed by The Braid’s producing director Susan Morgenstern and current NEXT+ artistic fellow Genevieve Fowler, “For the Love of Animals” has stories of dogs and cats, rats and bats, pigeons and parakeets. There’s even a mischievous horse and a bearded dragon. “I hope that in encountering these stories of love, loss, fear, joy, humor and hope, audiences feel community and connection,” Fowler told The Journal. 

“We are living in a moment rampant with challenges, divisiveness and misunderstanding,” Fowler said. “My hope is that in showing stories of expansive human love for all creatures, audiences will come together for a moment of unity, allowing them to reenter the world as better human animals than before.”

Among the writers with stories in the show are Emmy-winner Cindy Chupack (“Sex and the City,” “Modern Family”), acclaimed photographer Penny Wolin (whose work has hung in the Smithsonian) and 11-time winner of The Moth, Mindy Myers. Other contributors are writers Vanessa Bloom, Jessica Cabot and Lisa Pearl Rosenbaum, as well as Joshua Reuben Silverstein, who performs his own story and several others. The cast also includes Avalon Greenberg Call, Cherish Monique Duke and Lisa Robins. 

“Animal stories appear all over the Torah, right from the opening,” Rosenbaum told The Journal. “They make great story partners for humans to ponder from the serpent in the Garden of Eden, the menagerie in Noah’s ark, Balaam’s talking donkey and on and on.”  

Rosenbaum’s story, told in the aftermath of the LA fires, is about her family’s efforts to save the life of their parakeet. “Our odd little blue parakeet, who had more of a relationship with our dog than with us, refused to get back in his cage [during the Palisades fires],” said Rosenbaum, who is the author of the award-winning novel “A Day of Small Beginnings” and co-writer of the play, “The Violin-Maker.” “How being forced to leave him behind in our house as the evacuation orders were blasting from our phones, made this bird the focus of our worry about what the fire would take from us.”

Bloom, an Abby Freeman artist-in-residence at The Braid, authored the story about the aforementioned horse. “I was the youngest and shortest girl [at my first sleepaway camp] and was paired with Top Dollar, a mini horse who … might be physically small but his personality was huge and he liked to bite people,” she told the Journal. “I had to figure out quickly how to handle him and work as a team in our showmanship class.” She added, “It was definitely a struggle figuring it out, but by the end we won first place!”

Bloom’s biggest takeaways from her experience were that confidence, which helped her make the right decisions regarding Top Dollar, and listening were key. “In the end we reached an understanding that allowed us to show off the best of our abilities,” she said.

Cabot, a recent NEXT emerging artist fellow at The Braid, hopes the show “helps all of us remember that our relationships with animals can be just as special and profound as our relationships with humans, and honestly sometimes even more so,” she told The Journal. 

Cabot was walking her dog when she found an injured pigeon on the side of the road. “I debated what my responsibility was in the situation and ended up taking the pigeon to my home in a box, while I debated and searched for the most compassionate way to assist the pigeon,” Cabot said. “With my story in particular I hope that if someone else ever finds themselves in a situation where they can do something to help an animal, they’ll be inspired to know their actions can make a positive and meaningful difference.”

“For the Love of Animals” is more than a collection of Jewish animal stories. It’s an experience that will leave everyone smiling.

“Our animals make us realize our responsibility towards those who can’t speak for themselves, who are dependent on us for care,” Rosenbaum said. “They make us laugh, they’re with us when we grieve, they get us through life and they’ve supplied humans with stories from time.

“For the Love of Animals” runs May 18-June 22 in person in Los Angeles and the Bay Area, as well as live on Zoom. For schedule and tickets, go to the-braid.org/animals.