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Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

September 11, 2008

Santa Monica Rising (The Broad Stage)

Tommywood, Uncategorized /

Photo_08.jpg
Located at the intersection of 11th St. and Santa Monica Blvd., a
striking modern building designed by Santa Monica architect Renzo
Zecchetto sits on the site of a former elementary school playground and
looks to have risen out of the ground sui generis, almost as if the
Starship Enterprise had decided to dock in the middle of a residential
city block.

It didn’t.

This is the remarkable new Santa
Monica College Performing Arts Center, comprised of the Eli and Edythe
Broad Stage, a 499-seat state-of-the art theater, and the Edye Second
Space, a 99-seat “black box” theater. The new center, generally known
as, simply, the Broad Stage, will debut with a gala opening on Sept. 20
celebrating the life, career and music of Barbara Cook, the
incomparable interpreter of the American Songbook (KCRW-FM 89.9 will air a one hour documentary about Barbara Cook produced by Sarah Spitz on 9/16 at 2 and again at 7PM in honor of the gala).

For the
theater-bereft Westside, whose residents once could only hope to see
major theatrical productions by traveling downtown — often in rush
hour —
this is a big step up culturally. And it has been in development for a
very long time — each detail dissected, discussed and considered.

The
story goes that about 10 years ago, Dale Franzen, an opera singer and,
at the time, a member of Santa Monica College’s music faculty, found
herself at a dinner party with Dustin Hoffman, who once upon a time
attended SMC. They met at the home of Piedad Robertson, then SMC’s
president, and talked about how great it would be if the Westside had a
world-class performing arts center. So they sketched out a plan on a
napkin. In time, as their vision took flight, Franzen took on the role
of artistic director (she is now director), and Hoffman, who chaired
the building committee, became chair of the Broad Stage’s artistic
advisory board.

Over the ensuing decade, a whole host of
notables were consulted on making the dream a reality, including
professionals associated with the Los Angeles Opera, the Los Angeles
Chamber
Orchestra, the Wiltern Theatre, Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza and
California Institute of the Arts. The old joke would have you believe
that a donkey is a horse built by committee, yet in the case of the
Santa Monica Performing Arts Center, Franzen managed to birth a
butterfly from a silkworm (and I now officially have run out of species
clichés).

Recently,
Denise Leader Stoeber, associate director of the Broad Stage, gave me a
tour of the facility as workers were putting on the finishing touches.

The
Broad Stage was designed to be performer and audience friendly; the
499-seat theater space has a bright and clean design, yet feels
intimate. Every seat affords clear sight lines meant to allow eye
contact with the performers, and the seats themselves, imported from
Italy, are firm and comfortable with good legroom (I tested them).

The
stage was conceived to accommodate drama, dance and musical
performances. Accordingly, there are 37 fly
lines, allowing for complex changes of scenery. There’s also an
orchestra pit, and the stage can accommodate a 45-piece orchestra. A
9-foot concert Steinway piano, stored in its own specially designed
cupboard, was a gift from donors Eva and Marc Stern. The stage flooring
is partially sprung, so has a very good surface for dance, added to
which a professional dance floor has been fashioned to be placed on top
for performances.

Of
course, the audience will see only a small part of the story. There is
ample wing space, a comfortable green room, dressing rooms for solo
performers as well as for a company of as many as 14. There’s an
orchestra lift and a trap pit that allows the stage to open from almost
anywhere, and both the backstage and below-stage areas are handicap
accessible. The Broad Stage also has a state-of-the-art sound system
and state-of-the-art performance lighting (with two lighting bridges
and follow spot room). It can accommodate filming as well
as live broadcasts. As for screening movies or events — such as
high-definition transmissions of live opera — the stage has both the
sound system and the screen, though it still lacks the projector
(donation, please?).

Finally,
the acoustics were designed by Mark Holden of Jaffe-Holden Acoustics,
who has worked with both the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and
Lincoln Center in New York. A motorized variable acoustic drapery
system allows the room to accommodate the sounds of different artistic
performances and disciplines.

And for my green-conscious
friends, eco-warriors please note: The theater was built with Honduran
mahogany, a renewable resource, and the heating and cooling systems are
beneath the floor and vent beneath the seats, rather than from above,
while the lobby has been configured to be naturally vented, all for
maximum efficiency.

Last, but by no means least, for those
patrons who have had the experience of missing part of a
performance because they were waiting in line outside a restroom, the
good news is there are four public restrooms, and the main women’s
restroom includes a lounge and double capacity facilities.

The
Edye Second Space, which is adjacent to the Broad Stage, is a 99-seat
theater, with its own lighting grid and the ability to show video. It
is intended to showcase a wider range of more experimental works,
including readings, plays and interdisciplinary productions.

For
both the Broad Stage and the Edye, Stoeber said, the ambition is to be
a place where artists used to performing before large audiences can
perform in a more intimate setting, where new work can be incubated,
and where new artists can be presented. To that end, for example, on
Oct. 11 the acclaimed mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade will perform
Mozart, Bernstein and Poulenc, as well as new works composed for her by
composer and accompanist Jake Heggie.

Just to give you a sense
of what
architect Renzo Zecchetto has accomplished, in its technical abilities
the Broad Stage is at the same level as UCLA’s Royce Hall, yet Royce
can hold an audience three times as large. The combination of the
intimacy of the Broad and the technical virtuosity is unparalleled here.

What
is remarkable, when you think about it, is that until now, no such
performing arts center for music, dance, and theater has existed west
of the 405 Freeway. That is not to say that the Westside has been
without temples of culture: The Getty Center and the Getty Center
Malibu have staged theater events, readings and happenings, as has the
Hammer Museum in Westwood, and there have been events at Bergamot
Station in Santa Monica; the relatively new Kirk Douglas Theatre in
Culver City (an outpost of the downtown Center Theatre Group), has
mounted significant theater productions; as has the Miles Playhouse in
Reed Park. Santa Monica Civic Auditorium hosts the occasional concert,
and
the Skirball has, among other offerings, a thriving world music
program. Nonetheless, despite these and many other performance spaces,
the Westside has never had a dedicated stage of this caliber to attract
world-class artists.

To
ensure that Los Angeles denizens can enjoy their evening, the Broad
Stage parking lot can accommodate 289 cars, in addition to valet
parking, fitting, since as David Mamet reportedly said of the new
venue, “the only thing more important than a forum where the community
can go hear the truth is a forum where the community can go to hear the
truth with adequate parking.”

What then, you may ask, is the
price tag for a world-class arts center? More than you might imagine:
$45 million. And if you are a resident of Santa Monica or Malibu, you
can thank yourself for making all this possible: In 2004 Santa Monica
and Malibu passed a $35 million bond measure to support the project; $5
million came from other government agencies and
individual donors, along with additional funds from a 2002 bond measure
passed to finance improvements to Santa Monica College.

This
marriage of public and private funds and of a community college and a
performing arts center with world-class ambitions required a fair
amount of creative collaboration and innovation in of itself.

“Embedded
in the original Santa Monica College charter is the call for a
performing arts center, so the stage fulfills our mandate and our
traditions,” said Chui. L. Tsang, the current president of Santa Monica
College. One can also point to KCRW-FM, the nationally renowned radio
station that broadcasts from the SMC campus, as an analogous “community
service” of SMC.

In practice, what this means is that the
college will use the space for rehearsing its orchestra, college band
and chorus (which can include as many as 100 people), and for
performances associated with those groups. The Madison Building behind
the center is
available for classes and for rehearsals, as is the Edye Second Space.

Both
the Broad Stage and the Edye will plan their programming around the
college’s use. At the same time, the Madison Group, a nonprofit
organization created to stand at arms-length from the college, will
lease the space and administer other programming for the center while
raising money for what Stoeber called “this world-class programming in
a world-class building.” Memberships are available, and the inaugural
season package has a five-ticket-for-the-price-of-four deal.

The
inaugural season offers evenings of song, dance, music and theater from
a diverse group of artists, ranging from mezzo-soprano Von Stade on
opening night (Oct. 11) to jazz artist Theo Bleckmann, cajun ensemble
The Pine Leaf Boys and a cappella group Chanticleer, to dance companies
such as Lulu Washington and Diavolo, musicians Lee Ritenour and Dave
Grusin, as well as conductor Kent Nagano leading soloists from
the Montreal Symphony (for a full schedule of events go to
www.TheBroadStage.com).

The
first season, impressive as it is, is still somewhat of a “soft
launch,” as they call it in the Internet world. Given that the opening
is about a year behind schedule, the artists for the first season
needed a certain flexibility to accommodate the Broad Stage. As Franzen
has noted, the first season performances “allow us to test how the room
and our systems perform in staging music, oratory, song and drama.” The
second season is already being scheduled, and there is talk of
including more ethnic dance and more family offerings. Hoffman has been
working on theater offerings to launch next year.

To support the
programming as well as arts education, Eli and Edythe Broad donated $10
million to create an endowment. At a press conference earlier this year
to announce the gift, Broad proclaimed: “We have the Walt Disney
Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles and now the
Westside will have its own premier performing arts venue.”

That
the Broads have become our modern Medicis was not lost on Hoffman, who
lauded them: “Without people like the Broads, we wouldn’t have
commissioned work of Mozart and Bach and Beethoven and so many of the
great painters. How they use their capital is commendable.”

Initially
the Broads had urged that the theater be named after Hoffman, but they
were ultimately persuaded otherwise. “Edye loves the theater” press
materials quote Broad as saying, “and after 53 years of marriage, I
wanted to honor her by naming the second space “The Edye.'”

As
for Hoffman, during the planning of the Broad Stage, one of his
suggestions was to have a restroom just off-stage for performers —
apparently his many years in the theater have taught him that such a
contrivance would be invaluable. The restroom is now there, and Hoffman
has asked that a plaque noting his contributions to the Broad Stage be
placed
there.

Something about that just tickles me. The Broads may
have their names on the front of the building, but Hoffman has created
his own rung on Rambam’s ladder: the ironic acknowledgement.

The
Broad Stage, as it goes forward, will no doubt evolve. As part of Santa
Monica College and as part of the Santa Monica community, it has a rare
opportunity to make its “global theater” locally relevant. The degree
to which it becomes integral to the community and to Los Angeles as a
whole will depend on both the quality and choice of the offerings, as
well as its responsiveness to the audience. A task that poses as many
questions as it does challenges.

For example, given that
Emeritus College is also part of Santa Monica College, serving the
senior community, will the Broad Stage create programs suited to senior
schedules when the facility is otherwise not in use? Similarly, what
about family programs? Will there be the equivalent of “early bird
specials”? Weekend afternoon shows at family-friendly hours? Will they
hew to the classic, or tilt to the new, or provide both? And how will
the audience respond? (And who will they be?) All this remains to be
seen.

For
now, let us rejoice in the fall harvest of riches in Santa Monica: from
newly opened restaurants, such as R+D Kitchen on Montana and Anisette
just off the Third Street Promenade, to the forthcoming relocation of
Santa Monica Seafood and the café and oyster bar they intend to open,
to the imminent arrival of Diesel Bookstore in the Country Mart, and to
this new starship that docked on 11th Street (with ample parking),
ready to take all who enter on voyages of the heart, mind, soul and
spirit.

Santa Monica Rising (The Broad Stage) Read More »

Peni Bouskila: ‘I feel I belong, so I’m happy to help’

Leave a Comment / California, Community, Cover Story, Family /

On their first date, Peni Bouskila’s future husband leaned in to kiss her, and she was shocked. “I can’t kiss you!” she exclaimed. “You’re going to be a rabbi!” Having grown up in a traditional religious community, kissing wasn’t exactly on par with separate seating, but she and Rabbi Daniel Bouskila, now the leader of Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel in Westwood, got over that quickly, they were so in love.

Some things about being a rabbi’s wife she expected:

“Our family is a family where everybody watches us; everybody wants to be part of our family. They want to know details about our kids, because they feel that they are their kids, too,” Bouskila explained. “My children know they are in the public eye, and they have to behave in a certain way, which means no running around, sit nicely, things I would have taught them anyway, I hope.”

Fifteen years ago, when her husband was hired as senior rabbi of Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel, she knew she was signing up for a life devoted to the synagogue — not necessarily because it was “expected” but because she came from a family that volunteers, and it is the Jewish thing to do. What she did not anticipate was that over time, even as the temple grew in membership and programming, its support staff has not expanded accordingly. Her husband needs her help, and so Bouskila’s role grew from some volunteering and socializing into a full-fledged job designing graphics for all temple brochures. But as the rabbi’s wife, she helps without being paid.

“It would make me feel a lot better, as I’m sitting there at 2 a.m. doing something for the synagogue, to know there was a check waiting for me,” Bouskila said of work she knows she could be paid for in the corporate world. But, she acknowledges, “It would look bad for us if I were to ask for compensation. If it was someone else volunteering, and my husband suggested to the board, ‘Let’s send them a check,’ that would be OK. It would be wrong for him to request something like that on my behalf, because my money is his money. It’d be like him asking for a raise.”

“I’ve been here for so many years, and I feel I belong, so I’m happy to help,” she added.

The community’s support and acceptance is too important, and she wouldn’t want to risk offending them, lest they think her ungrateful.

Initially, Bouskila harbored reservations about joining a large congregation. Her sister, who also is married to a rabbi, wound up in a community that was so unfairly demanding that the couple left and moved to Israel. Bouskila’s fears were assuaged when she met the community at Sephardic Temple and found them extremely warm and welcoming. They have embraced her children, in one instance helping her daughter raise $24,000 for Israeli children during the Second Lebanon War. When a relative was ill and Bouskila had to go out of town, the community cared for her family, brought them meals and opened their homes on Shabbat.

“When my kids were little, people would come up to me and say, ‘How’s my baby,’ ‘When are we going to have another child?’ — they really see our family as part of their family,” she said.

I first interviewed Bouskila one year ago, and she recently told me the position she created was filled by hired help — and then quickly vacated, which means she must resume the role she played before.

But like any politician’s spouse or doctor’s wife, sharing responsibilities without compensation comes with long hours and busy schedules.

“I don’t know many people who have 9-to-5 jobs and get home by 5:30 p.m. and have nothing to do all evening. Our lives are constantly busy, but I don’t have a problem because I think it’s very normal,” she said.

Bouskila admits the pressure of sustaining not just one family, but also more than a thousand, means time alone is rare.

“Working together has brought us close,” Bouskila said. “Unfortunately, we can’t spend long weekends together alone. We can’t just go out on dates in the evening because of the constraints of the job and the kids. The time we spend together, we spend doing things really important to us.”

What makes it easier, what makes it all worthwhile, is seeing herself and her husband as a team: “Working together is what makes our marriage stronger.”

All the rabbi spouse stories on one page

Peni Bouskila: ‘I feel I belong, so I’m happy to help’ Read More »

Rachel Bookstein: ‘We work better together’

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Working on a college campus, Rachel Bookstein is constantly talking to students about sex. She has very strong opinions about it — as does her husband of 11 years. A self-declared “Torah-observant feminist,” Bookstein found the place where she thinks Judaism and feminism meet in the halachic concept of shomer negiah, which restricts physical contact.

“People are always surprised by what I say, because they expect the standard frum answer,” Bookstein, 35, says in reference to the many Cal State Long Beach students she counsels as director of Hillel, where her husband, Rabbi Yonah Bookstein, 38, is the campus rabbi. “Sometimes I’ll say things, and they’ll be totally shocked.”

She tells me about the Shabbat dinner, just after she and her husband became engaged, when their hands brushed under the table.

“It was so erotic!” she exclaims. “We had this moment, and it was really exciting — that future taste of what it would be like to be together uninhibited.”

For the Booksteins, partners in building the Long Beach Hillel community and the co-creators of the popular youth-oriented Jewlicious Festival, work and home are completely entwined. More than rabbi and rebbetzin, they serve as a model married couple for hundreds of Jewish students. Unlike many of Bookstein’s rebbetzin contemporaries, her journey as a powerfully identified Jewish woman began long before she married a rabbi. She studied feminism in college and has long struggled with how to live as an observant Jewish woman in the modern world.

Born in Northern California’s Marin County, Bookstein grew up in an academically and Jewishly engaged family, although not strictly observant. During her freshman year at UC Santa Cruz, she took a seminar on Jewish women, in which she had an epiphany.

“Everyone had to say their name and ‘I am a Jewish woman,'” Bookstein recalls. “That statement of identification was a moment where I started to think about ‘I am a Jewish woman, what does that mean?’ That was the moment when I decided to engage in Jewish life, text and community.”

She went from wanting to be a lawyer who would change the world to high-tailing it to Israel for her junior year. When she returned, she applied to a Jewish studies master’s degree program at Oxford University. She arrived with “a giant computer and two giant bags,” and when she stepped out of the car, a young man in a yarmulke and jeans asked if he could help carry her things.

When they began dating, Yonah was more observant, and she was still searching for her own path. They engaged in “traditional dating,” spending time together only in public, walking in parks, meeting in coffee shops. They talked on a pay phone twice a day, avoiding each other’s homes and any kind of physical relationship. Early on, Yonah was forthright about his intentions.

“He said, ‘I want you to know I think you’re amazing, and I really like you, but I am not looking for any more friends — I am dating for marriage,'” she recalls.

Bookstein was floored. She’d found the male feminist; the guy who was more interested in her personality than her physical expression. She also loved how Judaism values the institution of dating for marriage, where a woman doesn’t just give away her body.

“To connect in a nonverbal way is really powerful, but if deployed at the wrong time, can keep you in a bad relationship. We could have totally wrecked our relationship if we were too young and too intimate,” Bookstein says. Yet, she admits, “Not being together is really hard if you’re in love with someone.”

The couple met in October, met each other’s families in December, got engaged in February and married in June.

“We were totally certain and totally in love,” she says. “It was unimaginable to us that we wouldn’t want to be married. It was this totally obvious reality that ‘this is my soul mate; this is my life partner.’ My family raised me with enough self-confidence to make that decision.”

Once married, they did everything together: yeshiva in Israel, running the Ronald Lauder Foundation in Poland — he was the director; she the program director — and it was there that she gave birth to their first two children. When they left Poland, Yonah completed his smicha in Israel and then New York, and Rachel decided that his rabbinic journey would determine their geography. Eventually, a private philanthropist hired Yonah to be campus rabbi at Long Beach Hillel, and Rachel was recruited as Hillel director, which made their private and public lives one and the same.

“I can’t balance. I make informed choices,” Bookstein says about negotiating between work life and home life. “When my kids are sick and there are things I need to do at work, work gets put on hold.”

The greatest challenge they face as a couple is getting away from their work. With four young children, going on dates is nearly impossible, but nurturing their relationship is essential. Last year, they sat on the porch, lit candles and drank tea together.

“My greatest sadness is that I don’t have any friends,” she confesses.

She always has to be the rebbetzin, available to students if they want to have coffee or need advice, ready with an ample Shabbos table for constant guests and always astute enough to have something “intelligent, thoughtful and positive to say.” She also says she feels pressure to validate her work for the organizations she works for, the donors who support them and the students she and her husband devote their lives to teaching.

“Working with my husband, one thing I feel grateful about is that we both work better together than we do apart. When we work together, we are more of who we are, more than the sum of our parts,” Bookstein says. “We’re each other’s cheerleader, copy editor, best and worst critic and, because we are totally committed to each other, it gives us a lot of strength.”

All the rabbi spouse stories on one page

Rachel Bookstein: ‘We work better together’ Read More »

Bruce Ellman: ‘Her work is so meaningful’

Leave a Comment / California, Community, Cover Story, Family /

“Any public figure has to deal with being exposed in all parts of their life,” Bruce Ellman said, to explain why he felt nervous talking about his marriage to Rabbi Michelle Missaghieh, who is beginning her 13th year as associate rabbi at Temple Israel of Hollywood, a long-established congregation of more than 900 families. The challenge of maintaining privacy while in a public position has been a concern for the couple since they met.

“What I didn’t realize was that for Michelle, dating in a public arena as a young woman was complicated,” he said of when they first met.

At the time, Missaghieh was the new hire at the temple, and was working hard to establish herself, and he wasnt looking to date a rabbi. But when he surprised her by showing up at her installation ceremony, Ellman was thunderstruck.

“She was this little 29-year-old and had this commanding presence on the bimah, and it was exciting and attractive,” said Ellman, 46, who is five years older than his wife of ten years.

Increasingly disenchanted with his career in finance, his new love interest opened new avenues for emotion, but there could be no public displays of affection.

“We dated for a year, and then when we were engaged, I became public,” Ellman said. “Before that time, I was a friend, and nobody in the community knew that we were dating.”

Ellman’s early lesson that romance with a rabbi is all about privacy would echo deep into their marriage. And he has learned that once you’re married and have children — they have three, two girls, 8 and 6, and a toddler son — the desire for personal privacy increases — somewhat ironically — in direct proportion to how hard it is to achieve. So Ellman is ever cautious when it comes to revealing details about his family life.

All of which has not stopped him from becoming involved in the synagogue. In fact, he was so inspired by his wife’s professional passion, he changed careers to study psychology and now teaches at American Jewish University (formerly the University of Judaism) and maintains a private practice. Ellman also became involved with the temple’s day school, where the girls are currently enrolled. He has helped train the school educators about emotional development issues in children and taught a class on psychoanalytic approaches to Torah. But it’s not always easy to be the rabbi’s spouse, and he’s found on occasion that his contributions aren’t welcome: One time, he said, he was not allowed to be a member of a committee he was interested in because participation was viewed as a conflict of interest.

“Whatever you say carries weight that is not the same as if you were just a congregant, Ellman said.

He’s careful not to be critical as the result of an experience in a focus group when he was asked by leadership to refrain from such remarks.

“It’s not my career I’m talking about; it’s my wife’s,” he said regarding the group’s concern that his input might reflect his wife’s opinion. “We’re talking about the world of emotions. It’s not linear, it’s not logical and it’s not rational. It’s feelings.”

What Ellman does or says, or even how their children behave, can be a reflection on the rabbi. There’s a risk in being completely open with people, Ellman said, as there’s always a possibility for distortion.

Rabbis, on the other hand, often share personal details about their spouses in their sermons.

“Earlier on in our marriage, I would hear myself being talked about from the bimah without my knowing it — and start cringing and hiding under my seat,” Ellman recalled.

Over time, he said he grew more comfortable when his wife shared her personal experiences as a wife and mother, and she now consults with him beforehand, so he knows what to expect.

The benefit, Ellman said, is that he also learns about his wife through her sermons, since her expression is so personal and passionate. But on Friday nights when she’s usually working and he’s caring for their three children, he misses her. He said he takes care to create a Shabbat experience for the kids, whether their mother is home or not.

“If I could design this differently, I would prefer to have her with me on Shabbat, but her work is so meaningful to her; I don’t resent it,” he said, adding that the support of the community helps him manage the parenting while his wife is working.

“In many ways, it’s easier for husbands than wives. Being a man, there is this expectation that I have my own career, and that I am not there solely as her spouse.”

All the rabbi spouse stories on one page

Bruce Ellman: ‘Her work is so meaningful’ Read More »

The Rabbis Schuldenfrei: ‘It’s about sharing’

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The Rabbis Schuldenfrei arrived for lunch on their day off.

It was a sunny afternoon in late February, and the young couple out-glowed the sunshine of Manhattan Beach. They strolled closely together, holding hands and laughing, acting as if they shared a secret the rest of us might like to know. They couldn’t have known then how their world would soon change; how their words would pulse with new meaning by the time they would appear on this page.

Deborah was frank about their beginnings.

“I did not want to meet, date or marry a rabbi,” said the 30-year-old rabbi, who when we spoke was assistant rabbi at Shir Ha-Ma’alot in Orange County. “I thought that being a rabbi myself, it would just be too complicated of a life. I guess in a way, I wanted that to be my special thing.”

She turned to her husband Brian, 33, rabbi at Sinai Temple in Westwood.

“I just thought she was really cute, so I wanted to go on a date with her,” he said with a laugh. “I basically sent a squadron of people to get her phone number.”

“I think by the second or third date, we just felt totally in synch, in the way that our families had described meeting their partners,” Deborah said. “But I do remember the first time you brought me to the temple….”

“Right! It was the Sinai Akiba dinner date. I was a single male, and then all of a sudden, I was bringing my girlfriend. When I R.S.V.P.’d for ‘two,’ that was the first time I had ever done that.” Brian said. “I already heard whispers.”

Although it might seem that being both rabbis and rabbis’ spouses would be the most challenging role of all, the Schuldenfreis have found a collegiality in their home that, had they married anyone else, they would miss.

“A lot of rabbis are privately very lonely, because how they’re spending the majority of their time is unlike any of their friends,” Brian explained.

As rabbis, Brian and Deborah understand all the dimensions of one another’s jobs, most of all, that being a rabbi is much more than just a job. They understand, perhaps better than anyone else, why people are so interested in the spouse of a rabbi and how that pairing represents nothing less than Judaism itself to the rest of the community. And like all two-career couples, they contend with the challenges that long hours and busy schedules bring, but what they gain is a deepened understanding of each other.

“When you are a bridge between people and their God, there is a mystification that happens with that. When people forget that the rabbi is just a person, there’s a lot that they’ll want to know about who is the woman or man behind the curtain,” Deborah said.

“Speaking from a pulpit, you can be personal and intimate with thousands of people without actually having a relationship with them. People feel close to you, even though they don’t know you — that’s the L.A. celebrity effect.”

Yet unlike movie stars or politicians, members of the Jewish community are allowed personal access to their rabbis, and they depend on rabbis during the most important moments of their lives.

“Look, we are intensely personal with people.” Brian said. “We’re telling people how we think they should live — ethically, ritually, religiously, and telling them about their relationship with God. Of course, they want to have that same window into [our] life. It’s about sharing.”

When they started dating, Brian was already a pulpit rabbi and Deborah was finishing rabbinical school, and they knew there would be a natural curiosity surrounding their partnership. Brian was careful to distinguish between their dates and visits to the synagogue together, when they would mingle with congregants. Six months after they married, when Deborah was hired to a pulpit position — for a congregation almost 50 miles away — the couple had to renegotiate both their public appearances together, as well as their entire private life.

During the first two years of marriage, they both were rabbis at large, highly programmed synagogues, where they were intimately involved with every aspect of congregational life. Friday night Shabbat was never together. They rarely visited each other’s synagogues. Even though they made sharing Shabbat lunch a priority, other demands sometimes interfered, and they certainly didn’t have the luxury of opening their home to friends.

“Some of it is trial and error, but we’ve needed to become really organized with our time,” Brian said about how they support each other with so many other commitments.

They arranged to have the same day off and instituted “date night,” “no BlackBerry days” and have tried to limit the talmudic pillow talk. But the thing that brings them closest together is a little rabbinic competition. When it comes to sermon writing, programming ideas and conflict resolution, the Schuldenfreis are each other’s greatest resource.

“We’ve had to figure out what stage of problem solving we’re in: Are you in the I-just-need-to-vent-about-it stage? Are you asking for advice? Are you asking for new possibilities or are you asking for me to just support you and say, ‘That’s great’?” Deborah explained about how they’ve learned to support each other without offending one another.

“If Deborah is calling me 45 minutes before a speech, I’m not going to say, ‘I actually think your whole premise is off,'” Brian added. “In general, I’ve become a better rabbi because of Deborah, and I’d like to think that Deborah has become a better rabbi because of me.”

If the past two years have been about their life as a rabbi/rabbi couple, all of that is changing, however.

“We knew this would have a limited shelf life,” Brian said before Deborah announced she was pregnant.

She did not renew her contract with Shir Ha-Ma’alot when it came time to renegotiate last June.

“We’ve been very open to doing things one step at a time and not plan too much and get ahead of ourselves and create unrealistic expectations for what our lives should be,” Deborah said. “Ultimately, we’d like to have job compatibility, where we can see each other, where we can have Shabbat together as a family, where we can celebrate holidays.”

On Aug. 4, Deborah gave birth to their first child, Heshel Max. For now, Deborah said her ambitions are to be a full-time mother and a full-time rebbetzin:”I think we both have an open understanding of the potential of what a rabbi can be and what kind of jobs a rabbi can take, and they can be meaningful jobs as rabbis, even if they’re not pulpit rabbis. I think we both feel that way.”

Brian just smiled.

All the rabbi spouse stories on one page

The Rabbis Schuldenfrei: ‘It’s about sharing’ Read More »

They also serve: Rabbis’ spouses prove as diverse as roles they fill

Leave a Comment / California, Community, Cover Story, Family /

Just before the High Holy Days last year, I was sitting in synagogue when I was struck by the star power of its rabbi. When he spoke, everyone listened, transfixed, as if the words he offered were revelations — inspiring, challenging and healing all at the same time.

At the end of his sermon, the congregants erupted in applause. I could hear them whispering about him all at once.

“He’s amazing,” several said.

“Brilliant.”

“I love him!”

That’s when the cantor’s wife, who was sitting next to me, tapped me on the shoulder.

“You know,” she whispered under the din of temple chatter. “I’m waiting for the story about what it’s like to be married to someone in the clergy.”

That’s when I began wondering about the people rabbis go home to at night, the people who don’t just love the rabbi, but who also know the rabbi.

For as long as rabbis have been arguing Talmud, their wives have been at home preparing Shabbat dinner.

Yet that image, along with expectations for clergy spouses, has evolved. For one, they’re no longer all women. They’re no longer always hovering in the background; they’re not even always a different gender from their partner.

Modern rabbis’ spouses don’t fit into any single mold.

” title=”David Light”>David Light balances comedy writing with care of his two daughters; ” title=”Bruce Ellman”>Bruce Ellman brings his psychology training to benefit his temple; Marjorie Pressman served as a fiery force throughout her now-retired husband’s pulpit career; and ” title=”Marjorie Pressman”>Marjorie Pressman put it, “I didn’t marry a rabbi. I married the man I fell in love with.”

And that’s the thread that binds these seven people together.

At the heart of all these stories and all their struggles, are simple, powerful love stories.

All the They also serve: Rabbis’ spouses prove as diverse as roles they fill Read More »

How I returned

Leave a Comment / Opinion, Rob Eshman /

In the fall of 1989, I took a class on Chasidic thought with a Chabad rabbi. We met in a room in the annex of Congregation Mishkon Tephilo in Venice. Iwanted to learn about Judaism, but I hated going to synagogue services. They bored me. So I took classes, learned Hebrew, even lived in Israel. But no synagogue services.

One afternoon, our teacher suggested we all march down and meet Mishkon’s new woman rabbi, Naomi Levy. The class consisted of six young single men — we said sure.

And the moment I saw Naomi, I knew I wanted to marry her.

From there on out, a group of us gravitated to a back row of the synagogue and devoted every Shabbat to hoping she would fall for one of us. We were in our 20s, unmarried and smitten.

Fortunately, I had an enormous advantage over the other young men: I didn’t have a job. They were all busy young professionals. I was just young.

Naomi taught a class called, “Love and Torah,” every Wednesday at noon. There was my opening. My calendar happened to be clear every Wednesday at noon — actually, it was clear pretty much every day at noon.

So I showed up each week to learn with five young mothers and the rabbi. The moms figured out my plan immediately. Naomi just assumed I was really into Torah.

She was teaching the “Song of Songs,” a biblical love poem.

On the day our class studied the line, ” … and his fruit was sweet to my taste …,” I brought a quart of huge, ripe strawberries from the Santa Monica farmer’s market for everyone to share. Another time, as we read, ” … I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense,” I pulled out a baggie of frankincense and a baggie of myrrh, which I had bought the day before after driving 45 minutes to a bodega in Burbank. If you want to snag a rabbi, it helps to read ahead.

The next Shabbat, Naomi let me walk her to her apartment door after services.

“But you should know,” she warned me, “I don’t date congregants.”

“Fine,” I said, “I won’t join.”

The fact is, not joining a congregation came naturally to me. I was intrigued by Judaism, and I was growing to love Mishkon’s members — many are friends to this day — but I was not interested in spending Friday nights and Saturday mornings in shul.

I had grown up attending a large, suburban synagogue, had a bar mitzvah and never went to services more than twice each year. And each time I did, the rote prayer readings, the cantorial repetition, the organ music — all of it — sent me into a spirit-sucking stupor.

Eventually, Naomi caught on to my intentions. It may have been when I offered to cater the synagogue’s second-night seder, or that I offered to head up the Chanukah latke-making effort for 200, or the afternoon I left a mix-tape on her doorstep for her post-Shabbat listening.

Or it may have been my sudden 100 percent shul attendance record.

“I don’t even go to shul that much,” Naomi told me.

Of course, after we got married in 1991, neither did I.

Because I was a sailor in the relatively uncharted waters of being a male spouse of a rabbi, Mishkon’s congregation had no expectations of me and no obvious role.

The congregants didn’t seem to mind that I was rarely in shul — or at least didn’t mind out loud.

When Naomi decided to leave Mishkon after we had our second child, I was more relieved than she was. A rabbi’s spouse sees firsthand the pressures of the job: the strains of synagogue politics, the lack of control over one’s time, the constant sense you can never fulfill the demands both of your congregants — no matter how many — and of your own family.

Frankly, I also was looking forward to being free of the guilt of not showing up at services.

In leaving Mishkon, Naomi got to be home more with our children, write books (“To Begin Again,” “Talking to God”), teach and lecture. But as the years passed, she yearned to return to the pulpit. It was — is — her calling.

But as much as she loves the pulpit, Naomi, like me, finds the modern synagogue problematic. She believes that Judaism offers people a sense of purpose, a mission to heal society and a fulfilling spiritual path, but that too often standard synagogue services don’t attract or inspire Jews, much less compel them to commit to a community.

“My interest was in the people who don’t go to shul,” she told me. “The outsiders.”

Of course, one of those outsiders was living with her. I liked everything about being Jewish but going to shul. I had seen her infuse the traditional services at Mishkon with her particular spirit and warmth, and I hoped there was a way she could build on that somehow, somewhere.

But how or where I hadn’t a clue.

I couldn’t see either of us at a mainstream synagogue: Her goal was to reach the Jews who, for whatever reason, were turned off to Judaism, and they were unlikely to be found inside established synagogues.

One day, Naomi simply decided to do it— to create for herself her dream of the ideal service and the ideal congregation.

She had no financial backing, no business plan, no building, no place to hold services. She had a supportive but somewhat skeptical rebbetzin.

Naomi decided to call her congregation “Nashuva,” Hebrew for “we will return.” She launched it one night with a few friends and a husband seated around our dining room table. As we all shared our vision and offered our help, I felt my role shift from rabbi’s spouse-in-the-background to fellow organizer, planner, volunteer.

I, who had happily stayed on the sidelines of synagogue life, was now joining with a handful of others to actually create a different kind of congregation. As Naomi envisioned it, Nashuva would be an outreach congregation, bringing Judaism to those who had otherwise been turned off to it or uninspired by it.

People like me.

Nashuva would hold Shabbat evening services on the first Friday of every month and do a social service project in the L.A. area on the third Sunday of the month. It was service that led to service; outreach that led to reaching out.

There would be no membership, no dues, and everyone — everyone — would be welcome.

The service itself would be traditional and in Hebrew, but with accessible translations written by Naomi and set to great, engaging music.

Naomi put together a band, and I watched with the screwed up face of a stodgy sitcom dad as several strikingly handsome, talented musicians appeared in our living room for rehearsals. Naomi and the band fashioned new arrangements, adapting ancient Hebrew prayers to melodies as diverse as music from “Godspell” and the Jewish Abuyudaya tribe of Uganda.

She cold-called a church she had driven by countless times, the Westwood Hills Congregational Church on Westwood Boulevard. A young woman answered the phone. Naomi asked to speak to the reverend.

“You’re speaking with her,” said the Rev. Kirsten Linford.

When the two met, they fell into each other’s arms like long-lost friends.

On Nashuva’s debut night, we hung Wanda Peretz’s beautiful handmade tapestry depicting a dove returning to a Tree of Life. It hid the church’s giant cross. I set out food for after the service (some roles never change), and we filled the pews with the prayer books Naomi had created.

“Just put out 50,” she said.

People began to arrive. The congregation swelled. I stood in the balcony and watched the hundreds of church seats fill up.

Eventually, Nashuva outgrew its first home and moved to its current location, the Brentwood Hills Presbyterian Church. It has succeeded beyond our imaginations without falling back on traditional models of organization, like dues and membership and tickets. Nashuva now even has an alternative to Hebrew school — Camp Nashuva — that engages young children in the joy of Jewish learning. What it lacks in the hallmarks of mainstream synagogues — well-developed lay leadership, regular cash flow, a home of its own — it has made up for with committed volunteers, some generous donors and grants.

As the nontraditional rebbetzin at a nontraditional shul, I happily set out defining my own role: doing whatever I could to sustain what I truly believe is something magical and exceptional in Jewish life — and actually looking forward to going to services. I have, at last, returned.

This past June, Nashuva celebrated its fourth anniversary. Somehow, Nashuva has survived as an un-synagogue.

At the High Holy Days, Nashuva is standing room only. But even more remarkable, on the first Friday of each month, I sit in the balcony and watch, not quite believing, as each time it fills up on just an average Shabbat — with many new faces and many familiar ones. People who had never found a spiritual home. People whose own synagogue services leave them cold. People who never felt welcome in Jewish life. Kids dance in the aisles, the congregation leaps to its feet, Naomi sings and leads prayer and speaks — her ideal rabbinate.

And the most surprising face in the crowd? Mine — the guy who never liked services, wouldn’t join a synagogue and never got involved. I have finally found my spiritual home — soulful and musical, original and inspiring — a true reflection of the woman I fell in love with.

How I returned Read More »

Photo exhibition reveals challenges, dreams of teen immigrants

Leave a Comment / Entertainment /

Arsim Mustafa, a 14-year-old boy who immigrated with his parents from Kosovo to the United States, is leaning against a paint-spattered wall, arms loosely crossed as they rest on the oversized T-shirt he is wearing. He looks like any American teen, wearing baggy pants and high-top sneakers, his boyish face framed by close-cropped dark hair, his gaze meeting the camera with apparent equanimity.

But when documentary photographer Barbara Beirne asked him about his homeland, he told her how scared he had been before he came to America.

“In my country, it was always war. I saw people dying. I saw people without arms, eyes, hands — without heads,” Mustafa said. “We finally got away, but I was upset.”

On a winter day, just four months after arriving from Ukraine, a 15-year-old girl stood beneath low-hanging gray clouds on a deserted stretch of Coney Island Beach, amusement park rides visible far behind her. Engulfed in winter garb, holding a scarf to her neck against the wind, her eyes are fixed on a point in the distance over the ocean. She told Beirne that she missed “Ukraine and nature,” where everyone in her village worked in the fields, then picked and ate apples together.

“Is it true that you can’t pick apples from trees here?” she asked.

These teens’ impressions of their homelands — from Mustafa’s wartime horrors to the young Ukrainian woman’s pastoral idyll — are just two examples of the wide-ranging sentiments expressed by 59 teens included in the exhibition, “Becoming American: Teenagers and Immigration,” opening Oct. 17 at the Skirball Cultural Center. Organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), “Becoming American” premiered March 10, 2007, at the Ellis Island Immigration Museum and will travel to various venues around the country through 2011. The teenagers’ stories, as told through their own words, appear alongside Beirne’s evocative photographic portraits, drawing viewers into a maelstrom of the teens’ hopes, fears and dreams as they face a new life in a foreign land.

Beirne, who studied photography with Philip Perkis and Robert Mapplethorpe, has amassed an impressive body of work over the past 25 years. She has worked in India, Nepal and Ecuador; has documented the lives of children in war-torn Belfast, Ireland, and has had a prior exhibition, “Serving Home and Community: The Women of Appalachia,” tour the United States from 1999-2003, also through SITES.

Beirne first became interested in teenage immigrants while on a magazine assignment in her home state of New Jersey in 1999. More than 3,000 Kosovar Albanians had been brought to the United States in a humanitarian response to the crisis in Kosovo; hundreds of them were housed at Fort Dix, N.J., awaiting resettlement assistance. Visiting them weekly, Beirne discovered that of the refugees, it was the teenagers who were the most willing — excited, even — to talk to the news media.

” title=”www.skirball.org”>www.skirball.org.

All photos by Barbara Beirne

Photo exhibition reveals challenges, dreams of teen immigrants Read More »

Arts in L.A. Quarterly Calendar: Cultural events through November 2008

Leave a Comment / Entertainment /

SEPTEMBER

Fri., Sept. 12
“A Blessing to One Another: Pope John Paul II and the Jewish People.” Angelenos can explore the legacy of one of the Catholic Church’s most beloved popes in a new Skirball Cultural Center exhibition. Through artifacts, photographs and audiovisual recordings that first appeared at Cincinnati’s Xavier University only weeks after the pope’s death in 2005, visitors can explore the life of Pope John Paul II and the historical and personal circumstances that led him to aggressively reach out to Jews worldwide. Pope John Paul II was the first pontiff to enter a synagogue, recognize the State of Israel and formally apologize for the Catholic Church’s past treatment of the Jewish people. The Skirball will also offer several public programs related to the exhibition: an adult-education course on “Jesus and Judaism” and film adaptations of biblical epics, among others. Through Jan. 4. $10 (general admission), free to all on Thursdays. Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. (310) 440-4500. ” target=”_blank”>http://www.thenewlatc.com.

Sat., Sept. 13
“Speech & Debate.” The town is Salem, Ore., and, as in countless other American cities, teenagers are on the prowl for like-minded adolescents via the Internet. However, the three teenagers who find one another in “Speech & Debate” don’t just bond over music, books and movies, but are linked through a sex scandal that has rocked their community. The three adolescent misfits do what anyone else would to get to the bottom of the scandal: form their school’s first speech and debate team. Check out the West Coast premiere of the play, which critics are calling “flat-out funny.” 8 p.m. Thu.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Through Oct. 26. $22-$28. The Blank Theatre, 6500 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles. (323) 661-9827. ” target=”_blank”>http://www.plays411.com/ragtime.

Sat., Sept. 13
Camarillo Art & Jazz Festival. Camarillo is offering visitors a one-day extravaganza filled with music, artists and gourmet food, all culminating in an evening concert under the stars. The 2008 Camarillo Art & Jazz Festival will include gospel and bluegrass music, a farmers’ market and more than 50 artists showcasing their work. By evening, retro-band Royal Crown Revue will warm the stage for a secret, Grammy-nominated headliner. 8 a.m. (farmers’ market), 10 a.m. (music and art walk). $20-$60. 2400 Ventura Blvd., Old Town Camarillo. (805) 484-4383. ” target=”_blank”>http://www.apla.org.

Fri., Sept. 19
“Back Back Back” at The Old Globe. There’s nothing poignant about professional athletes using steroids. Or is there? Old Globe playwright-in-residence Itamar Moses delves into the controversial topic and takes the audience beyond the newspaper headlines and congressional hearings to the sanctuary of sports — the locker room. With humor and insight, Moses unfolds the stories of three major league baseball players who struggle to compete in the unforgiving world of professional sports, as well as balance their personal lives and professional images. The up-and-coming playwright has “clearly demonstrated tremendous talent along with a willingness to tackle complex ideas in his plays,” said The Globe’s Executive Producer Lou Spisto. Moses’ other works include “The Four of Us,” which won the San Diego Critics’ Circle Best New Play Award last year and “Bach at Leipzig.” 8 p.m. Tue.-Sun. Through Oct. 26. $42-$59. Old Globe Arena Theatre, James S. Copley Auditorium, San Diego Museum of Art, Balboa Park, San Diego. (619) 234-5623. ” target=”_blank”>http://www.nhm.org.

Sun., Sept. 21
KCRW’S World Festival. A remarkable, eclectic lineup marks the last week of KCRW’s World Music Festival. Ozomatli toured the world, engaging audiences with its blend of Latin-, rock- and hip-hop-infused music, as well as its anti-war and human rights advocacy. The multiethnic group headlines this special night at the Hollywood Bowl, along with Michael Franti, a former member of the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, and his latest band Spearhead. Mexican singer Lila Downs as well as Tijuana’s premiere electronic band, Nortec Collective and its members Bostich and Fussible, will make it impossible for anyone not to get something out of the mix. If you haven’t had the chance to catch this spectacular summer concert series, don’t miss this last opportunity. 7 p.m. $10-$96. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood. (323) 850-2000. ” target=”_blank”>http://www.lfla.org/aloud.

Wed., Sept. 24
Brad Meltzer signs “Book of Lies.” The New York Times best-selling mystery writer is back with a riveting new thriller that links the Cain and Abel story with the creation of Superman. Young Jerry Siegel dreamed up a bulletproof super man in 1932 when his father was shot to death. It may sound like a strange plotline, but trust Meltzer, who has written six other acclaimed page-turners as well as comic books and television shows, to produce a great read. The novel is already receiving major buzz and you can get in on the action in a variety of ways: By watching the trailer on Brad Meltzer’s Web site (yes, the book has a movie trailer), listening to the book’s soundtrack (yes, the book has a soundtrack) and by coming to a reading and book signing by the author. 7:30-9 p.m. Free. Barnes & Noble, 16461 Ventura Blvd., Encino. (818) 380-1636. ” target=”_blank”>http://arts.pepperdine.edu.

Sat., Sept. 27
“Skinny Bitch: A Bun in the Oven.” If there is one thing that doesn’t ever get old, it’s mocking our own culture. Authors Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin do just that in their newly released “Skinny Bitch: Bun in the Oven,” a sequel of sorts to their best-selling cookbook “Skinny Bitch.” The book is a guaranteed laugh riot and today’s in-store reading and signing could offer a sassy twist as the two authors show up in the flesh to dish about expecting mothers. And don’t be fooled, just because the subjects of this book are in a more fragile state of mind, Freedman and Barnouin refuse to make any exceptions to their insightful and illuminating critiques. 2 p.m. $14.95 (book price). Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood. (310) 659-3110. ” target=”_blank”>http://www.jamescolemanfineart.com.

Sat., Sept. 27
“Jack’s Third Show.” Long hair, dramatic eye shadow and electric guitars return for an ’80s afternoon. Billed as a benefit for autism education, radio station JACK-FM stages an edgy blend of retro and new wave rockers. Billy Idol joins Blondie, The Psychedelic Furs and Devo for a musical bash that will have you dancing all day long. 2 p.m. $29-$89. Verizon Amphitheater, 8808 Irvine Center Drive, Irvine. (213) 480-3232. ” target=”_blank”>http://www.931jackfm.com.

Sat., Sept. 27
Museum Day. Art and cultural institutions are hoping to attract folks from all walks of life by making them an offer that’s hard to refuse: free admission to museums across Southern California. Sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution, this event gives art lovers and art novices alike the opportunity to visit venues from the Getty Center to the Craft and Folk Art Museum, free of charge. Natural history and science museums, like the California Science Center are also participating in the event. Regular parking fees do apply and advance reservations are recommended for some exhibitions. For a complete list of participating museums, visit ” target=”_blank”>http://www.museumsla.org/news/asp.

Sat., Sept. 27
Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s 40th Season Opening Gala. L.A. Chamber Orchestra’s first musical director, Sir Neville Marriner, will conduct its current director, Jeffrey Kahane, in a piano solo to celebrate its 40th year. A symbolic bridge between the orchestra’s past and its future, expect to hear classical masters Beethoven, Schumann and Stravinsky, followed by dinner, dancing and a live auction for patrons. 6 p.m. $35-$125 (concert only), $750 (full package). The Ambassador Auditorium, 131 S. Saint John Ave., Pasadena. (213) 622-7001, ext. 215. Arts in L.A. Quarterly Calendar: Cultural events through November 2008 Read More »

Women plot revenge against a sexist ’70s boss in ‘9 to 5: The Musical’ (what a way to make a livin’)

Leave a Comment / Entertainment, Music, Theater /

It’s 8:59 a.m. You are half asleep. Traffic couldn’t have been worse. You spilled coffee on your shirt racing for the elevator. You get to your desk only to hear your “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot” of a boss shouting at you that the stapler is broken, you need to pick up a new one and some coffee, too — with sweetener — if it wouldn’t be too much of a bother.

For millions of female (and male) office workers, such a scenario, captured vividly in the 1980 movie “9 to 5” — starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton — is hardly fiction.

Although nearly 30 years have passed since the film’s release, a time when the term “sexual harassment” had barely entered the lexicon, the hassles and harassment of the “9 to 5” life are still all too real.

At least that’s the idea behind the new musical adaptation of the film, which will have its world premiere Sept. 20 at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, before moving on to Broadway.

The new production stars Emmy Award-winning actress Allison Janney (best known as the press secretary in “West Wing”), “Wicked” alums Stephanie J. Block and Megan Hilty as members of the secretarial pool of Consolidated Companies, along with the corrupt Vice President Franklin Hart Jr. (Marc Kudisch).

The story features three women who have had it with obnoxious, chauvinistic bullying from their boss. Office manager Violet Newsted (Janney) not only trained Hart but has constantly been passed over for promotion. Shy recent divorcee Judy Bernly (Block) gets the brunt of Hart’s anger after an incident with a haywire copy machine. And buxom executive secretary Doralee Rhodes (Hilty) has to put up with Hart’s constant sexual advances.

Together, they decide to fight back.

Through a crazy turn of events, luck and smarts, the trio — who are barely acquaintances at the beginning of the show — find a way to expose Hart and turn the department around.

“9 to 5: The Musical” follows in the footsteps of a long line of film-to-stage adaptations, such as “The Producers,” “The Color Purple” and “Hairspray.” Its creative team includes Tony-winning director Joe Mantella (“Wicked”) and Tony-winning choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler (“In the Heights”). Music and lyrics are by original “9 to 5” cast member and multi-Grammy winner Parton, who penned all the songs for the musical, and the book of the musical was adapted by the film’s screenwriter, Patricia Resnick.

On a recent morning just before the show went into previews, Resnick, 55, interrupted her own busy day to meet with a reporter. Hardly a 9-to-5er herself, she had just dropped her daughter off for her first day of high school. After having a cup of green tea from the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf (“its good for losing weight,” she said), the single mother of three would soon head home to work on a new television pilot, then run errands, pick up her son from middle school at 3:30 p.m. and, after all that, head downtown to the Music Center to watch technical rehearsals for the new musical — which would last until midnight.

But Resnick is clearly enjoying the hectic schedule. She smiled when talking about “how fortunate” she is to work with “the nicest group of people. It’s an instant family.”

She said that although she doesn’t live the life of the typical office worker, her own politically conscious background made her a good fit for writing the feminist-activist message of the very funny film.

“I grew up very liberal, very left wing,” she said. Her father was an attorney and her mother a stay-at-home mom. “Some people play tennis with their family — we protested. Civil rights. The Vietnam War. Everything.”

Her involvement with “9 to 5” began in the late 1970s, when she read an article in trade papers that Fonda wanted to create a film that made a political statement about female office workers.

“I saw in Variety that Jane Fonda wanted to work with both Lily [Tomlin] and Dolly [Parton],” Resnick said. “At that point, I’d been working on Robert Altman’s ‘A Wedding,’ and I was doing a PBS teleplay called, ‘Ladies in Waiting.’ I called my agent and asked, ‘Can you find out if there’s a writer yet?'”

Resnick had some connections: Her first writing job was working on Tomlin’s one-woman show, “Appearing Nitely”; she also wrote a few sketches for Parton on a Cher special.

Fonda read some of Resnick’s work and brought her on board. After some discussion, they decided a politically themed movie would play out best as a comedy and took the idea to 20th Century Fox.

The film ended up grossing more than $103 million in the United States and spawning two TV series. (Ironically, the exterior scenes were shot at the Pacific Financial Center on West Sixth Street in downtown Los Angeles — just six blocks from the Ahmanson.)

Resnick said that the idea of turning the film into a musical was under discussion for a while, but a combination of forces, including funding, timing and assembling a creative team, kept it from coming together sooner.

The break came in 2003, when she met with Showtime Networks Entertainment President Bob Greenblatt about a television project. Resnick said that Greenblatt mentioned he was a huge fan of the film and wanted to mount a musical.

Getting Parton to write the music was essential, since her iconic title song, “9 to 5,” reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and country charts in 1981 and has charted as recently as 2004, reaching 78 on American Film Institute’s “100 Years… 100 Songs.” According to Resnick, who said she loved working with Parton, the new role of lyricist fit the actress-singer well.

“Dolly did the most amazing job. She’s an incredible songwriter — who doesn’t get the recognition she deserves,” Resnick said. “She never had done any Broadway. The songs are so good and perfect for each character. They really stay in your head.”

Among the show’s songs is “Backwoods Barbie,” taken from Parton’s album of the same name. In the musical, it becomes a backstory song for Doralee: “I’m just a backwoods Barbie, too much makeup, too much hair. Don’t be fooled by thinkin’ that the goods are not all there. Don’t let these false eyelashes lead you to believe that I’m as shallow as I look, ’cause I run true and deep.”

“It’s been a lifelong dream of mine to write a musical, and now I have the chance to not only make Doralee sing, but to bring all of Patricia’s wonderful characters to life on stage through music,” Parton said in the show’s press materials. She was not available for comment for this article.

Once Parton became involved, things began to fall into place.

The creative team decided not to change the setting — 1979, before the days of cell phones, Starbucks and the Internet.

“Bob and I talked about whether we should update it or not,” Resnick said. “There were such strong reasons to keep it in the original time. The whole harassment thing … not that it doesn’t go on now … is not as blatant as it was then.”

Resnick also collaborated with Parton on which parts of the movie should become songs.

“All the fantasies are production numbers,” Resnick said, referring to where each of the female leads daydreams about how they would “kill” Hart if they had the chance. In the film, Violet uses poison, Judy is a bounty hunter and Doralee ropes him like a steer. But the fantasies had to be tweaked, Resnick said, along with other scenes that worked well on screen but not on stage.

“At one rehearsal, something wasn’t working so they restaged, and I had to write some new lines,” she said. “The next day, they restaged again, and the lines were cut.”

Resnick’s other credits include such films as “Maxie” (starring Glenn Close) and “Straight Talk” (starring Parton). She acknowledged that she hasn’t previously had much experience in theater.

Working on “9 to 5: The Musical” was fun, she said, and it has changed the way she views the film version: “Now when I watch the movie, I hear song cues.”

She also said that working on the musical helped save her life, because she’s used it as a motivation to lose some weight. In what she calls “95 by ‘9 to 5,'” she hopes to lose 95 pounds by the show’s opening night. Through a combination of working with a trainer, running stairs at the theater and ordering food through Nutrifit, she said she is now within just 10 pounds of her goal.

In addition, the stage adaptation has given Resnick a chance to enhance the film’s story, including a love interest for Violet and expanding the backgrounds of some of the minor characters from the film.

“It seems that in a musical you would get to know people less — I actually think you get to know them more,” she noted.

Resnick, who grew up in Miami Beach, said her family always spent a lot of time at movies and the theater, and she loved writing from an early age. She describes her parents as “culinary Jews,” who went to temple twice a year.

“The rest of my family was in New York,” she said. “My parents’ friends were all Jewish. We all got together for the holidays, because no one really had family.”

Although her own children haven’t attended Hebrew school in a long time, Resnick said they absolutely identify as Jewish. Her three kids have sat in on rehearsals, she said, and are great fans of the new show. Between now and the planned Broadway opening in March, Resnick will be home in Los Angeles working in television again. Her next project is a computer-animated adaptation of “Olivia,” the Ian Falconer children’s book series about an adventurous pig, which is expected to air on Nickelodeon at the end of this year.

Despite the nearly three decades that have passed since the original film came out, Resnick sees much that relates to today’s workplace in the show’s story.

“Unfortunately, ‘9 to 5’ is very relevant. In the Fortune 500 there are eight female CEOs — and we’re 51 percent of the population,” she noted. “What I would love to happen is in 30 years for someone to say, ‘Lets revive it.’ And for someone else to say, ‘No one will relate to it.'”

“9 to 5: The Musical” opens Sept. 20 and runs at the Ahmanson Theatre through Oct. 19. For more information, visit ” target=”_blank”>http://www.centertheatregroup.org.

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