JourneyMen Theatre to Present Ethics and War Reading Series Starting 10/27

The JourneyMen Theatre will present the Ethics and War Reading Series on Monday nights at 7:30pm at Church Street Theater.

What do we consider “ethical behavior” during  a time of war? What is our responsibility as citizens to make sure those standards are upheld by our nation? Is it ethical to stand by and allow our young men and women to risk their lives for a conflict that many don’t believe we should be involved with in the first place?

Theater J, in conjunction with its production of Honey Brown Eyes, and Journeymen Theater Ensemble, in conjunction with its production of As American As, have collaborated to present an inter-faith reading series dealing with issues of Ethics and War at this crucial time in our nation’s history.
 
October 27:
DEPOSITION ON WATER-BOARDING: From the Justice Department’s  Office of Legal Counsel Testimony Before the House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
Directed by Jeffery Sichel

Featuring: Rich Foucheux

A theatrical reading of a text compiled from our government’s examination of the legality of the practice of water-boarding. From the chairman’s opening statements: “Today we consider a matter that goes to the heart of who we are as a Nation.  No one will argue that we live in a dangerous world, that there are people who are organizing to attack our Nation, or that our government must gather reliable intelligence to defend us.  All that is obvious.  What is at issue is the lengths to which some people acting on our behalf have gone, and what the Office of Legal Counsel has advised our government it may and may not legally do.”

November 3:
THE TRIAL OF THE CATONSVILLE NINE
By Daniel Berrigan
Directed by Rahaleh Nassri

Featuring: Jerry Whiddon and John Dow

Daniel Berrigan crafted this dramatic adaptation from an edited transcript of the actual trial of the Reverends Philip Berrigan and himself. They along with their seven confederates, who in 1968 entered a Selective Service office, removed records and burned them in a parking lot to protest the war in Vietnam and the horrors of napalm bombings. After they were convicted and sentenced to prison, Berrigan memorialized the trial in this award-winning play.

 
November 10:

BENEDICTUS: An Iran-Israel-US Collaboration
Created by Mahmood Karimi-Hakak, Motti Lerner, Roberta Levitow, Daniel Michaelson and Torange Yeghiazarian
Directed by Daniella Topol

Featuring: John Dow

With the clock ticking down the final 72 hours before a scheduled US attack on Iran, two estranged childhood friends, one Jewish and one Muslim, agree to a secret meeting in a Benedictine monastery in Rome in an attempt to find an alternative to war.  Benedictus examines the ties that bind, be they family, friendship, or the demands of a nation; which will hold and which will break?

Hailed by The New York Times as "The Premier Theater for Premieres," Theater J has emerged as one of the most distinctive, progressive and respected Jewish theaters on the national and international scene.

Theater J produces thought-provoking, publicly engaged, personal, passionate and entertaining plays and musicals that celebrate the distinctive urban voice and social vision that are part of the Jewish cultural legacy. Acclaimed as one of the nation's premiere playwrights' theaters, Theater J presents cutting edge contemporary work alongside spirited revivals and is a nurturing home for the development and production of new work by major writers and emerging artists exploring many of the pressing moral and political issues of our time.

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