A JEW GROWS IN BROOKLYN Returns to Gindi Auditorium at American Jewish University in February

"A Jew Grows in Brooklyn," starring Jake Ehrenreich, returns to Gindi Auditorium at American Jewish University for a strictly limited 15 performance engagement February 7 to 25.  The show played to sold out houses last February and is returning to Los Angeles by popular demand. Ehrenreich has given more than 2,000 performances of the show – including eighteen months off-Broadway.
 
Along the way, Ehrenreich, backed by a live band and multi-media production, performs everything from a classic rock medley (California Dreamin', Secret Agent Man, Sunshine of Your Life), to bits from the Catskills highlighted by a multi-instrumental version of Louis Prima's Sing, Sing, Sing, a selection of Yiddish popular songs (Rumania, Oyfn Pripichik), and even a Christmas medley of songs by Jewish songwriters (The Christmas Song, White Christmas, Let It Snow) - the popular music of both his and his parents' generations.

Ehrenreich, 55, has appeared on Broadway in "Dancin", "Barnum" and "They're Playing Our Song." He starred for Joseph Papp at The Public Theater in the title role "Jonah", and performed Yiddish music in two Off-Broadway productions, "Songs of Paradise" and "The Golden Land". He toured internationally as Ringo in "Beatlemania", and performed with such diverse artists as Richie Havens, Greg Allman, Tito Puente, and many others.
 
Ehrenreich spent his childhood doing everything he could to distance himself from his roots and be an all-American kid, immersing himself in his interests and talents – baseball and pop music. As a young musician he searched through drugs for his identity--and then came the heartbreak of his mother and sister's early Alzheimer's disease--before finally developing into a real entertainer and family man, who came to claim his cultural heritage for himself. 
 
From the front stoops of Brooklyn to the musical stages of the Catskills and Broadway, in the telling of his own story and observations, the show is described as an entertaining journey of growing up mirrors how Jewish comedy and music – which brought laughter back into the lives of the survivors -- became what is known as American comedy and popular music for the entire nation.  Ehrenreich came to realize that many of his favorite songwriters-even those of his secretly beloved Christmas songs-turned out to be Jewish.
 
His father's Hasidic family had been one of the wealthiest in Poland, but during the war both he and his wife ended up in a work camp in Siberia, where one of their daughters was born. After spending time in a displaced persons camp, the family came to America, where they tried to give their children a life free from the taint of victimhood.But it was not to be. Ehrenreich and his two sisters grew up feeling, as he put it, that existence was "tenuous" and that the "world could end at any moment." The road to creating a life of joy and rebirth is what he came to see as a road we all share, regardless of our circumstances.
 
The extraordinary success of the stage play has led to a full-length book version of "A Jew Grows in Brooklyn."  Published by Health Communications Inc., the company made famous by the best-selling record-setting Chicken Soup for the Soul series of books, Jake has adapted his stage show into an inspirational compilation of engaging, endearing and humorous essays.

Tickets and Info:         www.ajewgrowsinbrooklyn.com