Theatre Bay Area Announces 2018 Glickman Award

Theatre Bay Area is pleased to announce playwright Ofra Daniel and the Jewish Circle Theatre have been selected as the recipients of this year's prestigious Will Glickman Award for Love Sick. The play's world premiere, produced by Jewish Circle Theatre in association with John Gertz Productions, ran at the Osher Studio in Berkeley from January 12 through February 12, 2017, and then at Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts February 23 to March 19, 2017. This is the first Will Glickman Award for both Ofra Daniel and Jewish Circle Theatre.

Inspired by the ancient erotic poems within the Old Testament known as The Song of Songs, Love Sick centers on a young wife in a passionless marriage who discovers she has an unseen admirer. Intrigued, she enters into a mysterious and fervent love affair, finding her herself on a journey of awakening.

Named after playwright Will Glickman (1910-83), the Glickman Award is chosen by a panel of top Bay Area theatre critics and is presented to both the playwright and the producing company. Administered by Theatre Bay Area since 2004, TBA Executive Director will present the Award at the 2018 Annual Conference on April 30 at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley. "I am thrilled to present this year's Glickman Award to Ofra Daniel and Jewish Circle Theatre," says Erickson. "To have the Glickman go to an artist and company that have been in the Bay Area for less than a decade is a real testament to the wealth of talent in our theatre community."

ABOUT THE Will Glickman AWARD

Established in 1984, The Will Glickman Award is presented annually to the author and producing company in honor of the best new play to premiere in the region; Theatre Bay Area has administered the award since 2004. The awardee is chosen by a panel of leading Bay Area critics. This year, the winner was selected by Bay Area theater critics Karen D'Souza (San Jose Mercury News), Sam Hurwitt (Bay Area News Group and Marin Independent Journal), Lily Janiak (San Francisco Chronicle), , and Jean Schiffman (San Francisco Examiner).

ABOUT OFRA DANIEL

Ofra Daniel moved to the United States with her family nine years ago from her native Israel. Almost immediately upon arriving in the U.S., Daniel founded Jewish Circle Theatre (JCT), a nonprofit theatre company dedicated to building bridges between Israeli/Jewish cultures and other cultures of the world. Daniel serves both as the artistic director and executive director of JCT, producing plays by modern Israeli playwrights as well as her own works: Edges, Kassit in Tel-Aviv, What If?, and Secrets Behind Closed Doors. Originally trained in acting at Tel-Aviv University, Daniel is an immersive creative artist, writing original plays, composing music and lyrics, directing, acting, and teaching.

ABOUT JEWISH CIRCLE THEATRE

The mission of Jewish Circle Theatre is to appreciate the diversity of the Jewish people and to celebrate the richness of Jewish learning and heritage through entertaining and thought-provoking stage performances. JCT's overarching goal is to foster greater awareness and understanding of Jewish-American and Israeli culture. Since 2009, Jewish Circle Theatre has presented new plays, new stagecraft, and new talent to the Bay Area. JCT has introduced a rich variety of productions and theatre-related discussion and education, including original plays, children's theatre, playback theatre, English language adaptations of Israeli plays, as well as "Bama Ivrit," community acting classes in the Silicon Valley and in the East Bay. Today, Jewish Circle Theatre comprises a troupe of approximately 30 professional and community actors, musicians and choreographers, who have found a common medium and realized their common artistic aspirations working together.

ABOUT THEATRE BAY AREA

Theatre Bay Area is one of the largest regional performing arts service organizations in North America. Our members-some 300 theatre companies and 2,000 individual artists-produce thousands of performances and engage more than a million arts patrons each year. The Bay Area houses the third largest community of Actors' Equity (union) actors and boasts more theatre companies per capita than any other metropolitan area in the U.S.

Theatre Bay Area is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization whose mission is to unite, strengthen, promote and advance the theatre community in the San Francisco Bay Area, working on behalf of our conviction that the performing arts are an essential public good, critical to a healthy and truly democratic society, and invaluable as a source of personal enrichment and growth. Visit theatrebayarea.org for more information.

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