13

I bopped over to the JewSchool blog just now to catch up on the last week or so's posts and didn't make it past the first post. JewSchool correspondents Feygele and Dlevy wrote a fantastic post about 13, a new Broadway musical. I wasn't aware of 13, so I'll let Dlevy explain...

"Thursday night, feygele and I saw 13, a Broadway musical with songs by Jason Robert Brown, book by Dan Elish and Jason Robert Brown. The show tells the story of Evan Goldman, a 12-year-old kid from the Upper West Side of New York whose parents get divorced on the cusp of his Bar Mitzvah. His mom moves him to Indiana where he must make new friends in time to have anyone at his Bar Mitzvah party, while trying to figure out what exactly it means to become a man."

Unfortunately, Feygele and Dlevy note that "The handling of Jewish culture was a huge sticking point for me - the bar mitzvah was only referred to as a party" and "Judaism is there, at least superficially." Ah well. I didn't expect any different. Too bad.

What made the post wonderful was not only the acumen of and love for Broadway that comes through in the post, but some sensitive reminiscence on the author's personal histories that were invoked by the show. Oh, and they name checked Falsettos another Broadway musical with a central Jewish theme that I wasn't aware of. I'll have to hunt it down.

13 Music Video