The first script reading we set up on video call during the covid-19 quarantine was Home Economics, a biographical play about my great aunt Mali Spighel who founded AKIM in Jerusalem, an independent-living organization for intellectually-challenged adults. In one part of the play, Aunt Mali’s family is scattered, running away from Nazi Germany. This scene takes a special meaning during this time of “sheltering-in-place” – whether we’re miles away or just in the next block, we’re unable to get together with family.
Unlike Aunt Mali’s time, though, we have video calls on zoom, What’s App, Skype, fb….
Even so, when deaths from the virus began climbing in China, then Italy, and theaters were shutting down in London & nyc to promote social distancing, I found myself calling my daughter several times a day. She lives in the UK.
More take-aways from the script reading:
1. How does the history connect with Mali’s desire that her family remember her son Gabriel when she’s gone?
2. What segues from the present to the past will make the transitions important to the audience?
3. What is the purpose of the interaction between Gabriel and his cousin?
4. What do I want the audience to know when they leave the play?
Kudos to Kim El – playwright | actor | director – for taking the lead with these questions after the reading.
Great THANK YOU’s go to Kim El and Cheryl El-Walker for splitting the roles of Mali Spighel and Ilana, to Jonathan Berry for reading Gabriel, Nik Nemec for reading Cousin, and playwright Faye Miller for reading Stage Manager.
