Irene Backalenick is our correspondent and Theatre critic on Broadway and off-Broadway Jewish Theatre & performing arts.

Theatre critic Irene Backalenick covers theatre for national and regional publications. She has a Ph.D.in theatre criticism from City University Graduate Center. Her book East Side Story--Ten Years with the Jewish Repertory Theatre (based on her doctoral thesis) won a first-place national book award in history. Other awards in journalism and theatre criticism include a New York Times Publishers Award (received while writing for The New York Times). Her professional organizations include the American Theatre Critics Association, Association for Jewish Theatre, Outer Critics Circle (on the executive board), Drama Desk, Actors Equity Derwent Committee, and the Connecticut Critics Circle.

Website: www.nytheaterscene.com
Email Address: Ireneback@sbcglobal.net

Miri Ben-Shalom writes follow-up reviews and conducts special "Behind the Scenes Interviews" with actors, directors, playwrights and producers in latest New York Jewish theatre productions.

Miri Ben-Shalom was born in Israel and studied theatre at Tel Aviv University and moved to New York in 1973. Miri has been a documentary filmmaker and editor for more than twenty five years. She worked for major TV networks, as well as many independent productions. She co-produced and edited the documentary Preserving the Past to Ensure the Future that was nominated for an Academy Award. For other works she is a Telly Awards recipient, a US International Film and Video Festival winner and received a 1998 National Headliners Award. She also wrote several feature length screenplays.

In the last few years Miri returned to her original interest – theater. She was the Literary Liaison of The Genesius Theatre Guild. Her documentary play I Can Cry has been produced in New York, London, Leeds, Edinburgh and Romania. Through her non-profit organization From Home to Homeland, Inc., she is working on producing this play for the stage, as well as a touring educational version for high school and college students all over the world, to enhance the teaching of the WWII Holocaust curriculum.

Website: http://www.icancry.org
Email Address: mirib@earthlink.net

Debra Cash has been a Scholar in Residence at Jacob's Pillow, covered dance for the Boston Globe and written about dance, puppetry, arts policy and cyberarts for NPR's award-winning WBUR Online Arts website. She consults to arts organizations and teaches dance history at Emerson College.

Email Address: debracash@igc.org

David Y. Chack was recently honored by being chosen as one of the semi-finalists of the The Charles R. Bronfman Visiting Chair in Jewish Communal Innovation at Brandeis University. Chack is a graduate of NYU/TSOA and did graduate work at Tufts University with Laurence Senelick and at Boston University with Elie Wiesel. He is consulting on a number of projects that take him between Chicago, Louisville, New York, Boston, and Israel. He has worked with JCC's, Hillel Foundations in Boston and Virginia, Virginia Humanities Foundation, Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, Louisville Orchestra, Hillels Around Chicago, Jewish Theatre Ensemble at Northwestern University, and the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School of Hebrew University. He is on the boards of All About Jewish Theatre, the Association for Jewish Theatre (AJT), The International Institute of Jewish & Israeli Culture, and is an alumnus of the Mandel Teacher Educators Institute in Israel. He is currently writing about Jews in performing arts in America and creating multi-cultural theatre through parables and midrash.

Website: http://www.historybox.com/throughline/index1.htm
Email Address: chack@iglou.com

Dr. Henrik Eger, tenured professor of English and Communication at DCCC in Media, PA. Born and raised in Germany, studied in Europe and the US. Ph.D. in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago (1991). Nobel Peace Prize mail translator for Martin Luther King, Jr.; editor of Who's Afraid of Noam Chomsky?. Conducted drama writing workshops for Indian writers and published WriteWrite Rewrite: Surrealistic Stories and Sketches, Dramas, and Dialogues, incl. introductory essay “Can One Learn Creative Writing?” Contributed six entries to Literary Exile in the Twentieth Century: An Analysis and Biographical Dictionary (Greenwood Press), incl. those on Stefan Zweig and Else Lasker-Schüler. Wrote and narrated the first video about AAJT: The World’s Largest Secular Synagogue and Open University (available on Google).

Produced and directed the multilingual "International Shakespeare" performance at the City Literary Institute in London; served as one of ten judges for the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia’s Barrymore Award Program; conceptualized and co-authored the Handbook for Barrymore Nominators and Judges. Member of the Board of Directors for the Media Theatre and Theatre Ariel, the Jewish Theatre of Philadelphia. Wrote Metronome Ticking, a docudrama based on the uncensored letters of his father, a young German WWII Correspondent and Propaganda Officer in occupied France, and the haunting memoirs of the wife of a Holocaust survivor (Dachau and Buchenwald). Eger’s latest play, Mendelssohn Does Not Live Here Anymore, is based on historical documents from Felix Mendelssohn's time and from original Third Reich sources.

Website: http://www.henrikeger.com
Email Address: Eger@aol.com

Ben Ami Feingold, Professor Emeritus, Tel Aviv University. Lecturer and researcher across diverse fields of general Hebrew drama. Published books and articles dealing with different issues, including Hebrew drama in Italy during the Enlightenment, the Hebrew-Biblical play, the historical play, Israeli drama (before independence and afterwards), Holocaust in theatre and drama, the War of Independence as it was dramatized and performed in the Israeli theatre and more. Feingold is also a theatre critic and has published articles and books dealing with drama instruction.

Our correspondent and theatre critic on London Jewish theatre.

Judi Herman is a freelance writer, broadcaster and producer, working mainly for BBC Radio World Service and the BBC’s main UK speech network, [Radio 4]. She specialises in making radio features on arts and entertainment, religion, education, travel and human-interest stories. Among programmes to which she contributes regularly are the World Service Arts and Entertainment Magazine The Ticket, the World Service Heart and Soul Series and Radio Four’s flagship magazine programme Woman’s Hour. She also writes regular theatre reviews for the influential UK theatre website Whatsonstage.com and is a guest performing arts lecturer at Middlesex University. Judi has written several stage shows, including How the West End Was Won, a show celebrating Jewish life in the West End of London, commissioned to accompany the London Jewish Museum's exhibition Living Up West; and Stones of Kolin, a play with music, charting six hundred years of Jewish life in a small Czech town, performed in both London and Kolin in the Czech Republic. She’s also worked in Public Relations, including theatre PR.

Email Address: judi_herman@hotmail.com

Lifelong movie buff Jan Lisa Huttner is the managing editor of FILMS FOR TWO: The Online Guide for Busy Couples (www.films42.com), a website devoted to promoting films of interest to both male and female audience members. Jan is a passionate voice for women and the author of numerous interviews with Jewish-American filmmakers. Jan is the film critic for the World Jewish Digest, and also writes a regular film column for the bimonthly newspaper Chicago Woman. Her film-related articles have been published in the Forward and the JUF News, and posted on various websites including Critic Doctor, DVDWolf, Picklebird, Really Good Films, Reel Chicago and Women's eNews. Jan received her B.A. from St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, and Masters degrees in Psychology from Harvard University and the University of Chicago. Jan is a member of various organizations including the Chicago YIVO Society, the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies, and Hadassah’s AGAM chapter.

Website: www.films42.com
Email Address: Films42@msn.com

Jacobo Kaufmann, stage-director, writer, translator, lecturer and researcher, was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He lives in Israel since 1972. An actor since age 9, and a theatre director since age 18, he graduated with honors from the “Instituto Superior de Arte del Teatro Colón” in the fields of stage-direction of operas, set and costume design, and theatre administration. Jacobo Kaufmann successfully stages operas, musical and straight theatre, multimedia, radio and TV programs throughout the world, with internationally well-known artists. He has received important prizes, frequently participates in congresses, and is often asked to join the juries of prestigious international competitions. Parallel to these activities, and since a very early age, he works as a lecturer and a journalist. Among his plays, mostly written in Spanish, three deal with Jewish matters: “Carvajal.El testamento de Joseph Lumbroso” (Carvajal. The testament of Joseph Lumbroso), a drama about Jews under the Mexican Inquisition, “Se acabó la joda” (The fun is over), a dramatic collage on the history and life of the Jews in Argentina, and “Historia de pájaros” (Fowl Play), inspired on a story by Bernard Malamud. Other plays worth mentioning are “El viaje de Lucifer” (Lucipher´s Journey), “Banquete Feroz” (Ferocious Banquet) and “Fábula de un hombre y la gente” (Fable of a man and other people). Jacobo Kaufmann has written two books on composer Jacques Offenbach: “Isaak Offenbach und sein Sohn Jacques” (Isaac Offenbach and his son Jacques), in German, and “Jacques Offenbach en España, Italia y Portugal” (Jacques Offenbach in Spain, Italy and Portugal), in Spanish. He has also published “Synagogue Melodies” by Isaac and Jacques Offenbach. He has translated into Spanish all of the plays by Antonio José da Silva (O Judeu), the most important Portuguese 18th. Century playwright murdered by the Inquisition, and “The Dybbuk” by Shlomo An-Ski, as well as numerous plays and operas into several other languages, including Hebrew.

Website: www.jacobokaufmann.com
Email Address: vn18548@netvision.net.il

Special projects correspondent.

Judy Kupferman is a leading Israeli lighting designer who has worked in hundreds of productions in theatre, dance, son-et-lumière shows and more. She is on the faculty of the Theatre Departments at Tel Aviv and Haifa Universities. Years of working with light led to insatiable curiosity about physics and she has recently completed a BSc. in Physics at Tel Aviv University.

Email Address: kupfer@post.tau.ac.il

Michael Kustow is a writer, producer and cultural activist. He has been associate director variously of the National Theatre and the RSC, and director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts. After wide-ranging theatre experience in France and the USA, he became the first arts commissioning editor of Channel 4 in 1982. Since 1990 he has combined producing with writing. His latest book is biography of Peter Brook (Bloomsbury) available in paperback March 2006. Forthcoming are an autobiographical book, and the text for a book of photographs of actors in their dressing-rooms before going on stage.

Website: http://www.bloomsbury.com/michaelkustow/ Email Address: mkustow@globalnet.co.uk

Special articles from a playwright's point of view.

Israeli playwright, author and director Joshua Sobol has written more than fifty plays. Some of his plays have been translated into many languages, and performed worldwide. His play Ghetto has been performed in leading theatres throughout the world and won many awards, including The Evening Standard and The London Critics Theatre Award for Best Play of the Year. It also won three Best Play Awards in Japan. In Israel Sobol received the David's Harp Award for "Playwright of the Year" five times. Sobol directed productions in Israel, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the US. He has been teaching and conducting drama workshops at the universities of Tel Aviv and Beer Sheva in Israel, and at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. His first novel Silnece appeared in Israel in 2000, in Germany in 2001 and in Holland in 2002. His second novel Whisky Is Fine appeared in Israel and in Germany in 2005.

Website: http://www.alma-mahler.at/engl/sobol/sobol.html Email Address: josobol@netvision.net.il

Correspondent and theatre critic in Washington DC.

Lisa Traiger has been writing about theatre and dance since 1985. Currently she contributes a weekly dance column to The Washington Post Weekend section. Her pieces on the cultural and performing arts appear regularly in the Washington Jewish Week and DanceViewTimes.com. She has also written for Moment magazine, Stagebill, Sondheim Review, Asian Week, the Boston Jewish Advocate, the Atlanta Jewish Times, Intermission and the Washington Review. A recipient of two Simon Rockower Awards for Excellence in Arts Criticism from the American Jewish Press Association. She recently earned an M.F.A. in choreography from the University of Maryland, College Park. In 2003, Traiger was a New York Times Fellow in the Institute for Dance Criticism at the American Dance Festival, Durham, N.C.

Email Address: lisatraiger@aol.com

Chloe Veltman was born in London in 1974. She received her bachelor’s degree from King’s College, Cambridge and her master’s degree from The Central School of Speech and Drama in London in conjunction with Harvard University and The Moscow Art Theatre School. She has worked as both a staff reporter for The Daily Telegraph and as a freelance writer, her articles appearing on both sides of the Atlantic in such publications as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Believer and American Theatre Magazine. She is the chief theatre critic of SF Weekly and serves on the Glickman Theatre Award Panel. Chloe is a recipient of the Allen Wright Award for Arts Journalism and the Sundance Institute Arts Writing Fellowship. Her first book, On Acting, was published by Faber & Faber in the UK and Faber Inc in the US.

Website: http://www.chloeveltman.com/books/books_home.html
Email Address: chloe@chloeveltman.com

Ala Zuskin-Perelman, the daughter of Benjamin Zuskin and Eda Berkovsky, both actors in the Moscow State Jewish Theater, was born in Moscow. There, she became engineer (MSc) and translator / information expert (MA), and raised her family. Zuskin-Perelman immigrated to Israel in 1975 with her husband Yuri Perelman and their two sons. For two decades she ran the Information Center at the Standards Institution of Israel. She works to memorialize her father: by giving speeches, being interviewed, publishing articles, and assisting The Tel Aviv Diaspora Museum, The Jerusalem Cinematheque, Israeli community television producers, and The New York Jewish Museum. Zuskin-Perelman's book, The Travels of Benjamin Zuskin, has been published in Russian, 2002, and in Hebrew, 2006. She is now preparing the English version.

Email Address: ala@bezeqint.net