B'Mitzvah Showcase
13 at CMT, Falsettos at The Pear, and our own version
Last weekend, we celebrated the Bat Mitzvah of our daughter. Here’s how she ended her speech:
As most of you know, I love theater and can usually be found either rehearsing for a show, performing in a show, or going to see as many shows as I can. Just last weekend I had the opportunity to see two musicals that featured Bar Mitzvahs as part of their plots – 13 the Musical and Falsettos. It was great to see the representation of this important milestone up on the stage – even if I had to pick apart some of the specifics of how they chose to stage them…and I’m definitely glad my Bat Mitzvah didn’t involve the same level of drama!
To paraphrase the closing words of the main character of 13 at the end of the show after his bar mitzvah…. My name is Miriam Shem-Tov….. I’m 13 years old. Adnd I’m just getting started.I was amazed at the timing that the only two shows that I can think of that feature a Bar Mitzvah were both playing nearby and that we were going to be able to see both as a warmup to our own celebrations (and to be able to squeeze them in between our other show commitments was pretty lucky!)
13 the Musical was a Rising Stars (ages 10-14) production at CMT in San Jose (July 14-23). We had seen a middle school production of the show right before the pandemic closures (it was one of the last shows we saw before things shut down, and they were experimenting with spacing out seats, etc.). We had of course seen the new Netflix version as well. The songs are definitely staples on our playlist - and of course we’ve been singing lines from the title song as my daughter got closer to “just about to turn 13!” We saw the OMG cast, and our friend Saidee did a spectacular job as Patrice, Brannan rocked the role of Molly, and it was great seeing Jillian shine in the ensemble.
The next day, we saw Falsettos at The Pear Theater in Mountain View, meeting up with a bunch of theater friends there. The production featured an alley stage with the audience on two sides (which I found a little strange to be staring across the stage at other audience members). The cast featured Angie Alvarez (as Charlotte), Kyle Herrera (Mendel), Leah Kennedy (Cordelia), Russell Nakagawa (Jason), Brad Satterwhite (Whizzer), Tyler Savin (Marvin) and Jen Wheatonfox (Trina). We had seen Tyler Savin in Pintello Comedy Theater’s Little Shop of Horrors and WVLO’s Something Rotten. He was also in SVCT’s Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike in 2017 (which we didn’t see, but also featured many familiar faces such as Roberta Vinkhuyzen - recently in Limelight’s Later Life, and Denee Lewis - the lead in Limelight’s Becky’s New Car — as well as Scott Lynch and Adrianne Wilkinson.) We had seen Russell Nakagawa in Silicon Valley Shakespeare’s 48-hour Play Festival in April, where he was excellent as “Puck” in a Cave Man-time-period-set Midsummer Night’s Dream directed by Allie Bailey.
And, then, the following weekend we had our own Bat Mitzvah experience, so here are a few photos from that to round this out!
