theatre dybbuk specializes in creating theatrical experiences that are deeply researched and infused with scholarship. Our Illuminated Lectures feature topics from a wide variety of cultural perspectives and historical entry points and enhance the traditional lecture experience by incorporating elements of performance throughout. For each presentation, we partner with an expert on the subject at hand and weave in dramatic readings connected to the concepts being discussed. Further elevated by live music, the result is an engaging experience which allows for a deeper understanding of the scholarly material.
These events, whether connected overtly to Jewish subjects or to other topics, are guided by the idea that study is central to Jewish thought. Jewish communities have a millennia-spanning history of discussing, unpacking, and debating texts; learning together creates a connection not only to the ideas being explored, but also to each other.
We’ve presented Illuminated Lectures in partnership with variety of organizations focused on arts, culture, or higher learning such as the Lipinsky Family San Diego Jewish Arts Festival (JFEST), the Skirball Cultural Center, Portland State University’s Shakespeare’s First Folio: 1623–2023 festival, The Philosophical Research Society, First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, Diversifying the Classics at UCLA, UC Irvine’s New Swan Shakespeare Center, and the Center for Ideas and Society at the University of California, Riverside.
UPCOMING ILLUMINATED LECTURE
Queen Esther: A Heretical Play from Early Modern Spain
In this Illuminated Lecture, UMass Professor Harley Erdman, with the support of five student actors, shares his research on a play from 1613 that landed its playwright, Felipe Godínez, in jail for heresy. What made the play so dangerous to the Inquisition? Erdman delves into the playwright’s crypto-Jewish background and shows how some extraordinary choices in the play might have held a hidden meaning for audience members who were of Jewish heritage but forbidden from practicing their religion or expressing their culture in public. Join us for an entertaining and memorable take on an academic lecture, on a fascinating subject.
This free event is a co-production of UMass Theater and theatre dybbuk and is made possible in part by Comparative Literature, the Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies, and Spanish & Portuguese Studies at UMass.
