aboutashaynamaidel

Olean Community Theatre, Inc.

presents Barbara Lebow's powerful drama of love and hope...

A Shayna Maidel

Directed by Minna Badanes

Produced by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service Inc.

October 29 & 30, 7:30p

October 31, 2:00p

Allegany-Limestone High School Auditorium

A Shayna Maidel literally translates as "a pretty girl." It describes inner beauty and is an expression of love and of yearning hope.

A powerful, haunting and deeply affecting portrait of a family, which conveys the aftermath of the Holocaust through a poignant, imaginatively conceived examination of one divided family's experience.

"...a tribute to the sustaining power of family and to man's indomitability." --NY Times.

"It's an emotional powerhouse of almost overwhelming proportions." --Hartford Journal Inquirer. "

...anyone who sees it will not soon forget it." --Atlanta Constitution.

ABOUT THE STORY

Mordechai Weiss and his youngest daughter, Rose, left Poland in 1930 for the land of opportunity. Physical and financial constraints prevented his wife and oldest daughter from joining them before it was too late. The sisters reunited in 1946; one was a young New York career woman eager to hide her Jewish heritage, the other a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp.

A Shayna Maidel is the haunting story of Holocaust survivors who must confront the past in order to embrace the future. It is a compassionate celebration of the frailty and resilience of the human spirit.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Current OCT President Minna Badanes has been with the group since its inception. She has been involved in all facets of theatre and has presented workshops on stage makeup, theatre games, character development as well as directing.

Among her long list of directing credits are the musical productions of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Forty-Second Street, My Fair Lady, Carousel, Funny Girl, Little Shop of Horrors, Man of La Mancha, Nunsense, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, Cabaret, and Jekyll & Hyde the Musical.

Minna's non-musical directing credits include Crimes of the Heart, Steel Magnolias, Lend Me a Tenor, The Elephant Man, Talley's Folly, and Out of Order.

The Theatre Association of New York State (TANYS) has honored Minna for her directing skills. She is a mother, grandmother, and by day, a teacher at Hinsdale Central School.