Producer of ‘Golda’s Balcony’ is proud Zionist
By ALAN SMASON, Exclusive to the CCJN
Producer David Fishelson is not a household name to most theater lovers, but he holds the record for producing the longest-running one-woman show ever to run on the Great White Way, “Golda’s Balcony.” Originally scheduled to have its regional premiere opening at Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carré tonight, a last minute decision to cancel the first two performances due to the illness of star Claire Moncreif in the role of Israel Prime Minister Golda Meier means that Sunday will be the new opening date.
The Sunday afternoon January 26 performance will be a benefit for the Jewish Endowment Foundation of Louisiana. It will begin at 3:00 p.m at the theater located at 616 St. Peter Street. A limited number of tickets, each costing $40.00, will be available at the door.
Patrons originally scheduled to see Moncreif tonight and tomorrow night in what should be a tour de force performance will be rescheduled to later performances, according to a press release from the theater’s public relations company.
Following the Sunday performance, Fishelson will participate in a Skype interview and will answer questions from audience members. As the producer of “Golda’s Balcony,” the award-winning play that starred Tovah Feldshuh and, later, non-Jewish star Valerie Harper in its road production, Fishelson has enjoyed a string of critical and artistic triumphs. But just as important to him as the fame and reward that producing successful stage productions brings is the significance of bringing to the stage a work that articulately defends Israel’s reasons for existence.
“This play is a love letter to Israel,” he said, “because it is written from Golda’s point of view.” Even noted author and commentator Elie Wiesel was moved to tears when he saw the original William Gibson play on Broadway, a fact that Fishelson is happy to relate.
Claire Moncreif will star as Golda Meir, the only woman to ever hold the post of Israel prime minister. (Photo by Frank Aymami)
“Unashamedly and with great art it tells the story of the Jewish people in a way that you can be proud of Israel,” he continued. “I didn’t write it and I didn’t direct it. I pulled a team together and I gave them support on the sidelines. That’s been my job. I’ve been the shepherd on this project.”
Fishelson doesn’t know why someone who could best be described as a secular Jew has now become a confirmed Zionist. “I am not a practicing Jew,” he stated, “but I’ll be the first one to stand up when the stormtroopers come into the room ask who is the Jew. I’m an admirer of it (Judaism), but I am not a practitioner of it.”
The journey to his present day position and feelings began as a young boy in Wooster, Ohio, not far away from Cleveland, a place he grew to frequent and admire for its arts scene. Yet, it was his father, Joe Fishelson, a renaissance man who was both a manufacturer of fire-fighting equipment and a university professor, who gave him his first taste of Zionist fervor.
“My dad spent a year teaching at Hebrew University,” he explained. “In seventh grade I was 12 going on 13 and we lived in Jerusalem. It was the years between 1967 and 1973 and it was a time of great euphoria. It was a great time to be in Israel.”
Fishelson found the overall experience moving. “As a young boy, to be in this beautiful and great country was a wonderful experience. It planted a seed of a lifelong devotion to Israel in my psyche. When I had an opportunity to produce this Zionist show, this was the realization of wanting to give something back,” he explained.
Yet, to be in theatre was not something Fishelson had planned. As a film student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, he immersed himself in the study of cinema, oftentimes seeing two or more films a day. “Film was my thing,” he said. “My trajectory is from a love of motion pictures.”
He credits his attempts at screenwriting towards spiriting his entry into the theatre scene. The pivotal project was “City News,” an independent film he wrote and directed that was broadcast over PBS’s “American Playhouse.
“I guess you could sum me up as a guy who wanted to work in film, but wound up finding his niche by working in theatre,” he said.
(Portions of the above are printed courtesy of the Cleveland Jewish News)
