Name Julia Pascal | Role Playwright | |
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Books The Holocaust Trilogy, The Yiddish Queen Le, Crossing Jerusalem and Other | ||
Dr Julia Pascal - DYSPLA storymaker resident
Julia Pascal is a British playwright and theatre director, she is a Jewish atheist.
Her stage plays include Theresa, based on the true story of a Jewish woman in Guernsey during the German occupation in the Second World War. This is the first in The Holocaust Trilogy. It is followed by A Dead Woman on Holiday, which is set in the Nuremberg Trials, followed by her adaptation of Anski's The Dybbuk. Her next volume contains The Yiddish Queen Lear and Woman In The Moon. The final volume includes Crossing Jerusalem, which is about the conflict in the Middle East, The Golem, a version of the Prague myth of the Golem for young audiences, St Joan a satire based on a Jewish Black Londoner who dreams she is Joan of Arc and Year Zero which reveals World War II stories from Vichy France. In 2007 her adaptation of The Merchant of Venice was staged at the Arcola Theatre and printed as The Shylock Play in 2009. All her plays are published by Oberon Books. Her autobiographical essay Prima Ballerina Assoluta is published in [Virago Press] collection Truth, Dare or Promise. "Political Plays" is her latest published volume from Oberon Books (2013).
She was a NESTA Dreamtime Fellow in 2006 and Writer in Residence at the Wiener Library in 2007 with a Leverhulme Grant. Her archive is held by the University of York where she was Writer in Residence in 2003. Pascal's television drama documentary for the BBC, Charlotte and Jane won BAFTA and Royal Television Society prizes. Her journalism has been published in The Guardian, "The Observer'.The Independent, The Financial Times and The Times.
The Dybbuk premiered in London at the New End Theatre, Hampstead in July 1992, then the Lilian Baylis Theatre. Since 1992 it has played in Munich at the Festival of Jewish Theatre, at Maubeuge's International Theatre Festival, in Poland (British Council tour), Sweden, Belgium and a major British regional tour. The Dybbuk is published by Oberon Books in "The Holocaust Trilogy", three plays by Pascal. The Dybbuk had its US premiere at Theater for the New City in New York City in August 2010. "The Wedding Party" (known as "Bloody Wedding") was premiered at The Ohrid Festival 2012, Macedonia and was performed at The Actor's Centre, London in 2013.
Her play "Nineveh" was produced by Theatre Témoin at Riverside Studios in 2013. "St Joan" will have it Edinburgh Festival debut in August 2014 at The Bedlam Theatre.
Pascal's play "Crossing Jerusalem" became the centre of controversy in early 2016 when the Michael-Ann Russell Jewish Community Center’s Cultural Arts Theatre in North Miami-Dade cut short the play's schedule, bending to members of the Jewish community who found the play to be critical of Israel. The Miami Herald said the incident "has left raw feelings among those who call the cancellation a capitulation to politics and those who say the play was deeply and needlessly hurtful". Pascal protested that “the intent of the play was to show the complexity of Israeli life”, and called the early closure "censorship." The Jewish Daily Forward commented: "The controversy mirrors others faced by American JCCs over media perceived to be critical of Israel, notably in Washington and New York".