SEGAL TALKS with Shane Baker, Allen Lewis Rickman, and Yelena Shmulenson

The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center presented SEGAL TALKS with Shane Baker, Allen Lewis Rickman, and Yelena Shmulenson livestreaming on the global, commons-based, peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Wednesday 26 May 2021 at 9 a.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC -7) / 11 a.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC -5) / 12 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4).

Shane Baker is the best-loved Episcopalian on the Yiddish stage today. He has starred internationally as Vladimir in his own Yiddish translation of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, of which the NEW YORKER said the play “may finally have found its mother tongue.” Shane serves as director of the Congress for Jewish Culture, a Yiddishist organization based in New York, spearheading the Pandemic International Yiddish Theater Project over the course of the past year, with critically acclaimed virtual productions of Sh. Ansky’s Der Dybbuk and Itzik Manger’s Megillah Cycle. He has also worked extensively with the Ridiculous Theatrical Company.

Allen Lewis Rickman
As director/translator/writer: The Yiddish Pirates of Penzance (Folksbiene), Tevye Served Raw (Off-Broadway), Kvetches of 1932 (international tour), Money, Love, and Shame! (Target Margin), The Essence: A Yiddish Theatre Dim Sum (State Jewish Theater of Romania), Christmas at Small’s Empire (regional), Dancing on Nails (Off-Broadway), Off the Hook (produced across Europe), The Dybbuk (online), the Kino-Lorber Blu-Ray set “The Jewish Soul”. As an actor: Relatively Speaking (Broadway), Boardwalk Empire (recurring), the Coen brothers’ A Serious Man, Waiting for Godot (both English and Yiddish), Barry Levinson’s You Don’t Know Jack, Mack & Mabel (Encores!), etc.

Yelena Shmulenson is perhaps best known for killing a dybbuk in the Coen brothers’ Oscar-nominated film A Serious Man. TV: Orange Is the New Black (recurring), Boardwalk Empire, Chicago Med, Madam Secretary, Blue Bloods. FILM: The Good Shepherd, Romeo & Juliet in Yiddish, Chinese Puzzle (w/ Audrey Tautou). STAGE: five seasons with the Yiddish theater, two seasons at Ellis Island, “The Golem of Havana” (NY/Miami), “The Essence: A Yiddish Theater Dim Sum” (NY/Stockholm/Bucharest), “Covers”, “Tevye Served Raw” (NY), etc. She is also a Russian/Yiddish coach/translator for numerous projects, has won three Earphones Awards for her recorded books (in English), and is fluent in five languages.

About SEGAL TALKS:
The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center is proud to announce the new line-up of its new global series, SEGAL TALKS. Since the beginning of March the series featured close to 100 talks with 150 artists from 50 countries. New York, US, and international theatre artists, curators, researchers, and academics will talk daily during the week for one hour with Segal Center’s director, Frank Hentschker, about life and art in the Time of Corona and speak about challenges, sorrows, and hopes for the new Weltzustand— the State of the World. After a break in August the series will now also focus on Theatre, Performance and The Political, highlighting the Segal Center's 2022 New York International Festival of the Arts Project and the Center's Public Park Project. The Segal Center is the only theatre institution in NYC and the US creating new, original, daily content for the global field of theater and performance. The series was conceived, created and curated by Frank Hentschker in March 2020.

SEGAL TALKS are free, open access, without ads will be live-streamed in English from Monday to Friday on HowlRound Theatre Commons and on the Segal Center Facebook. This program is presented in collaboration with HowlRound Theatre Commons, based at Emerson College. All SEGAL TALKS are archived on HowlRound, and on the Segal Center YouTube Channel.

The work of the Segal Center has been supported in the past by Susan and Jack Rudin(†), the Hearst Foundation and currently by, Marvin Carlson, Sidney E. Cohn Chair, The Graduate Center CUNY.

Segal Team:
Executive Director: Frank Hentschker
Next Generation Fellow: Andie Lerner

About HowlRound TV
HowlRound TV is a global, commons-based peer produced, open access livestreaming and video archive project stewarded by the nonprofit HowlRound. HowlRound TV is a free and shared resource for live conversations and performances relevant to the world's performing arts and cultural fields. Its mission is to break geographic isolation, promote resource sharing, and to develop our knowledge commons collectively. Participate in a community of peer organizations revolutionizing the flow of information, knowledge, and access in our field by becoming a producer and co-producing with us. Learn more by going to our participate page. For any other queries, email [email protected], or call Vijay Mathew at +1 917.686.3185 Signal/WhatsApp. View the video archive of past events.