David Herskovits is the Founding Artistic Director of Target Margin Theater in New York City. His recent productions for TMT include Gertrude Stein’s Reread Another, Uriel Acosta: I Want That Man! and Peretz Hirschbein’s The (*) Inn, new versions ofUncle Vanya and The Tempest as well as company-created works, Second Language and The Really Big Once. His Target Margin works have won four OBIEs and been presented nationally and internationally. He has also directed plays and operas at Lincoln Center Festival, The Spoleto Festival USA, The Prototype Festival, Theatre for A New Audience, Institut Internationale de la Marionnette in Charleville-Mezieres, France, The Kitchen, Mass MoCA, and many others. David was a 2011 Fellow of The American Academy in Jerusalem and on the 2012 Faculty of the Mellon School of Theater and Performance Research at Harvard; he has taught and lectured as a visitor at many Universities and drama schools, and published essays in The New York Times, American Theatre, Theatre Magazine, and Performing Arts Journal, among others. Currently he is working on a new production of Porgy and Bess for The Spoleto Festival 2016.

 

Amichai Lau-Lavie is the spiritual leader of Lab/Shul and the founding director of Storahtelling, Inc. An Israeli-born Jewish educator, writer, and performer, he was hailed by Time Out New York as “Super Star of David,” an “iconoclastic mystic,” and as “one of the most interesting thinkers in the Jewish world” by the New York Jewish Week. He is currently a rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Amichai was a Jerusalem Fellow at the Mandel Leadership Institute in Israel (2008-2009) and is a consultant to the Reboot Network, a member of the URJ Faculty Team, and a fellow of the new Clergy Leadership Institute. 

 

Ronit Muszkatblit is the co-artistic director of LABA: A Laboratory for Jewish Culture. She was born in Germany and raised in Israel. She is a theater director and the founding member of woken’glaicer theater company and Operatzia as well as a member of posttheater ny/berlin. Ronit curates and directs in various capacities with a focus ion opera, theater and multi disciplinary events. Her most recent directing credits include all the LABALive events and the operas “SPHINX” (Culturemart HERE) and “3WEEKS” (MAP grant, 14th st Y) both  by Yoav Gal . Her most recent theater credits include: “Hanna and the Moonlit Dress” by Itzchak D’miel (14th St. Y), “Nature of Captivity” by Mathew Paul Olmos (Mabou Mines Suite @ PS 122), “Cantaloupe” by Gina Bonati (Boston ); “ON ART,” an adaptation of “Art” by Yasmina Reza (Rohkunst Bau, Berlin); “It is said the men are over in the steel tower” by Hideo Tsuchida,(TBG Theater, NYC); Struwwelmensch (Rohkunst Bau Festival, Berlin);) “Matchmaker Matchmaker” (Stadts Bank Berlin); “Quartet” by Heiner Müller (Westbeth Theater, NYC); “The Child Dreams” by Hanoch Levin (Staged Reading 59E59, NYC). Ronit received her MFA in directing from the Actors Studio Drama School and trained at La Mama Umbria (Italy) and with Siti Company.

 

Franny Silverman is the Director of Youth Education at Kolot Chayeinu, a progressive synagogue in Park Slope, Brooklyn. She has taught in formal and informal Jewish settings across the country for over fifteen years including synagogues, seminaries, conferences, camps and living rooms.  Franny is a founding member, and former Associate Artistic Director, of Storahtelling with whom she has co-created countless original works for stage and ritual settings, performing on stages and bimas from Albany to Anchorage.  She has performed with a number of downtown theater companies, and is a member of Northwoods Ramah Theater Company in residence at Camp Ramah Wisconsin and Brooklyn-based Brave New World Rep, and is co-founder of warner|shaw. As an educator at Kolot Chayeinu, Franny has taught and developed curriculum for Kolot K'tanim, Kitah Bet and Gimmel, and What's Up, Kolot's arts-based social justice program for 3rd year B'nai Mitzvah students, and is honored to be leading the Children's Learning Program as it continues to grow and develop.

 

David Winitsky is the founder of the Jewish Plays Project, the national incubator for new Jewish plays. He is also a collaborator with LabShul/StorahTelling, a PresenTense New York City Fellow and an inaugural UpStart National Fellow. He has directed or assisted on Broadway, off-Broadway, and regionally at Papermill Playhouse, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, California Shakespeare Festival and Philadelphia Theatre Company.  NYC: Displaced Wedding (New Worlds Theatre Project). A Wonderful Flat Thing (14th St Y), Dominic D'Andrea's One Minute Play Festival, Brooke Berman's Until We Find Each Other (Midtown International),. Regional: Douglas Adam's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (What Exit?), and Javier Malpica's Our Dad is in Atlantis (Playwrights Theatre).  MFA in Directing from Northwestern, BA in Mathematics from Cornell. Member: Lincoln Center Directors Lab and Emerging Artists Theatre.