Good news! After a relatively gentile 2016 scene, This Broadway season is looking to be mighty Jewish. Here are the Semitic-seeming shows scheduled for spring:

First of all, Sondheim. Second of all, Sondheim where Jake Gyllenhaal is taking on a role made famous by Mandy Patinkin. That’s right, the Jewish actor stars in a revival of Sunday in the Park with George, opening next month.

Onto March! What a gift— it moves The Price from previews to opening; it’s a revival of the Arthur Miller play that actually has some overt Jewishness, unlike many of his more coded shows. March gives us the Broadway transfer of Oslo— as in, the Accords; the play tells the story of the little-known key players behind the scenes of the 1990s Israeli-Palestinian peace process. And, perhaps best of all, March brings us War Paint, the musical that stars Patti LuPone as Helena Rubinstein (focusing on her lifelong rivalry with Elizabeth Arden).

April showers bring Bette Midler back to Broadway! That’s when the revival of Hello, Dolly! opens, and everyone is rightfully freaking out. April also brings Indecent to the Great White Way, the new play with music about the controversy of Sholem Asch’s God of Vengeance playing Broadway in the 1920s (women kissing each other!? How scandalous!).

Also, hey, did you know off-Broadway (or even, God forbid, off-off-Broadway) is a thing? One such promising play is If I Forget, opening February. It’s a family drama about a liberal Jewish studies professor, set a few months before 9/11. Also, a new David Mamet play about a psychiatrist, The Penitent, opens around the same time (it may not be particularly Jewish; it remains to be seen. But Mamet sure is).

So the pickings are ripe! Whether you want a new family drama, or an old musical favorite, there’s something for you.

The post Upcoming Jewish Broadway Shows appeared first on Jewcy.

Move over, Zach Braff—there’s a new star turning to Kickstarter for crowd-sourced funding. Zosia Mamet, of Shoshanna fame, and her sister Clara have an indie folk band (because of course) called The Cabin Sisters, and they need a little help getting their first music video made. Like, your help:

This music video for Bleak Love is our chance to realize through the visual artistry of some very talented people the universal feeling of un-requited love. Visually the video will bounce from opulence to sparseness, French Baroque to a simple, timeless and heartbroken. We are hoping to capture something everyone has felt at some point in their lives.

Sadly, the sisters Mamet haven’t been too successful in their quirky, banjo-laden venture (“Perhaps because it includes a ‘body percussionist,'” BetaBeat offered). No word on whether dad David, who once encouraged 25-year-old Zosia to skip college and pursue acting instead—”Thank God one of my children is finally listening to me,” he apparently told her—is one of the project’s 23 backers (the sisters have raised $1,170 so far).

I think the problem here is that people are thinking too small. Sure, for $25 you can download their first album (after all, Shosh would never pirate music) and $100 will get you a signed photo of the sisters, but for only $5,000 you can be Zosia’s date (fine, guest) at a Cinema Society film screening and premiere party: “It is a very classy event that will give you the opportunity to know a little bit about Zosia.” Sure, we don’t know what movie it is and she might totally hate you, but it would be so worth it.

So, have you donated yet? Because Lena totally did.

Zosia is making a very un-Shosh like music video (with a little help from her friends) #cabinsisters kickstarter.com/projects/51216…

— Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) May 29, 2013

Previously: Zosia Mamet Curses, Loves Pirates, and Is Definitely Not A ‘Shoshanna’
Zosia Mamet Reports That Even Off-Screen, Dating in Your 20s Sucks
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Shoshanna?

(Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images)

The post Win A Date With ‘Girls’ Star Zosia Mamet appeared first on Jewcy.

Girls actress Zosia Mamet celebrated her 25th birthday just like you did—with a cleavage-bearing visit to Late Night with Jimmy Fallon before heading to a production of the off-Broadway play Really Really, in which she plays Leigh.

Fallon explained to the audience who Mamet’s playwright father is (some guy named David), and asked if he was supportive of her acting career. “Very supportive,” Mamet replied. “He loves it. Totally. Couldn’t ask for more from that man.”

“He is absolutely psyched,” she continued. “It was pretty obvious from day one that I wasn’t going to college—my little brother got the smarts in the family. I told him I wanted to act and that I was skipping out on school and he said, ‘Thank God one of my children is finally listening to me.'”

“I lucked out for sure,” she added.

Previously: Zosia Mamet Curses, Loves Pirates, and Is Definitely Not A ‘Shoshanna’
‘Girls’ Scene-Stealer Zosia Mamet Follows Dad, Makes Off Broadway Debut
David Mamet Tells Jews to Vote Romney, ‘Girls’ Fans Everywhere Cringe

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• Jewish inmates in Florida prisons will finally get their kosher food. [JTA]

• The original Girls were from the 1920s, and their moms worried about them marrying Jewish men. [New Yorker]

• Speaking of Girls, how about the time Zosia Mamet got ‘Lewis and Clarked’ in a hotel room by a guy who tried to make Mamet’s Mitt Romney-loving dad pay for. [NYT]

• From the department of relationships we don’t support: Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher might be house hunting in Chicago. [HuffPo]

• Jewcy favorite Andy Samberg will star in a new show on Fox about New York City detectives. [THR]

• Homeland’s Mandy Patinkin got a nice shout out during Amy Poehler and Tina Fey’s highly entertaining opening monologue at last night’s Golden Globe awards:

The post Daily Jewce: Zosia Mamet Got ‘Lewis and Clarked,’ Andy Samberg’s New Gig appeared first on Jewcy.

At this point, it seems somewhat daunting—and perhaps pointless—to try and write anything about Girls. After all, what hasn’t been said about it? Haters are gonna hate; fashionistas are going to obsess over every outfit; and ridiculous people will make absurd claims about how the show is “a giant economic loss for high-end gyms.” Then again, even before the first episode aired everyone was ranting and raving, so what’s to stop us now, with the Season 2 premiere airing Sunday—especially if it’s to follow up on the biggest problem in Season 1: Shoshanna.

Last April, after just three episodes, I felt compelled to ask if everyone’s favorite FUBU show had a Shoshanna problem. It most definitely did. While Zosia Mamet was, and still is, impeccable at playing the allegedly-in-college student Shoshanna Shapiro, that didn’t detract from the pure and simple fact that she served as simply a punch line. What’s more, the other characters on the show knew it too, and had no idea what to do with her. (I still cringe thinking about Marnie’s—played by Allison Williams—reaction at the abortion party.)

You can chalk it up to Dunham saying that Shosh wasn’t supposed to be a full cast member—something that was confirmed in the recent New York Times Magazine profile of Mamet, your new BFF—and that kind of makes sense. For one thing, it explains why, unlike the other three girls, she never really had any scenes that focused on her early on, save the glorious Camp Ramah romantic reunion arc in Episode 4 with Skyler Astin (the guy from Pitch Perfect). But it doesn’t explain why, when she is on screen, her character always seems to be the poor, pathetic joke. Then again, a lot has happened during the first season, most notably that Shosh, as of the season finale, is no longer a virgin, the source of her biggest baggage.

While I’m excited to see what’s to come of Roshanna (come on, you know Shosh came up with a celebrity couple name for herself and Ray, and one that sounds like a Jewish holiday no less) in Season 2, I’m more excited to see what Dunham does with Shoshanna now that she doesn’t have to be defined by her virginity. Though frankly I wish she had done more with Shosh’s virginity. In a show with such a raw, and arguably “real,” portrayal of sex—especially bad sex—is it so much to ask for that the virgin perspective be a bit more nuanced? Discussed instead of just mocked?

But instead of solving the problem, Dunham avoided it completely. Though, to be fair, even if her sexuality remained a punch line, Dunham let Shoshanna somehow manage to move beyond it in other ways. Here is probably where I have to admit that, somewhere between Episode 4 and Episode 10, I became a Shosh fan. It’s kind of like how I became a Schmidt fan, actually. Schmidt’s journey from douchebag to aspirational douchebag is surprisingly similar to Shoshanna’s mid-season journey from mindless insecure JAP to self-aware and, in many ways, confident JAP. Emily Shire wrote about this evolution of the TV JAP in the Forward at the end of Season 1:

At first glance, Shoshanna Shapiro is just the latest JAP doll on this long conveyor belt of stock figures. She is a major source of comic relief on the show, and is more of a caricature than any of the other characters. Her fanatical obsession with “Sex and the City,” and her declaration that her British cousin Jessa Johansson is “so f**king classy” for not being on Facebook, draw instant laughs. Yet each episode also reveals other layers to Shoshanna’s character that go beyond the stereotype. It’s not that she is any less of a princess as the series progresses; she still loves her clothes, her parentally funded apartment, and her Camp Ramah memories. But she also displays a vulnerability and earnestness that was notably lacking in previous JAP characterizations.

I don’t totally buy Shire’s point—essentially that Shosh represents a progression in how JAPs are portrayed on TV—but I do think she’s right about one thing: Shosh isn’t your average JAP. Her vulnerability and earnestness transformed her JAPiness the way that Schmidt’s transformed his douchebagness, and somewhere along the line we, the viewers, started laughing with her and not at her, even if the rest of the Girls are still laughing at her. Maybe it’s the busy eyebrows, maybe it’s the crack, but her JAPiness never stopped her, never defined her, the way that her virginity always did. For Shoshanna, JAPiness was never the problem—if anything, it was, and remains, her most entertaining quality—one that she embraces wholeheartedly.

Of course, Girls is Hannah’s (played by Dunham) story. The other three characters are there to serve as her foils. But now that Shosh’s virginity no longer makes her less experienced than Hannah, the question for Season 2 is, now that we’ve moved beyond her virginity, what will be her new defining characteristic?

Previously on Network Jews:

Ruxin, the fantasy football-obsessed jerk on The League.

Tommy Pickles, the heroic cartoon baby on Rugrats

Willow Rosenberg, the lesbian witch on Buffy the Vampire Slayer

The post Network Jews: Shoshanna, The Scene-Stealing Afterthought on HBO’s ‘Girls’ appeared first on Jewcy.

Taffy Brodesser-Akner talked to 24-year-old actress Zosia Mamet, who these days is always getting recognized for—and sometimes even confused as—her breakout role as the earnestly naive Shoshanna Shapiro on Lena Dunham’s HBO hit Girls. But she’s quick to point out that she’s no Shoshanna.

The most noticeable difference between the insecure Shoshanna and the self-assured, articulate Mamet, who’s trying her hand at theater next, is confidence. Mamet, who “says ‘like’ a lot and curses plenty” almost seems like the anti-Shosh (except for the ‘like’ habit), aware of exactly why her show has become the cultural sensation it has but maintaining that she, unlike her character, isn’t lost:

Still, she gets it, in theory. She certainly gets why “Girls” has hit a nerve. “Your 20s are weird, but nobody tells you that,” she says. “I think that’s what Lena’s trying to say. Everyone tells you that your adolescence, that’s going to be hard. High school is going to suck. But nobody tells you that your 20s are going to be rough, that basically you’re cast into the real world and told to figure it out.”

Here’s what else David’s daughter had to say:

On her grungy Girls audition: “I did my tape in one of my father’s oversize sweaters and no makeup and dirty hair,” she says.

On her casual WASP-dom: “The only WASPy part of me is that I like gin,” she says. “Oh, and I ride horses.”

On being really awesome: “if I were not an actress, I would be a pirate.”

Catch Mamet in all her Shoshanna glory when Girls Season 2 premieres January 13.

Zosia Mamet Is Still Getting Used to Being Your New Best Friend [NYT] Previously: ‘Girls’ Scene-Stealer Zosia Mamet Follows Dad, Makes Off Broadway Debut
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Shoshanna?

The post Zosia Mamet Curses, Loves Pirates, and Is Definitely Not A ‘Shoshanna’ appeared first on Jewcy.

Can’t get enough of Zosia Mamet, better known as Girls’ scene-stealing Ramah alum Shoshanna Shapiro? You’re in luck, because she’s taking a page from dad David Mamet’s playbook (get it!) and starring in an Off Broadway production opening in February.

According to the New York Times’ Arts Beat,

Ms. Mamet will also make her Off Broadway debut as the downbeat, enigmatic Leigh in Paul Downs Colaizzo’s “Really Really,” a drama about sexual politics and culture clashes among college students.

Our fingers are crossed that Leigh is like, Shoshanna’s other cousin or something.

Zosia Mamet’s Winter Plans: On ‘Girls’ and Off Broadway [ArtsBeat] Previously: Zosia Mamet Reports That Even Off-Screen, Dating in Your 20s Sucks
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Shoshanna?

The post ‘Girls’ Scene-Stealer Zosia Mamet Follows Dad, Makes Off Broadway Debut appeared first on Jewcy.

• Jewish Deadheads: because of course. [JTA]

• Bob Dylan’s perplexing artwork. [NY Observer]

• David Mamet’s new play, The Anarchist, is closing after 17 performances. [Arts Beat]

• Sheldon Adelson says he doesn’t cry when he loses. [Daily Intel]

• Maccabi Tel Aviv captain Guy Pnini was suspended after calling a teammate a Nazi. [Reuters]

The post Daily Jewce: Jewish Deadheads Assemble, Bob Dylan’s Confusing Art appeared first on Jewcy.

Playwright David Mamet, who publicly disavowed his former liberal leanings, has made quite the strong-worded endorsement for Mitt Romney in the Jewish Journal. In it, he makes repeated reference to children, which makes us think of his daughter Zosia, better known as the clingy, image-conscious Shoshanna Shapiro on Lena Dunham’s HBO series, Girls. Needless to say, Shosh would be mortified.

Here’s what Mamet has to say to “those Jews planning to vote for Obama:”

Are you prepared to explain to your children not the principles upon which your vote is cast, but its probable effects upon them?

Irrespective of your endorsement of liberal sentiments, of fairness and “more equal distribution,” will you explain to your children that top-down economic policies will increasingly limit their ability to find challenging and well-paid work, and that the diminution in employment and income will decrease their opportunity to marry and raise children?

Will you explain (as you have observed) that a large part of their incomes will be used to fund programs that they may find immoral, wasteful and/or indeed absurd? And that the bulk of their taxes go to no programs at all, but merely service the debt you entailed on them?

Will you tell your children that a liberal government will increasingly marginalize, dismiss and weaken the support for and the safety of the Jewish state?

Shoshanna is so not talking to him right now. Mamet, meanwhile, is the guest of honor at tonight’s Manhattan Institute Wriston Lecture, an honor typically reserved for the likes of Condoleezza Rice, George Will, and the Honorable Samuel A. Alito, Jr.

Mamets. So hot right now.

A note to a stiff-necked people [Jewish Journal] Previously on Jewcy: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Shoshanna?
Lena Dunham Wants Your First Time Voting to Be Special
David Mamet Abandons “Brain-Dead Liberalism”

(Photo by Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for GLAMOUR)

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• Madonna has edited the video shown during her concert, which now shows an image of French National Front leader Marine Le Pen with a question mark on her face instead of a swastika.

• Twister Sister’s Dee Snider asked Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan to stop using his song, ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It.’

• Who woulda thought: Seth Rogen was “squeamish” about his on-screen masturbation scene in For a Good Time, Call.

• Ebay sale of the day: Navajo Moose pendant, or Chai necklace?

• David Mamet (father of Zosia, duh) is bringing Have Gun—Will Travel to CBS.

• Nooooooo:

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