“We’ve been breaking down barriers for female performing artists for six years,” Robyn Shrater Seemann said Sunday night at the Silver Spring Black Box Theatre to welcome the women-only audience to the Artists Circle Showcase. The sold-out program featured singers, dancers, comedians, musicians, and a storyteller in an evening that was billed as “for women, by women.”
Both the performers and audience were primarily, though not exclusively, observant Orthodox Jews, which means that the majority of the singers and dancers will not perform before mixed-gender audiences. “There’s an idea in Jewish law called kol isha,” Shrater Seemann of Potomac explained, “that men should not listen to women singing. We can research the reasons and the verses [in Jewish texts] … but basically singing and dancing in front of men does not feel appropriate for them.” Additionally, the majority of performing opportunities take place on Friday and Saturday evenings, which makes them inaccessible for Shabbat-observant Jews who won’t work or drive on the Sabbath.
As a trained theater professional, Shrater Seemann realized that within the Orthodox community she encountered many women performers who had no outlet to share their talents. “They had training. They had the chops. They were just incredible,” she said. “I thought, wow, if you have these gifts, your job is to share them with the world. That’s how you say thank you. That’s why you have them.”
Six years ago, with Shrater Seemann’s leadership and production skills, the first annual Artists Circle Showcase debuted at Olney Theatre Center. Each year since, both interest and participation have grown, according to the writer, producer, performer, and graphic designer.
This year, artists on stage ranged from Richmond-based comedian Irina Manelis to Philadelphia-based dancer/choreographer Asya Zlatina, along with many artists from Potomac, Silver Spring and Kemp Mill. Many had professional performing careers prior to becoming strictly observant, among them singer Abby Pines, who studied both classical voice and jazz before traveling the world singing and entertaining on cruise ships. These days she works in administration at the Torah School of Greater Washington. On Sunday, she sang a haunting version of “October Rain,” made famous by Israeli singer Eden Golan at the 2024 Eurovision song contest with the lyrics and title “Hurricane.”
In rehearsal, Kemp Mill-based dancer, choreographer and teacher Michelle Penn heard Pines sing and said she had created a dance to “October Rain” with her La Zooz preprofessional high school dance students. At dress rehearsal earlier that day, Penn suggested they add the choreography to Pines’ song, so with just a brief rehearsal, the collaboration came to fruition on stage for the audience.
Singer/songwriter Yael Friedman shared her original composition, “Closer,” which expresses how she draws inspiration from God as she yearns to spiritually connect. Kirov Academy-trained dancer Zlatina performed modified excerpts from the ballet “Le Corsaire,” wearing a longer knee-length tutu and black instead of pink tights and long sleeves; she danced without an accompanying male partner, to align with levels of Orthodox modesty, which are not found in classical ballet. Zlatina, who helms her own company, Artists House, in Philadelphia, and will perform in secular settings, said, “I have a very strong Jewish identity. I grew up here; my mother lives here. My Jewishness is seminal to my being, and I tell every single young [Orthodox] girl that she is able to dance and celebrate ourselves as women together.”
The comic sketch group LOST — Consult Your Local Orthodox Sketch Troupe — directed by Rena Konar, offered insider humor in an airport scenario where hyper-Jewish mothers bid their daughters goodbye before a flight to Israel for a year of study at the fictional Midreshet Sarah Rachel Rebecca Leah Seminary. It involved plenty of Jewish geography jokes, chicken soup, nervous stomachs, and over-the-top helicopter parenting.
Comedian Carmiya Weinraub has plenty of experience on the professional stand-up circuit. This Orthodox mom of five produces interfaith comedy when she’s not idling in the carpool lane or running to the grocery store. On the mainstream circuit, she might be an anomaly with her clean, G-rated act, but for the Artists Circle audience, it was perfect. Women laughed knowingly at her jokes about kids, her husband and her exhaustion and stayed silent for the Anne Frank joke – which she immediately turned into a laugh with a standby one-liner.
This was the first time Kemp Mill resident Laurie Glowgower attended an Artists Circle Showcase. “I came to see people in my community,” she said, adding, “I’m a singer myself … I’m thinking about trying out next year.”
This was the second year Rebecca Smolar of Silver Spring attended. She had such a great experience in 2024 that she returned, saying, “It’s an opportunity to see all different types of performances in one setting. It’s nice to see a variety show and I like to support Jewish women and people who might not otherwise be able to perform.”
The 90-minute program ended with the entire cast of women singing, dancing and clapping along to Shakira’s “Try Everything.”
“This was beautiful,” Michelle Fefer of Silver Spring said. “It was so nice to see women expressing their creative side. This [Artists Circle Showcase] shows us that we can come together creatively and share all this talent.”
Lisa Traiger is Washington Jewish Week’s arts correspondent.
