Oud Player on the Tel
Playwright Tom Block with his paintings.
Oud Player on the Tel
by Tom Block
directed by David Winitsky
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British Mandate Palestine, circa 1940. Amir greets his expelled northern cousins with a (literal) olive branch. But there are new used cars to sell, and an eretz to work. What good is an Oud Player on the Tel?
Reading will be followed by a talk-back and discussion with a world-class panel of Peace activists including Sarah Sayeed, Ph.D, Joseph Montville and Jacob Bender.
Click here for full information on the panel.
Oud music performed and composed by awad Rabbi Zach Fredman
Featuring Rajesh Bose, Matthew Boston, Alex Perabo, Ryan Shams, Millie Torchetti, Rebecka Ray, and Abbi Hawk
Choreography and Dance by Joya Powell and Matthieu Neito
“Tom is deeply seated in the peace movement, and also deeply inquisitive about theater and the way we tell stories. This is a great combination. ”
Tom Block is an author and artist whose first book, Shalom/Salaam: A Story of a Mystical Fraternity, was published in both English (Fons Vitae, Louisville, KY) and Turkish (Bilim + Gonul, Istanbul, Turkey) in 2010. A Fatal Addiction: War in the Name of God (Algora Publisher, NY), exploring the relationship between religion and violence, was published in 2012. His Response to Machiavelli, an exploration of the American political dynamic, was published this past April (Algora Publisher, NY), and his art/activist manifesto: Prophetic Activist Art: Handbook for a Spiritual Revolution, is due out in the fall (Center for Human Ecology, Glasgow, Scotland).
He has had several plays produced, in New York, Washington DC and Maryland. Reviewers have said of his plays that they offer "a fascinating and rewarding look at the multiple dimensions of faith, theory, and inspiration" and "if you’d like to explore where theater will be ten years from now it is probably worth a look."
Also a visual artist, he has exhibited his artwork in museums, universities and galleries around the United States and Europe. Mr. Block was the founding producer of the first ever Amnesty International Human Rights Art Festival (April 2010), as well as a Research Fellow at the International Human Rights Law Institute at DePaul University (Summer/Fall 2010), where he produced the Iraq History Project Art Festival.
He has spoken about his ideas at conferences and universities in Egypt, Turkey, Europe, the United States and Canada. He has been awarded monetary grants and other support for his writing, painting and production work from the Norman Lear Family Foundation (CA), Maryland State Arts Council (MD), Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation (NY), Sugarman Foundation (CA), Nelson Talbott Foundation (MD), Puffin Foundation (NJ), William and Mary Greve Foundation (NY), New York Foundation for the Arts (NY), Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County (MD) and Amnesty International (NY).
For more information on Mr. Block’s work, please visit www.tomblock.com.
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