Yeo-Ho-Ho

Instead of Ho-Ho-Ho this Christmas, I ended up with Yeo-Ho-Ho -- Yeomen of the Guard, that is. I spent both Christmas Day and Christmas Eve in the theater, and will be doing the same tomorrow evening on New Year's Eve. These holidays are complete non-entities in Jerusalem -- we already had our New Year back in September with Rosh Hashanah. I'm dragging some of my castmates out with me after the show tomorrow night, but most of them don't really bother celebrating the secular New Year. Some of them didn't even realize that we're performing on New Year's Eve until I reminded them!

Performing with an Israeli G&S group is a world of difference from my group back home, where I caused a bit of scuffle for having to miss rehearsal for Simchat Torah. Here, the production revolves around both the Jewish holidays and Shabbat. We all got together as a cast to light the menorah each night before the show -- not to mention the fact that there are obviously no shows on Friday nights.  One of our leading men actually flies from the US to Israel for the show each winter because it's impossible for him to perform G&S and observe Shabbat back in the states -- he's amazing!

Here are some photos from the show. Enjoy, and Happy New Year!