The sad fact of the matter is that state support for the arts in this country is pitiful. How any Israeli artists keep on pumping out the quality fare is quite incredible. That goes doubly for amateur ventures which generally need a bunch of dedicated souls prepared to give up their spare, and not-so-spare, time to keep the show on the road.
In the case of the Encore! Educational Theatre Company, since its inception in 2006 the principal heart, soul, and corporeal being – kishkes included – behind its manifold productions has been Robert Binder.
The first time I met him was when I went over to the troupe’s then base-cum-storeroom in the bleak industrial building in Talpiot, which also houses the AACI. What I caught of him was his back and kippah-clad head as he hunched over a piece of fabric, which turned out to be part of a costume he was putting together. As I called his name and he raised his head, I saw he was holding a needle and thread. I immediately got the very palpable sense of someone completely devoted to the project at hand and the theater company he founded.
The theater’s forthcoming run of Lionel Bart’s Oliver! takes in eight shows, on January 28-31 and February 3-6, to be held at the newly refurbished Friends Theater at Beit Shmuel. This will be Binder’s swan song as artistic director, although he will be staying on for a while as a member of the team.
Binder’s dedication
Anyone who has ever been connected to Encore or caught any of its productions will know that that leaves sizable shoes to try to fill. Binder, who incredibly is now 80 – he looks at least a couple of decades younger – was the driving force behind all the troupe’s offerings since the beginning.
“We now have a committee that has been set up, called the Encore Transitional Committee. It has been a one-man job up until now, and this is basically splitting up the roles and responsibilities that Rob took upon himself,” explains Charles (Chip) Manekin, 72, a Jerusalemite professor emeritus of Jewish philosophy from the University of Maryland, who retired three years ago and now has more time to devote to his first, theatrical love.
With Binder finally stepping to one side, Manekin says the very existence of the company was hanging in the balance. “The question was, of course, does Encore end its run, or does it continue? I just retired from the University of Maryland, and, foolishly, I said, ‘Let’s continue!’” he laughs.
Duly committed, Manekin says he and his counterparts began to get some idea of just how much Binder had shouldered over the years, and the size of the river they had to cross to keep the boat afloat and steer a steady and viable course. “We all admired Rob, but you don’t know how much he does until you start doing it in his place.”
Binder’s solo berth will now be filled by perennial musical director Paul Salter; Encore veteran Aviella Trapedo, the house stage director who directs Oliver!; and Michael Sacofsky and Michael Haven, both of whom are lawyers. Sacofsky has also done his fair share of board treading with the company.
Manekin, too, does his bit for the team on stage. Oliver sees him play the central role of Fagin. That presents him with quite a challenge if he wants to get any of the limelight. There is the old Hollywood adage that cautions against sharing the spotlight with children or animals. “The great thing about Oliver is that there’s a whole bunch of kids there, my thieves,” Manekin notes.
“It’s so much fun to work with them. And they steal every scene they’re in, of course,” he adds with a smile. “But it’s so much fun to work with these kids. And they’re so serious about what they’re doing! This is not like an elementary school play. This is the big time, and they’re selling tickets. It’s great to be with them.”
Putting out the quality stuff
That Encore is a serious, professionally minded outfit, notwithstanding its minor league status among the country’s major cultural institutions and its nonprofit legal standing, is a given. That has been the case since the off, with the company presenting numerous productions of fabled musicals, such as The King and I; Guys and Dolls; and Fiddler on the Roof, not to mention quite a few Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, for which Manekin, a self-confessed Anglophile, has a particular soft spot.
He also has a liking for parts that speak to his heritage. “I would say there are three great Jewish roles on Broadway – Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls; Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof; and Fagin in Oliver!. I will have done two of those three, and I’m too old now for Nathan.”
Not bad going, all the same. “My claim to fame when we did Fiddler on the Roof – I guess it must have been 10 or 12 years ago – is that I was Tevye. That was the highlight of my theatrical career.” Manekin considered quitting while he was at the top, but the role of Fagin in Oliver! proved to be too enticing.
He and the outgoing artistic director go back a long way. “I met Rob Binder in 1984. I’d made aliyah around that time. There was an advert in The Jerusalem Post about a group that was starting that would be called the Jerusalem Gilbert and Sullivan Society.” The new oleh was keen to get a piece of the nascent operetta action.
The group progressed in low gear for a while. “From 1984 to around 2000, we would perform in members’ living rooms. There’d be about three or four of us. We’d do numbers, sing something from an operetta, or something like that. It was lots of fun. Sometimes we’d rent a small hall and have maybe 30 people,” he recounts.
The Salter factor
Things took an incremental bound when a top-notch professional with some street cred relocated over here. “Paul Salter made aliyah from Manchester in around 2000. His father was very close with the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company [renowned for its Gilbert and Sullivan productions]. Young teenage Paul would play the piano for them at parties, and they’d sing with him,” Manekin says.
Salter was, it seems, destined to throw in his impressive lot with Encore. “Somebody told him that in Jerusalem there was this fellow named Binder who had a Gilbert and Sullivan Jerusalem Society. Paul hunted down Rob.”
It was a professional marriage made in heaven. “Rob always says that his first comment to Paul was: ‘Where have you been all my life?’ It was that kind of moment,” Manekin laughs. There was more – plenty more – to come, as the vistas began to spread. “Rob and Paul said, ‘Why don’t we do a production with JEST [Jerusalem English-Speaking Theatre]?’ We did a couple until we broke away and finally formed Encore. And the rest is history.”
Ever-evolving history, it appears, as Encore not only got its own productions out there, but it also spawned a bunch of offshoots. “What I find interesting about Encore is that not only does it have its audience and we do our thing – our Broadway shows and Gilbert and Sullivan, etc. – but almost everybody in the English-speaking theater community in Jerusalem, that I know of, has had some contact with us. In some cases you have, for example, a company called Starcatcher that Jeff Rosenschein started; it was an Encore company.
“It was a breakaway minyan. Jeff wanted to do edgier Broadway shows, and Rob wasn’t interested in that. He’s more conservative in his tastes. The people that are running it all worked for Encore.”
Binder may be bowing out or cutting down on his workload, but his legacy, it seems, goes on and on.
“We have a very lively English-speaking theater scene, and the granddaddy of them all is Encore. It’s basically been Rob from the beginning,” Manekin states.
Bridging the generation gap
That all sounds hunky-dory, but the reality is that, like the classical music world, audiences of musical theater here are getting older. Manekin believes that getting more of the younger crowd on board, hands-on, can help. The current production certainly has plenty of room for maneuver there.
“This show, Oliver, has been a big blast. One of the nice things about Encore! is that we have casts with very young and relatively very old in the cast. We have this cast with members from eight to 80 years old. There’s nothing like putting on a show. It’s a great experience for all of us, particularly for the younger ones. It’s a real family.”
But families, at some stage, lose their senior members. C’est la vie. And there are logistics involved in catering to the less able-bodied. Manekin says the venue for Oliver addresses that, to a degree.
“Generally, our audiences tend to be a little older than, let’s say, rock concert audiences, in terms of accessibility and walking down ramps and that kind of thing. We have to take that into account, too.” The Beit Shmuel revamp should help with that. “It’s a little less steep than it used to be. They fixed that, so it will be a good place to go.”
A new broom
A new broom can sweep clean and can usher in new ideas and approaches. “We want to keep and honor Rob’s legacy, and we have a certain brand. But we’ll probably branch out to do some other things. We’re also going to try to get younger people in leadership roles,” he says.
There is already some evidence for that change of direction. “Aviella is a very good example of someone who started out when she was in high school, in the Encore chorus for [the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta] Mikado, when her parents were in the show. She has a fantastic voice. She has done a lot of the soprano leads, and she started getting interested in directing. She co-directed with Rob, and she’s recently taken over as stage director. That’s a continuity right there. And she’s certainly the next generation,” he says.
That surely helps, but what Encore! really needs is for the younger folk to buy tickets or have them bought for them by their parents or grandparents. Manekin gets that and has witnessed an eminently suitable child’s response to the onstage action from close quarters.
“I once took my granddaughter to see a production of The Secret Garden that Encore did. Her mouth was open the whole time. At the end of the show, she asked: ‘Can I do that, too?’ She was subsequently in a couple of productions.”
That is part of the Binder legacy, too. “Rob is very good about that. He will put younger people in parts, or make parts for them, in order to get them interested. We have to ensure – that this is the task of the next generation – that this is communicated to younger people. We have to keep our audiences fresh, and ourselves, too,” he asserts.
Oliver has been a favorite of audiences around the world, of all ages, for over six decades. With that enduring popularity, the Encore! track record, and Robert Binder’s hard-earned credentials, and the bastion of English-speaking theater he has built up and sustained for so long, the new production should deliver on the entertainment front.
And, hopefully, Encore! will keep on coming up with the goods for many moons to come.
For tickets and more information: www.encore-etc.com.