A stage for Strengthening social resilience in Israel

Curtain Call - Theater, community, Society >>> awarded with Knesset Speakers` Quality of Life Prize for 2021 in the category - Promoting and encouraging tolerance , respect, mutual understanding, and good neighborliness in education and action. Curtain Call, a non-profit organization, founded in 2012 with a meaningful role in building and maintaining social resilience in Israel. Curtain Call's mission is to empower individuals from across the societal spectrum to come together to break down social barriers, bridge community gaps, and overcome personal challenges using Community-Based Theater. From children and youth at-risk, to the elderly, to individuals with special needs, women, secular and Charedi (ultra-orthodox), and Ethiopian immigrants, Curtain Call works with all walks of Israel’s diverse society, giving a voice, a stage, and a constructive outlet for self-expression to those who might not otherwise be heard. Some 60 groups, are involved each year in Curtain Call's programs, operated in major cities and mainly in peripheral areas, from the far north to the south scattered Bedouin settlements. The participants in our programs reflect the spectacular mosaic of the Israeli society segments, Jewish and Arabs, Ethiopian immigrants, the elderly, disabled and most challenged, women, Charedi (ultra-orthodox) All, non-professionals actresses and actors are prepared and trained to use the Community Based Theater to come together and break down social barriers, often focusing on sensitive community issues, conflicts bridge community gaps, and overcoming personal challenges. During our main full-year program, the groups are guided by professional Theater directors, set up a real unique show performance, based on local issues, conflicts, stories, written and performed by local community members, through a structured process. Participating and being exposed to Community-Based Theater activities, can be a life-changing opportunity, as it increases self-confidence, self-awareness, and self-worth, and validates individual experiences. The process that the participants follow, takes them from bonding as a group, through discussing relevant issues to the group, and finally obtaining basic skills and tools as actors and ways of self-expression. This is followed by developing their narrative toward an original performance, helping to foster eye-opening dialogue, push aside stereotypes and build genuine bonds of understanding and friendship. Bertolt Brecht on the proletarian actor: This is an actor who didn't study in acting school, and therefore lacks luster and confidence that a professional actor has. Although with his naïve and simple acting, he cannot express complex personality and psychological depth, he can provide enlightenment or comment, which is surprisingly simple, to complex social reality. That kind of actor is well aware of social injustice because he experienced it himself, and therefore his cry on stage is authentic, and it carries with it not only the crowd but also the connoisseurs viewers.