Allan Merovitz is a singer,
actor, clown, storyteller and badchan (Jewish Master
of Ceremonies at weddings) based in Toronto. Recently he has
been concentrating on the heritage of Yiddish songs and
Jewish traditions, and has performed and toured his show
The Wedding Project in Toronto and in Europe (Holland
and Switzerland). Allan was lead singer for a number of
years with the Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band, and now fronts
his own band, Simcha Klezmer. Allan also sings with a number
of Klezmer bands, including Chutzpah, Hou Tsa Tsa, Hot
Latkes and Beyond the Pale. He and musician Brian Katz have
performed their evening of Yiddish songs
Harzedikelider at Artword Theatre among other venues.
Allan Merovitz has performed in many theatrical productions
over the years, including the Mulgrave Road Theatre in
Guysborough NS, Caravan Stage Company in British Columbia
and Kensington Karnival in Toronto, as well as a number of
film and television appearances. He has appeared in two
plays by Ronald Weihs: Hands Up! (The Bill Miner
Story), and Highball! a story of logging in
BC.
Anne Lederman: fiddler, singer,
composer, multi-instrumentalist and tireless crusader for
Canadian music. Anne’s fiddling is strongly rooted in
the mixed traditions of the prairies--Métis, French,
Old-Time and Ukrainian. She is also plays Irish, Scottish,
Québécois, Klezmer and Jazz. She sings in
several languages, including French, Gaelic, Ukrainian,
Yiddish and Cree, and has mandolin, piano, bones, feet,
jawharp and more. Anne has worked with Muddy York,
Izvor, and The Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band. In
1991, she released her own recording, Not A Mark in This
World, a collection of Canadian traditional songs of
social comment. She has recently released her first record
for children, Come From Every Way, a collection of
old and new songs about coming to Canada from all over the
world. A new recording of original material,
Fiddlesong, is now in the works. Currently, Anne
performs solo, with her band Come From Every Way,
with Njacko Backo Quartet and Kalimba Kalimba
(contemporary African music) and with Chutzpah!, a
Klezmer/East European quartet. She is and has been a back-up
musician for many artists and has been heard at countless
festivals, concerts, dances, schools and libraries, on radio
and television. Anne composes music for theatre, film and
dance, most recently, Red River, a collaboration by
Native Earth and Crow’s Theatre. She fiddled for
Theresa Tova’s Still the Night at Theatre Passe
Muraille, and for the Blyth Festival’s production of
Barndance Live.
Ronald Weihs, director and
playwright, founded Artword Theatre in 1993. In addition to
concerts and multi-disciplinary events, the theatre has
produced five full productions of its own (conceived and
directed by Ronald Weihs). Whoever You Are (1997) is
based on the short story by science fiction author Judith
Merril. Echo and Narcissus (1996), a collaboration
with dancer/choreographers Hedy Minten and Michael du
Maresq, is a 20th C. retelling of the Greek legend.
Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde (1995) is a
theatrical treatment of the Chaucer poem, with a piano score
by Timothy Minthorn. me2 (1994) is a play based on
stories by Alberto Moravia. Mama Says You Are What You
Do (1994) is a full-scale musical by Weihs based on real
people and their stories. Ronald Weihs also directed
Cu’Fu? (Stories of a Sicilian Family), written
and performed by Charly Chiarelli, at Artword in 1996.
Artword has also produced, in 1995 and 1996, the Artword
Festival of the Human Voice (how many ways to tell a
story?). As a playwright, Ronald Weihs in known in
Toronto for The Wobbly, a collaboration with George
Luscombe at TWP and The Beavers, for Native Earth and
Theatre Resource Centre; and in BC for Hands Up! (The
Bill Miner Story) for Caravan Stage Company. He wrote
and directed the musical Highball! that toured
logging communities in BC
The
widely-known actor and Klezmer musician grew up in Smiths
Falls in the Ottawa Valley in a family of Hassidic Jews. His
story, and the story of his family, is a microcosm of the
Jewish experience world-wide.