ABOUT THE PROJECT
In this theatrical puppetry show for adults, siblings Yoshie Fruchter (composer) and Ora Fruchter (director/puppet design) bring to life invented Jewish folklore and new Yiddish music. The show is charged with ancestral reverberations, connecting the past to the present through an associative world of family, tradition, heirlooms and superstitions.
These imagined folk tales were written as part of the research and development of Temim Fruchter's recent critically acclaimed novel City of Laughter. Boy of the Sea is part of what will be a longer theatrical puppetry project that will incorporate her other tales about a chicken wedding, a secret cave that holds the secret to immortality, and of course the boy of the sea.
Yoshie and Ora, having developed independent creative careers over the years, are delighted to find themselves at this meeting point to finally create a theatrical project together. They hope to joyfully bring to life something from their family roots. This show is both a love letter to our ancestors and a keepsake to pass down to future generations.
Boy of the Sea is generously supported by Asylum Arts at The Neighborhood and The Peleh Fund.
"I have always wanted to fill in my familial blanks. The stories that were patchy or forgetful; the ones that seemed to be missing their middles...If there were echoes from some long-ago past, I wanted them to speak back to me. And then, eventually, I started to speculate: What if they could speak back, the echoes? What if they were speaking, and I simply wasn’t listening. This, I knew, was the story I wanted to write. The story no factual history could give me.”
-Temim Fruchter, on her book City of Laughter
ABOUT THE MUSIC
The music is all original, using some existing Yididsh poetry and new lyrics by Joe Dobkin, and is performed by Yoshie Fruchter and singer/cellist Rabbi Deborah Sacks-Mintz.
They debuted a performance of the music at Yidstock under the name ReynHartsik (heartfelt,sincerely) in the summer 2025. Using a combination of their voices with cello, guitar, bass and mandolin, Fruchter and Sacks-Mintz bring new melodies to the Jewish music canon using intricate song, sensitive musicianship and a sincere desire to connect with audiences.