My Name is Asher Lev
Chicago Premiere
Aug 22, 2014 - Oct 18, 2014
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Aaron Posner Playwright
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Kimberly Senior ~ ^ Director
Cast
Production Team
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Josephine Kearns * ^ Cover Stage Manager
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Brian Sidney Bembridge # ^ Scenic and Lighting Designer
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Andrew Hansen ^ Composer
- Elizabeth Flauto Costume Designer
- Desirée Arnold Properties Designer
- Josh Altman Dramaturg
- J. Cody Spellman Assistant Director
- Elise Kauzlaric Dialect Coach
- Jeri Frederickson * Stage Manager
- Austin Pettinger Costume Design Assistant
- Megan Snowder Master Electrician
- Crosstown Scenic LLC Set Construction
- Sara Thornton Production Assistant
Understudies
* Member of Actors Equity Association
# Member of United Scenic Artists
~ Member of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society
+ TimeLine Company Member
^ TimeLine Associate Artist
§ TimeLine Playwrights Collective
Reviews
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Chicago Sun-Times
August 29, 2014
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
“A masterpiece of a production … from the very first line spoken by its title character, this magnificent TimeLine production generates an intensely elevated pulse. Asher Lev alters the way you see and feel. No small feat. … it is [Alex] Weisman [as Asher Lev] who drives this story, and he is breathtaking. … there is not a false moment in this production.”—Hedy Weiss
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Chicago Tribune
August 29, 2014
3 STARS. “Directed with a crisp, clear and strikingly unsentimental fluidity by Kimberly Senior … all three performances feel honest and authentic. … [Alex Weisman] is forceful, cool and disciplined here … a very interesting performance from one of Chicago’s best young actors.“
—Chris Jones
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Daily Herald
September 5, 2014
3 STARS. “Besides canny casting, Kimberly Senior’s affecting, forthright production benefits from the director’s clear eye and sense of balance. Everything about this show is credible … Where [Alex Weisman] will be in five or 10 years, who knows. But he’s here now. Catch him while you can.”
—Barbara Vitello
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Chicago Reader
September 1, 2014
RECOMMENDED. “It’s so refreshing to see this TimeLine Theatre staging of Aaron Posner’s play … Director Kimberly Senior and company get the big things right as well. At once charming and relentless, Alex Weisman’s Asher has an on-the-spectrum way about him that convinces us beyond question of his inability to stop making art.”
—Tony Adler
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CBS2 Chicago
September 1, 2014
“If you like smart plays about creativity, then this is your show … An honest, whip smart production with a moving central performance from Alex Weisman.”
—Chris Jones
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WTTW Chicago Tonight
September 9, 2014
“Beautiful performance … It’s so intense.”
—Hedy Weiss
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TimeOut Chicago
September 8, 2014
3 STARS. “Kimberly Senior and her cast do well by the material they’re given. Senior adds an onstage trio of musicians to play an original score by Andrew Hansen, mixing styles from Yiddish folk to bebop, but otherwise the director keeps things unadorned. And [Alex] Weisman, though he interacts more with us than with the other characters onstage, displays a compelling leading-man presence. He’s slowly but surely making his name one to remember.“
—Kris Vire
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Windy City Times
September 3, 2014
RECOMMENDED. “Our hero’s origins may be parochial in the extreme, but his experience is that of every pilgrim forced to abandon home, community, family—every vestige of identity—to follow the call of the simultaneously “divine and demonic” creative power that art bestows upon disciples with the courage to receive it … The perceptions of the devout acolyte [are] portrayed with unflinching candor by Alex Weisman, while Danica Monroe and Lawrence Grimm acquit themselves in a diversity of roles.“
—Mary Shen Barnidge
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Chicago Theatre Review
August 31, 2014
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. “Everyone, especially younger audiences, will identify with Asher’s struggle to follow his dream and be true to himself. As Jacob Kahn tells Asher, “As an artist you are responsible to no one and to nothing except to yourself and to the truth, as you see it.” TimeLine’s artists do just that.”
—Colin Douglas
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Stage and Cinema
August 29, 2014
RECOMMENDED. “Aaron Posner’s successful, 90-minute stage adaptation, now a compelling Chicago premiere by the ever-excellent TimeLine Theatre Company, does rich justice to the title character’s crisis of conscience.”
—Lawrence Bommer
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Gaper's Block
September 2, 2014
“[Kimberly] Senior’s direction perfectly tunes the pace and timing of this stirring story and the three actors carry out their roles with emotional depth.”
—Nancy Bishop
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Around The Town Chicago
September 8, 2014
3 STARS. “Aaron Posner’s script maintains the novels compelling narrative arc and contains plenty of sharp and meaningful dialogue.”
—Lawrence Riordan
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The Fourth Walsh
August 29, 2014
RECOMMENDED. “A thought-provoking tribute to both the uncensored artist and religious traditions that must coexist.”
—Katy Walsh
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Chicago Stage Standard
September 1, 2014
RECOMMENDED. ” [Alex] Weisman holds the show well, with a subtlety and calm that is very unique. It makes the moments when his identity is in peril even more arresting by contrast…. The patience and love the show has for itself shines through, and is well worth seeing.
—Will Cameron
Features
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Talk Theatre in Chicago
September 1, 2014
In this Talk Theatre in Chicago podcast, Tom Williams talks with Alex Weisman, star of TimeLine Theatre’s My Name is Asher Lev, about the experiences of the play and performing in the title role.
—Tom Williams
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Chicago Jewish News
September 1, 2014
Pauline Dubkin Yearwoods talks with director Kimberly Senior and Artistic Director PJ Powers about the experience bringing My Name is Asher Lev to a Chicago stage.
—Pauline Dubkin Yearwoods
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Chicago Sun-Times
August 30, 2014
An interview with Artistic Director PJ Powers about My Name is Asher Lev and what’s next on the horizon for TimeLine Theatre.
—Sarah Terez-Rosenblum
Discussions & Events
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Sunday Scholars Series
Sunday, September 27 from 4:30 - 5:30 pm Read More
Photo by Lara Goetsch
Photo by Lara Goetsch
Photo by Lara Goetsch
Photo by Lara Goetsch
Photo by Lara Goetsch
Photo by Lara Goetsch