An 80 year old rabbi from Chestnut Hill, a Senegalese immigrant, a former Vietnamese refugee walk onto a stage
Six Philadelphia women, between ages 69 and 86, are telling their stories as part of a new theatrical production.
At 80 years old, Rabbi Sheila Pelz Weinberg has made countless speeches and sermons while also publishing books on spirituality, meditation, and her own life experiences. But this weekend, she’s trying something totally new: She’s telling her story onstage.
Weinberg is one of six women between ages 69 and 86 who star in the theatrical performance GrandWomen presented by Theater of Witness, a theater company based in Center City that creates plays from performers’ real-life testimonies.
Previous productions have spotlighted refugees, formerly incarcerated people, teens, survivors of abuse; GrandWomen focuses on the insights and wisdom of elderly Philadelphians with diverse backgrounds.
“This show was kind of a surprise event in my life,” said Weinberg, who lives in Chestnut Hill with her husband. “It’s not like I’ve never told my story … although it’s very different writing a book and then getting up there on stage.”
Onstage, Weinberg will deliver her story as if she’s speaking directly to her eldest granddaughter, who is 19 years old. Weinberg grew up in New York and later moved to Philadelphia in the 1970s and ‘80s, when she studied at Wyncote’s Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. After spending many years in Amherst, Mass., she returned to Philadelphia about 14 years ago to be closer to her children and grandchildren.
Before saying yes to Theater of Witness artistic director Teya Sepinuck, Weinberg sought her family’s permission — and they all encouraged her.
Joining Weinberg onstage this weekend are Tiguida Kaba, a Senegalese immigrant who founded the African Family Health Organization; Judith Palmer, a lesbian singer and composer with the Anna Cruisis Feminist Choir; Kim Nguyen, a former refugee from Vietnam who served on the NJ Council on the Arts; Hilda Campbell, a poet, carpenter, and minister who lost her grandson to gun violence; and Regina Coyne, a retired defense attorney.
For GrandWomen, Sepinuck spent a few hours interviewing each participant and then developing a script based on their personal stories, which incorporates film, music, and choreography.
For Weinberg, the challenge wasn’t stage fright, though she has occasionally felt nervous before speaking at the pulpit. The hardest part was memorizing the script, after so many years of delivering sermons and talks spontaneously, or with notes nearby.
“Getting up in front of people is not unusual, but in this context it really feels different,” she said. “With the other women … I have developed this connection that’s amazing. I never would have met any of them, likely. We just have a lot of warmth towards each other, and humor, and compassion.”
Writer/director Sepinuck has said that she wants this production to serve as “an antidote to these times” and “a communal prayer for peace.”
In recent years, Weinberg said she has leaned into her activism through working with American Friends of Combatants for Peace, a group supporting Palestinians and Israelis rooted in nonviolence resistance.
“[They] are former Israeli soldiers and former Palestinian fighters that are working for ending the occupation, and they’re amazing people. They found each other, and they see each other in profound ways,” she says.
Their example inspires her work. “There are amazing peacemakers, and we’ve met them, and that’s my [goal], whatever I can do to let people know about that possibility.”
In the show too, she calls for compassion and deep listening. One of her most memorable lines, she said, is a call for change: “They know that reacting to violence with violence is not the answer.”
In “times of war and hatred and deception,” she said, GrandWomen seeks to amplify “truth and kindness” today, and in the days to come.
‘GrandWomen’ runs June 11-13 at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre, 480 S Broad St., Philadelphia, 215-985-0420 or theaterofwitness.org.
