The Gesher Theater production
Gesher Theater to receive honorary doctorate
For first time in Israeli history, Bar Ilan University to award honorary degree to a theatre
Bar Ilan University has announced it will award Gesher Theater with an honorary doctorate degree. It is the first time an Israeli university has awarded a degree to a theatrical institution. The theater’s artistic director and founder, director Yevgeny Arye, will accept the degree, representing the many actors, playwrights, members of the technical crew and the management.
“The decision to award the degree to the staff at Gesher was taken because of their success in founding an important, top-quality and intriguing center of artistic performance of Israeli and international plays, as well as their serving as a bridge between the theatrical culture of immigrants from the former Soviet Union and the local theater scene,” according to the press release issued by the president of the university, Prof. Moshe Kaveh. Kaveh also praised the Jaffa-based theater for its accomplishments in preserving the connection between new immigrants and long-time residents of the State of Israel.
Gesher Theater has been operating since April of 1991. A troupe of actors, unknown at the time, followed director Arye. In its early days, the group presented an innovative interpretation of Tom Stoppard’s play “Rosenkratz and Guildenstern are Dead” in Russian. The crowd’s reaction was overwhelming, critics praised it, and the impressive premiere was both an official kickoff and a sign of things to come.
Russian to Hebrew
From a principally Russian-speaking theater, Gesher has become a Sabra theater. Today, most of Gesher's plays are in Hebrew and a sizeable number of young Israeli actors recently joined the lineup.
In its 15 years of operation, Gesher Theater succeeded in securing its status as one of the country's leading theaters in Israel, and has staged an extensive list of plays by the best playwrights in Israel and the world. These include “The Dreyfus Trial”, “Man, son of Dog”, “Tartif”, “Village”, “City”, “Three Sisters”, “Don Juan”, “The Devil in Moscow”, “The Slave”, “Shosha”, “Medea” and “Momik”, among others. The honorary degree will be awarded to Gesher Theater during the 51st session of the board of trustees’ events on June 4-8.
