LATEST NEWS:
Dov and Ali is currently running at Theatre 503 in London until July 5, 2008!
***** Whats On Stage
There are a lot of intelligent things to be said about Anna Ziegler’s Dov and Ali, after all, it is a play which faces up to burning issues that are relevant to us all, but there is really only one thing that needs to be said. Go and see it.
Ziegler tackles powerful issues with a gentle human perspective...Dov and Ali is a powerhouse play that drives its way through an hour and a half of twists and turns about race, individuality, human relations and role models...essentially this fearless piece of theatre pulls no punches. There is a resounding truth that pours out of it in all directions, flowing freely from the writing, the set design, the acting, and the directing, and yet Dov and Ali doesn’t preach. There are no answers offered, there are no morals proffered, but when theatre is this good, it reminds you how essential it is.
In an American tradition of plays such as Oleanna and Spinning into Butter, Anna Ziegler's four-hander is an intense, intelligent and hugely promising play that plays out clashes of belief systems in the classroom. -- Lyn Gardner, The Guardian
The Telegraph
Making way for the previews season is Dov and Ali, Anna Ziegler's gripping new play about a placatory Jewish teacher and a viciously intense Muslim pupil in a Detroit school, both of whom have similarly divided cultural loyalties. I've seen it and it's beautifully wrought - with fine performances from James Floyd as the fierce, uncompromising Ali and Ben Turner as the perplexed prof, quietly agonising over his gentile partner's eligibility.
Other Dov and Ali reviews:
http://www.musicomh.com/theatre/dov_0608.htm
http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/dova-rev.htm
Review excerpts from previous productions:
On Photograph 51 (February, 2008)
DC Theatre Scene:
What Anna Ziegler has accomplished with this fast-paced and highly accomplished script must be seen to be appreciated. She juggles an amazing number of issues and handles them effectively in layers, whether it's clashing personalities, yearning for companionship and acceptance, deeply rooted self-esteem issues, or fear of failure. Ziegler has a steady hand and a sure heart in covering all the bases without glossing over the basic (hard) science.
The New Yorker on BFF (February, 2007):
Anna Ziegler’s tenderly chiaroscuro play about adolescence is an unmitigated pleasure. Playing best friends—Eliza and Lauren—Laura Heisler and Sasha Eden are radiantly real, capturing the easy affection and hurt of teen-age friendship. Sex and cruelty intrude on their idyll, and Lauren’s eager experiments with boys drive Eliza deeper into her own shell. Structurally, the play swims back and forth through time, bridging past and present. In the latter sequences, the adult Lauren meets Seth (Jeremy Webb), a sensitive young banker, but she finds herself unable to open her heart—filled as it is with mourning for the girl she couldn’t save. Ziegler’s writing is rueful, frank, and fresh; her insights into young womanhood feel earned and authentic.
Backstage.com:
Anna Ziegler has created a play about friendship and early love that seems newly minted. Hers is a voice that is youthfully authentic, with a freshness that is pleasing to listen to. While she writes of three befogged young people struggling to find their way in the world, Ziegler is crisply clear-headed, knowing precisely where the play is going. The enterprising Women's Expressive Theater -- WET for short -- has again introduced us to a female playwright of surprising professional polish...As one of the trio comments: "We're on the edge of our lives" -- an applicable observation here for playwright and performers, all for whom palpable promise hangs in the air.
NYTheatre.com:
[BFF] shimmers with lyricism, gentle wit, and a good deal of wisdom...when it comes to the playwright's ability to evoke adolescence, that twilight zone of our lives when everything that we feel is felt so deeply and unwaveringly....Anna Ziegler has few peers in writing about that time and those feelings.
More...
"it's successes are achievements in subtlety...Masterful...Both acting and writing are raw, without any showiness to cheapen the harsh, true pain created by people unaware of the damage they're doing." - Variety
"the playwright has a gift for incisive characterizations and realistic dialogue, while the actors, under the sensitive direction of Josh Hecht, deliver highly appealing performances. " - The New York Post
"emotionally engaging...hilariously on target...surprising and devastating" – CurtainUp
"The play resonates with honesty and insight..." - Talkin' Broadway
"The plot of..."BFF" hangs on a compelling psychological mystery that deepens as the play progresses, and ends with a genuinely gasp-inducing moment that raises the stakes of everything that came before." -- New York Sun