The TJT Ensemble: Biographies

Aaron Davidman (Artistic Director) is  an actor, writer and director. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan and received his formal theatrical training at Carnegie Mellon University. He is a recent recipient of the New Generations Fellowship from Theatre Communications Group.  Aaron has worked with ATJT since 1997 where he originated the role of Momik Newman in Corey Fischer’s Kennedy Center award winning play See Under: Love; co-wrote and performed in the critically acclaimed God’s Donkey: A Play on Moses; and was seen in the title role of David Schulner’s Isaac and in the revival of ATJT’s internationally acclaimed Berlin, Jerusalem, and the Moon. Other acting credits include work with the California and Utah Shakespeare Festivals. Directing credits include the original works The Golden Bird,  which he also co-wrote, The Chosen by Chaim Potok and Blood Relative, an international collaboration about the Middle-East, which he conceived and co-wrote, all at A Traveling Jewish Theatre. Other directing credits include projects at theatres in the Bay Area and in New York, most recently, Shotgun Players' Dream House in Lorin a community-based exploration of the life of a South Berkeley neighborhood.  As a playwright, he has collaborated with Israeli playwright, Ro'i Rashkes on Moving, to be performed in both Hebrew and English.

Corey Fischer  (Founding Member) is an actor, writer and director who has been creating and performing theatre for over thirty-five years. In 1978, with Albert Greenberg and Naomi Newman, he co-founded A Traveling Jewish Theatre and still serves the company as writer, actor and director.  He has collaborated on dozens of works for ATJT. His one man show, Sometimes We Need a Story More Than Food was voted one of the ten best productions of 1993 by the Los Angeles Times and won a Marin county playwriting fellowship. In 1999 he received a Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays award for his play, See Under: Love.  In 2000, the San Francisco Bay Guardian voted him one of the year’s best directors for God’s Donkey, an original ATJT production.  In 2001, See Under: Love was listed as one of the year’s ten best plays by the San Francisco Chronicle and was nominated by the Association of American Drama Critics as one of the year’s best plays. Fischer's other TJT directing credits include Opening to You (2002), based on Norman Fischer's new translations of the Psalms and Moonwatcher (2002, 2003) both of which he co-wrote. In 2004 he directed Bruce Myer's two-actor adaptation of The Dybbuk, which he performed in two earlier TJT productions.  Bewteen 1999 and 2006, Corey performed in TJT's trilogy of "word for word" inspired productions of stories by Grace Paley,  Bernard Malamud and others.  The 2006 production in this style featured him as Pinye Saltzman, Malamud's archetypal Jewish Trickster-Shlemiel in The Magic Barrel.  Corey also  writes fiction and non-fiction and is an avid scuba diver and underwater photographer. Before the founding of ATJT, he worked in film, television and the theatre with, among others, Robert Altman, Joseph Chaikin and The Committee. He is married to writer China Galland.  For more information and to download selected writings by Corey, visit www.coreyhome.net

Naomi Newman, (Founding Member)  is a singer, actress, writer and director.  Naomi co-authored and directed ATJT’s first three ensemble pieces (Coming from a Great Distance, A Dance of Exile, and The Last Yiddish Poet). With the company’s fourth piece, Berlin, Jerusalem and the Moon, she returned to performing. In the early 70’s, she was director of two important improvisational theatre companies in Los Angeles. Naomi co-created and performed in  Crossing the Broken Bridge, a collaborative theatre piece on Jewish/Black relations created with John O’Neal of Junebug Productions.  She has also written and performed three acclaimed solo pieces:  Snake Talk: Urgent Messages from the Mother, Old, Jewish and Queer and Fall Down Get Up.  She directed Corey Fischer's See Under: Love, the 1998 revival of Berlin, Jerusalem, and the Moon, Cherry Docs by David Gow,  conceived and directed, Come My Beloved, based on the Song of Songs, and has acted in many other TJT productions.  Naomi's play, Torn Ribbons is being developed in workshop readings in San Francisco and New York, sponsored by the Magic Theatre, the Z Space and TJT and, in New York, by the Actors' Studio.

Sara T. Schwartz (Executive Director) joined Traveling Jewish Theatre in March 2003. She moved to San Francisco from Toronto where she worked as Director of Marketing for Artsmarketing Services Inc., a direct marketing firm. Prior to that position, she worked at Canada's National Arts Centre where she raised and oversaw the $1.2 million Annual Fund. Sara has an Honors Bachelor of Journalism and Communications. Theatre has been a part of Sara’s life since her arrival in this world. She has directed three large-scale musical productions and choreographed six. She is also the founder and former Executive Director of Creative Juices, an arts camp and after-school program. Sara produced and directed The Calling, a film documentary on the topic of religion in a secular society and has created several other short documentaries.