SPOTLIGHT ON Lipinsky Family San Diego Jewish Arts Festival Director
For Todd Salovey, being Orthodox isn’t so Unorthodox
By William Finn

This month, San Diegans can experience the 13th Annual Lipinsky Family San Diego Jewish Arts Festival, a four-week cultural extravaganza that features not only theater and dance, but comedy, klezmer, and cuisine. Reporter William Finn had a chance to sit down the festival’s director, Todd Salovey.

Like many young Jews, Todd Salovey was moved to became religious observant after spending a summer in Israel. Unlike other religious Jews, however, he had an MFA from the directing program at UCSD, and a job at the prestigious San Diego Repertory Theatre (REP).

How did your employers react when you told them that your commitment to living the “complete Jewish life” meant observing the Sabbath?

“At that time, the two directors were ex hippie, multi-cultural artists,” said Todd, now in his 16th season as the REP’s Associate Artistic Director. “Their attitude was that ‘This was just another culture’. They said fine. Because I was firm, and it doesn’t bend for me, they knew that I didn’t compromise in it, they respected it.”

Working on Friday nights and Saturday is de rigour in the performing arts. Doesn’t this present problems?

“It’s worked out fine. Rather than taking the day off on Monday, which is traditional, my off day is Saturday. I’ve directed at UCSD, and LA. People know the schedule gets adjusted when I direct. I miss opening nights, which are always on Friday, but I’m happy to do that, because I would rather be at home praying than sitting in a room with critics.”

Still, it’s hard to believe that the Orthodox lifestyle is compatible with the secular theater world.

“I thought that it would be impossible to be a theater director and to observe the Jewish Sabbath as well as the yom toven (holidays), not to mention going everyday to minyan (group prayers). But what I have learned is that what makes me distinct as a theater director is what makes me distinct as a person, and the vision that I bring on stage in every show is part and parcel to who as I am as a Jew.”

“When I started directing professionally, I remember thinking, ‘My life is so different from my audience. How will they possibly relate to the work that I am doing?’ I found that the things that I am interested in are very universal. The theater audiences in San Diego, and beyond, are craving a contact with things that are more meaningful.”

“To me it’s reality that people that we know have died. What was the meaning of their lives? What has become of them? Can we still have relationships with them? How has their life impacted my life? How am I connected to all these other people? To me these are all spiritual and highly practical questions that transcend culture.”

There seems to be a trend with Jews in the entertainment industry being upfront with their religion. I’m thinking of the popular singer, Matisyahu.

“So often Jews in performance have tried to make it by sounding like everyone else. By writing songs like White Christmas. I am convinced that the world wants us to be the light unto nations. When we work to figure out what’s unique about us as Jews, we have something really special to offer.

So your spirituality impacted your work.
“Reviewers talk about the spirituality in the non-Jewish plays that I am directing, not knowing anything about me.

I am interested in the theater as an expression of spirit, as a vehicle of awakening, as a poetic expression of the deeper resonances that are in our life.

When someone sees a play of mine, I want them to get in touch with something that goes beyond the surface.”

Does your spirituality impact your role as your the director of the Lipinsky Family San Diego Jewish Arts Festival?

“With Jewish art I bring joy, touch people, and bring nourishment to their neshamas (souls) that they get from so few experiences. There’s a sense of quiet and involvement, joy and enthusiasm. I’m awed by the way people in the audience soak in the shows with all of their heart; it’s everything a theater director wants to do.

This is the 13th year of the festival, our bar mitzvah! The Festival is my invitation to the Jewish Community to discover the REP, whichbrings people together from across many different communities to explore things that are universal, but sometimes unfamiliar. The Festival is a model of diversity. Being Jewish is not one thing. There are Russian, and Moroccan Jews. We eat different things, listen to different kinds of music, and talk about different things at the Sabbath table. All the colors and sounds and senses and the ideas combine to create something, which is what being Jewish now is.

I announce every show. My 12-year old daughter, Leah, announces some shows as well. Because it is at the REP which is not a Jewish venue, everyone feels comfortable going there. We bring a lot of affiliated and a lot of people who are not traditionally affiliated with the community to the REP for a Jewish experience. A good part of the festival happens on stage. A good part happens in the lobby.”
What’s new this year?

The Festival is a birthplace for new Jewish work. Work that has premiered in the Festival has played in regional theaters across the country, NY, Europe, and Israel.

This year there is a dance piece called “Fathom” for which The Jewish Culture and Creativity in LA has commissioned world-premiere music. Another is a play ‘Blessings of a Broken Heart’ which I adapted and directed.”

That’s about an Israeli woman whose son was murdered by terrorists.

“It’s such an inspirational story, because she took this tragedy and used it to transform her life into something it never could have been without it. I adapted her book which has lively and poetic language.
By sharing her story and healing, she’s influenced and impacted tens of thousands of people. She’s an artistic, hip, American, woman who’s wasn’t raised traditional, but decided that she could live a more spiritual, more Jewish and more meaningful life in Israel.

She asks questions that I ask in my life. Where does one live as a Jew? How do we connect with Israel? The play talks about how she grew up and about being a mother. It is important for the audience to understand that this is a person like us. She is not someone who is trying to live her life as a hero.

My first professional play was ‘The Dybbuk’. I liked it because it was unapologetically Jewish. What is the unapologetically Jewish story to tell now is ‘Blessing of the Broken Heart.’ This is the most important story that’s being written right now.”

The Festival also has the Klezmer Summit.
“The 6th annual Klezmer summit! Klezmer music is Jewish joy and Jewish challenge. For new people who love world music and jazz, who have not fallen in love with Klezmer yet, this is an opportunity to hear how it fits in with the contemporary music scene. For people who heard this music when growing up, they’ll be able to hear real kosher Klezmer. It’s a blending of the new and the old, making tradition relevant.”

Sounds like a description of the Festival as a whole.

“My responsibility as an artist is to reach audiences that aren’t being touched in synagogues or other ways. To find something that has the ability to light, or relight a spiritual spark. The theater should be a place of reawakening. There’s very little work that does that, and that’s what we have to create.”

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