arts & culture
Between a Rock and a Flooding Place:
Area Playwright Details Upcoming Show
I SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER
t makes perfect sense, if you don’t
think too hard about it, that the son
of a part-time clown would go on to
write a play about a magic rock.

For Philadelphia-born Jewish play-
wright Dan Kitrosser, growing up play-
ing Monsier Dumb Bobo — the assistant
to his father Juggles the Clown and
brother Noodles in the family “Bagel
and Cream Cheese Circus” — laid the
groundwork for the need to pretend.

Playing make-believe in his Mt. Airy
home eventually evolved into Kitrosser,
38, becoming a full-time playwright, mak-
ing a career in New York and Portland,
Oregon, and returning to Philadelphia
with his husband this past spring.

Kitrosser’s newest play and Philadelphia
homecoming, “Hannah + Th e Healing
Stone,” showing Aug. 18-28 at Th e Drake,
aims to capture the whimsy of his child-
hood theatrical roots while grappling with
what it means to be human in relationship
with others today. Th e play is presented by
the terraNOVA Collective.

Set in a fi ctionalized Jenkintown,
“Hannah + Th e Healing Stone” begins
with a Martin’s Aquarium employee who
is asked to deliver a goldfi sh to an old “put-
tering” shut-in. Th e man stumbles across a
stone with magical properties: If you hold
onto it, think hard about what upsets you
and let the stone go, you will be healed.

Only the man, holding onto grief, pain
and toxic masculinity, refuses to let go of
the stone.

Meanwhile, the old putterer turns into
a goldfi sh with the ability to grant wishes;
a fi lm crew comes to Jenkintown to shoot
a fi lm; and the town begins to fl ood, with
resident Hannah, “the girl who always
wanted to leave town but couldn’t,” the
only person able to set things right.

Th e play, overfl owing with absurdity,
has unconventional origins, but it is ulti-
mately rooted in today’s zeitgeist.

In 2019, Kitrosser’s husband Jordan
Siegel (who also plays the neurotic fi lm
director in the show), rattled off fi ve ran-
dom objects to Kitrosser, who needed an
idea for the opening scene of a play.

“Th at’s kind of why the play kind of
lives in a Jungian, dreamlike state because
I was just sort of doing some automatic
24 writing,” Kitrosser said. “So it was almost
like an exercise that turned into a play.”
For most of the play’s early existence,
it did not have a proper ending, drop-
ping off at the end with an unsatisfying
conclusion. Aft er the pandemic began, Kitrosser
changed the ending. Th e real-life story
about the importance of community in
sustaining one another, even in times of
grief and uncertainty, suddenly meshed
with the fi ctional story about the reluc-
tance to let go of pain and grief for fear of
a similar uncertainty.

“Without the pandemic, I would not
have had the space and the understand-
ing of what this play was teaching me,”
Kitrosser said.

It’s befi tting that “Hannah + Th e Healing
Stone” is making an extended appearance
— having debuted in Portland last year —
in Kitrosser’s hometown, with heavy cre-
ative input from his husband and longtime
collaborator and director Kyle Metzger.

Creating strong emotional themes in
the show was only one challenge of the
show; creating a dynamic set in which
the characters live was another. Metzger,
Dan Kitrosser (left) at a rehearsal of
“Hannah + The Healing Stone”
who met Kitrosser during their early
careers in New York, was tasked with
representing a fl ooding town and bring-
ing a goldfi sh to life. “Hannah + Th e
Healing Stone” incorporates puppetry,
dioramic sets, screens and a rich sound-
scape to immerse the audience into a
waterlogged and magical Jenkintown.

Th e show’s visual eff ects also have the
pandemic to thank, with Zoom theater
creating innovative ways to incorporate
technology into productions.

AUGUST 4, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
“Th e live video component and the
projection is very much an eff ort to bring
in some of the tools and the toys that
we created during the pandemic era
from digital theater back onto the stage,”
Metzger said.

But “Hannah + Th e Healing Stone”
hits close to Kitrosser’s self-proclaimed
“very gay and very Jewish” roots.

Kitrosser attended Solomon Schechter
Day School and Akiba Hebrew Academy
and grew up indoctrinated into Jewish
comedy by his father, who put on old
recordings of Borscht Belt comedians.

Th ough many of the characters in
the show are queer, Kitrosser adds his
Judaism into the show more judiciously.

“Hannah + Th e Healing Stone” cap-
tures the same frenetic, anxious energy
common in Jewish life and common in
the traits of Kitrosser’s own family. It’s his
own experiences, upbringing and personal
touch that breathes life into the show.

“Th e great thing about Jewish comedy
is that it lives right on the edge of danger,
right on the edge of, ‘If we don’t do this,
it will all fall apart,’” Kitrosser said. “Even
though [the play] is not about yeshiva, it’s
Jewish.” JE
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com



obituaries
Jewish Community Leader
Ruth Magil Perry Dies at 88
JARRAD SAFFREN | STAFF WRITER
R uth Magil Perry, a Jewish com-
munity leader known for her
40-plus years of service to orga-
nizations like the Jewish Th eological
Seminary and the American Jewish
Congress, died on July 21 at her
Jenkintown home. She was 88.

According to family members, Magil
Perry served the Jewish community in
Philadelphia and New York City in paid
and volunteer positions. She also was
a fundraiser, speaker and offi cer for
Temple Sinai in Philadelphia, the United
Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and
the Camp Ramah Commission, among
others. But they said she was proudest
of her two elected terms at the helm of
the Women’s League for Conservative
Judaism, which represented more than
200,000 sisterhood members.

Th rough her advocacy, Magil Perry
ended up dining with the father of
modern Israel, David Ben-Gurion, and
sharing cigarettes with the mother of
modern Israel, Golda Meir. Th e former
homemaker was driven by a core belief,
according to her son Daniel Perry.

“Th e world should have Jews,” he
said. “She always felt that there was a
certain moral obligation to do the right
thing and teach those ethics and pass
them on.”
Magil Perry is survived by her
children Dan (Jennifer Haskell) and
Stephanie Perry (Ronan McGrath), as
well as her three grandchildren. And her
descendants have vivid memories of the
Jewish home that she created with her
husband of 50 years, M. Milton Perry.

On Shabbat, the matriarch welcomed
a house full of people. She cooked
chicken soup, matzah balls, roast
chicken, challah and “the best chopped
liver ever,” Dan Perry said. If she had 18
guests, she would make chopped liver
for 18. Her children were not allowed to
miss it even when they got older, though
they could bring friends.

One of Dan Perry’s best friends from
growing up in the Philadelphia public
schools, Benjamin Th ompson, was not
Jewish. But he came over for Shabbat
dinner every Friday night between the
Ruth Magil Perry
Courtesy of the Perry family
ages of fi ve and 15.

“We dubbed him the Shabbos queen,”
Dan Perry said. “Mom would go all out.”
Magil Perry’s rule about making
enough food extended to all Jewish hol-
idays, her son explained. It also applied
whether the food was brisket or chicken
or turkey.

And in her preparations for meals,
Magil Perry made sure to involve fi rst
her children and then her grandchil-
dren. Th e family did not stop at the
biggest celebrations, either. On Sukkot,
they built a sukkah every year. On
Simchat Torah, “we went all out,” Dan
Perry said. For Chanukah, Magil Perry
even took a page out of the Christmas
playbook and decorated her house in
color, with blue, silver and white replac-
ing Christmas red and green.

Stephanie Perry recalled that, if a
guest was invited in one time, he or she
would inevitably be invited back. Aft er
the children left for college, their friends
kept stopping by to say hi to their mom.

“Th ere was always an assortment of
people,” Stephanie Perry remembered.

“She took Jewish family living seriously.”
Joel Beaver, who served on the board
of the AJC during Magil Perry’s tenure
as director, used to go to the Perry house
for Th anksgiving dinner, Passover
seders and Rosh Hashanah dinner.

“I became an unofficial mem-
ber of their family,” he said. “She
was very knowledgeable about
Judaism. Dedicated.”
Magil Perry was the daughter of a
rabbi: Reuben J. Magil, the spiritual
leader of Harrisburg’s Jewish commu-
nity in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s. Magil
was a man with “unbelievable curiosity,”
Dan Perry said. He had three doctor-
ate degrees and spoke 10 languages.

Th e grandson remembers visiting his
grandpa’s Harrisburg home and seeing
newspapers in every language all over
the place.

Magil Perry worshipped her father. As
Dan Perry put it, they were “amazingly
close, on the same page and of the same
mind.” Th e daughter grew up to become
the valedictorian of her high school
and a University of Pennsylvania grad-
uate. She also carried her father’s Jewish
traditions, of observing the Sabbath,
attending shul and celebrating all of the
holidays, outside of his home.

“You are Jewish, and this is what we
do as Jews,” Dan Perry explained of his
mother’s philosophy.

When Ruth met Milt Perry, the
6-foot-2 football player and bodybuilder
with movie star looks was acceptable to
her father for one reason.

“He had a bar mitzvah in Atlantic
City,” Dan Perry said.

For a while aft er they got married,
though, Milt Perry worked in the paper
business and Magil Perry made their
Jewish home. But aft er seven or eight
years, she became president of the sis-
terhood at her synagogue, Temple Sinai,
in the early 1960s.

“Th at gave her a taste of, ‘Hey, I can be
a leader,’” Dan Perry said. JE
jsaff ren@midatlanticmedia.com
Complimentary Financial Planning Consultation
Due to the ongoing pandemic, I am offering
virtual financial planning. It will be just you
and me in on a Zoom call.

We'll spend one hour discussing any financial
issues, questions, and concerns that matter
to you.

Services • Portfolio management
• Financial planning
• Goal setting & Prioritization
• Portfolio reviews/Second opinions
• Wealth management
• Distribution strategies
• Estate planning
• Retirement planning
• One-on-One Financial Advice
• Private and Confidential
• No Strings Attached
• No Obligations
Matthew A. Ramos, CFP®
Founder MAR Financial Planning, LLC
p: 267.225.7685
Matt@MARFP.com | www.MARFP.com
Straightforward financial planning for everyone™
To schedule a meeting, please email me (Matt@MARFP.com) or call/text me (267.225.7685).

JEWISHEXPONENT.COM 25