The Chutzpah! Festival returns November 1-10 with another vibrant lineup of music, theatre, comedy, dance, and multimedia arts performances showcasing exciting international artists through a multicultural Jewish lens.
For over two decades the Chutzpah! Festival has been a feature of Greater Vancouver’s arts season and once again welcomes artists to share their work on the stages of the festival’s hub at the Norman & Annette Rothstein Theatre at the JCC, as well as Vancouver venues the Scotiabank Dance Centre and The Pearl.
The 24th Annual Chutzpah! Festival will include concerts ranging from Klezmer to cabaret to roots music, innovative dance work, theatre, community-engaged storytelling, and hilarious comedy. As well as the entertaining performances, there will be informative and educational workshops, stimulating conversations, and opportunities to interact with creative artists.
In addition to featuring creators from across Canada, the Festival will also present artists from Ukraine, Austria, Israel, Germany, Australia, the UK, and the United States.
“Our Chutzpah! Festival team eagerly awaits welcoming audiences to take part in our shows and events,” says Jessica Mann Gutteridge, Artistic Managing Director. “Strengthening our community’s bonds through shared arts experience has been the central aim of Chutzpah! for over 20 years, and we are thrilled to present a diverse range of artists sharing their unique perspectives and talents. Taking place over ten days this November, Chutzpah! has carefully curated a lineup that exemplifies the range of Jewish artistic expression from across the world.”
Highlights of the The Chutzpah! Festival include:
- November 2 @ 7pm at The Pearl (19+ venue with limited seating)
Opening Weekend Event featuring; Kommuna Lux (Ukraine)
Presented in Partnership with Caravan World Rhythms
A festive evening of world music, bringing Ukrainian klezmer sensations Kommuna Lux to kick off the Chutzpah! opening weekend, with a rousing, danceable concert.
An award-winning music collective, Kommuna Lux performs in their own unique style, which they call “Odessa Urban Folk”, thrilling klezmer music and common gangster folk songs from their hometown, Odessa, and all Eastern Europe in spiced up arrangements.
- November 5 @ 7pm at Norman & Annette Rothstein Theatre
Yamma Ensemble (Israel)
“Yamma” means “toward the sea” in Hebrew. In Arabic it means “mother.” Since 2010, the five members of the Yamma Ensemble have made their mark sharing Hebrew and Jewish music with international audiences. With influences including ancient traditions, tribal singing, sacred and secular Jewish chants, the ensemble brings virtuosic Middle Eastern and world instrumentation on unique instruments such as the dudek, ney, shofar, bansuri, didgeridoo, fujara, kopuz, and oud.
November 4 th at 10am, Yamma Ensemble will also present an intergenerational matinee performance on, geared to school and senior’s groups. An optional workshop exploring Middle Eastern instruments and rhythms will be available following the performance.
- November 1 @ 7pm at Norman & Annette Rothstein Theatre
Jacob Samuel: Big Talk (Canada)
Vancouver’s very own Juno award-winning comedian, Jacob Samuel, returns to Chutzpah! to headline a lineup of hometown comedy featuring Sophia Johnson and Myles Anderson, hosted by Kyle Berger.
Known for his clever and insightful comedy, Jacob Samuel is an award-winning Canadian stand-up comic, cartoonist, and writer. He has made appearances on national television networks, including CBC, The Comedy Network, Crave, and CBC Gem. On radio, Jacob can be heard on Sirius XM and CBC’s “The Debaters.” In 2021, Jacob won the Juno Award for “Comedy Album of the Year” for his debut album Horse Power.
- November 4 @ 7pm at Norman & Annette Rothstein Theatre
Gimpel the Fool Returns to Poland (Canada/Israel)
A film by Nephesh Theatre, directed by Howard Rypp
Co-Presented with the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival
A treasure from the Yiddish literature, Nobel prize laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer ‘s frankness and courage to grapple with good and evil make his very specific world of pre-Holocaust Europe to be both accessible and universal. Israel’s award-winning theatre company, Nephesh Theatre, has been performing their stage adaptation of Singer’s “Gimpel the Fool” with a rich soundtrack of voices and klezmer music in a surrealistic theatrical presentation around the world for 18 years.
The film, by Nephesh Artistic Director Howard Rypp , co-presented by Chutzpah! with the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival, follows the show’s journey throughout different towns of Poland, while tracing Singer’s escape from the Holocaust, finally finding refuge in the USA.
- November 9 & 10 @ 7pm at Norman & Annette Rothstein Theatre
The Last Night at the Cabaret Yitesh (Canada/Germany/Austria/USA)
The Last Night at the Cabaret Yitesh (di letste nakht baym yitesh), an uproariously edgy show from celebrated Canadian Yiddishist, Michael Wex. Set in spring of 1938, the censor’s office has just advised the performers in Warsaw’s Yiddish-language “Cabaret Yitesh” that tonight’s show will be their last. With visas to leave the country and nothing left to lose, the performers decide to present material that the censors had already forbidden, along with the cabaret’s greatest hits and most famous skits.
This blend of Cabaret meets The Producers is held together by Wex’s acid-tongued MC wrangling an all-star international cast, including Shane Baker, Daniel Kahn, Regina Hopfgartner, Patrick Farrell, and Sasha Lurje, for an evening of cabaret songs from the ’30s, original comedy sketches, and Yiddish adaptations of international hits and vaudeville and drag classics. In Yiddish with English supertitles.
For the full 2024 Chutzpah! Festival program, show details and tickets visit chutzpahfestival.com
Single tickets for most of Chutzpah!’s live performances are $34 Students/Seniors & $40 Adults, Film Screening events and Digital Stream Performances are only $18 (+ gst/sc).
ChutzPacksfor 4 chosen showsare available for $118 Students/Seniors & $136 Adults.