Storahtelling, the theatrical group that takes biblical stories and turns them into avante garde and sometimes risqué performance pieces, will be merging with an as-yet-to-be named organization.
I’ll have more in the next week or so when the group makes its full plans public.
But this week, the organization vacated its midtown Manhattan offices and put its stuff in storage until it formally joins the mystery group that is located downtown.
Storahtelling, which has been one of the most successful and well-regarded of the new generation of Jewish organization, along with J-Dub Records and Heeb Magazine, will downsize in order to grow, its founder and executive director Amichai Lau-Lavie told The Fundermentalist Tuesday.
“This was a reaction to everything going on,” he said, referring to the recession. “We are tactically thinking globally about what we can do.”
In recent years, the organization has been working on becoming an organization focused on creating innovative Jewish curriculum and teaching methodologies, and this merger will hopefully allow it to do so by finding a place where it can regularly perform instead of traveling constantly, while working on its teaching practices.
“We are focusing on having one stable headquarters where we perform consistently,” Lau-Lavie said. “We are saving office costs by finding a partner. We will work smarter together and we are modeling what we think is a sustainable way of doing grass roots outreach.”
The organization, which has roughly a $600,000 budget, laid off two staff members.
Look for an “Adapting to the Recession” piece about this when I find out more in the next few days.
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