TOMORROW: "Funny Jews" course starts
Philip Roth; SNL's Jews; Funny Women; Norman Lear's Sitcoms
“Funny Jews” from The Broadway Maven starts tomorrow, Wednesday, May 6. This four-week course explores the contributions of American Jews to the world of humor:
• Philip Roth was one of the funniest American writers of the 20th century. His short stories (“The Conversion of the Jews”; “Eli, the Fanatic”) and novels (Portnoy’s Complaint; Sabbath’s Theater) contain some of the most incisive and hilarious scenes, symbols, and wordplay in the history of American literature. (May 6)
• Not only have Jews been important cast members, Jewish sketches have been among Saturday Night Live’s most hilarious. We’ll watch and discuss “The Chanukah Song”; “Jewess Jeans”; “Jacob the Bar Mitzvah Boy”; “Coffee Talk with Linda Richman”; and more. (May 13)
• Fanny Brice. Gilda Radner. Joan Rivers. Sarah Silverman. Need I say more? (May 20)
• Norman Lear created sitcoms in the 1970s like All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Good Times, and Maude that both tickled the funny bone of Americans and spurred political and social change. We’ll watch and discuss scenes related to racism, abortion, anti-Semitism, gun control, teen pregnancy, and more. (May 27)
Register: bitly.com/MavenFunny. Tuition for the four-part course is $25, no partial registrations, no exceptions, no refunds.