She’s Got Matzo Balls

Have you always loved the play The Diary of Anne Frank but felt like it was missing something? Maybe a rubber chicken? A whoopee cushion? Hitler getting pie-in-the-face or Eva Braun tripping on a banana peel? Such was the thinking of performer Frannie Sheridan. Well, sort of. Raised Catholic, nine-year-old Frannie’s life turned upside down when her father let it slip that her family is actually Jewish. Because her dad narrowly escaped the Holocaust and was the victim of a horribly anti-Semitic act after fleeing to Canada, the Sheridans (or rather the Sigals) regarded their ancestry as a dangerous secret. But it was a discovery that made a lot of sense to Frannie. “It was kind of ridiculous because they were so obviously Jewish,” she recollects. “It was like an African American trying to pretend they’re Chinese-American.” And with that same sense of humor and a whole lot of bravado (her father initially threatened to sue), she penned Confessions of a Jewish Shiksa…Dancing on Hitler’s Grave!, a humorous, one-woman play in which Sheridan plays 18 different characters. In it, she covers her family’s history, survival, and acceptance.
Fridays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Starts: Jan. 7. Continues through Feb. 12, 2011