Meet MARRANO JUSTICE Playwright Joel Levin

From the Program:

MARRANO JUSTICE author Joel Levin is a successful lawyer, entrepreneur and academic from Cleveland, Ohio. He heads a small commercial law firm, Levin & Associates, which specializes in representing individuals and small businesses in contract disputes, commercial litigation, and securities matters. He also is the founder of Think-A-Move and Milicom, two allied software and hardware development companies which design and create specialized equipment for the military, medical and telephone sectors. Finally, Mr Levin has held professorships at various universities in the United States and Europe, and, since 1982, at Case Western Reserve, both in its Law School and its Department of Philosophy. He has taught courses in Philosophy of Law, European History, Jurisprudence, Ethics, Contract Theory, Russian Law, Professional Responsibility and a variety of other fields.
Mr Levin received his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Chicago, and also held the position of University Ombudsman under then President, and later Attorney General of the United States Edward Levi. He received his J.D. from Boston University, where he delivered the graduation address on structural flaws in legal logic. He attended Oxford University, obtaining his Doctorate in Law and Philosophy. His thesis, later published as a book on the structure of legal reasoning, analyzes such reasoning with that of semantics, philosophy of science and the theory of mathematics.
Mr Levin has written and lectured widely. He has authored three books: How Judges Reason, Revolution, Institutions and Law, and Tort Wars, as well as dozens of articles. He has lectured and published extensively both in law and philosophy, with occasional diversions into the fields of engineering, constitutional adjudication and human rights. He twice lived and taught in Russia, under State Department auspices, lecturing both students and judges on the principles of commercial law and legal theory. His latest work, MARRANO JUSTICE, a play about the life of Justice Benjamin Cardozo, illustrates the textured strands of reasoning Cardozo brought to the Supreme Court and to life from an older Greek and Sephardic tradition that offers new solutions to intractable problems.

Rehearsals for Marrano Justice Are Well Underway!

Canyon Moon Theatre of Sedona, Arizona, is proud to present the cast of Joel Levin's Marrano Justice, opening September 9, 2010 at 7:30pm.

The play stars Mark DeMichele in the role of Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo and features Robert Bays as Tomas Torquemada, Deon Johnson as Judge Irving Lehman, Craig Hartley as Judge Learned Hand, Michelle Lambeau as Nell Cardozo and Jamie Maletz at Kate.

Watch this space for updates!


From left to right: Mark DeMichele, Robert Bays, Jamie Maletz.

'LADY SUSAN' Production Team Taking Shape!

The Staff and Crew for Verde Valley Theatre's March 2010 production of Lady Susan will be joining the Cast this Thursday, December 17 for the first production meeting and read through.  We are delighted to have assembled some of the most talented managers, technicians and artists in the Verde Valley to help create the show:


Director Michelle Lambeau will be assisted by Danielle Bonfig. Co-producer Guy Darland will double as lighting designer (on top of playing the role of Charles Vernon).  Amy Bayless will be stage manager. Our set will be put together by photographer Kitson Southward, assisted by Madison Leavens. Props will be created and managed by Cathy Ransom, and Sarah Ann Lesslie has agreed to take charge of costumes and make-up. Clemie Cyburt will lend a hand with the sewing, and James Ball, already appearing as Sir James, will arrange and perform our show's music. Jesse Majewski, who will also appear as Mr Johnson, has agreed to design the graphics and program. Carla Armstrong will be our House Manager, and we hope to secure the assistance of  Rachel Rehborg and Jessica Summers to operate sound and lights.


There's going to be plenty to do, and we would love to have you involved if you can join us! Contact the director Michelle Lambeau at michellelambeau@gmail.com or co-producer Guy Darland at ghdarland@gmail.com to find out how!

Announcing VVT's March 2010 Production of 'LADY SUSAN' dramatized from a Jane Austen piece by Michelle Lambeau

We are so pleased  to announce that Verde Valley Theatre has decided to stage an original dramatization of a minor work by Jane Austen for its March 2010 production.

This production will be a first for VVT: A rehearsed reading of one of its members' original scripts. The staging will be contemporary: we will forgo the traditional sets of so many of our shows and rely on lighting and sound to engage the audience's imagination while keeping up a strong pace as the action unfolds. We will be inviting viewers' input to improve the script. And we will be running the show for one week only instead of the usual three.

Though never published during her lifetime, Jane Austen completed this her first novel when she was around 19 years old. It was a novel of letters, a common literary device back in the 18th century. Little is known about the circumstances surrounding the creation of the manuscript. Jane Austen never gave it a title, and it was not published until many years after her death--even then, over strenuous though unexplained objections by other family members. The publisher simply named it after the main character, Lady Susan, and it became a sensation among Jane Austen devotees, such as your humble blogger. Even so, it was never counted among her major literary accomplishments, and has been relegated heretofore to collections catagorized as 'minor works' or 'juvenilia.' Shame!

Lady Susan is the 19-year-old Jane Austen's recounting of the eponymous heroine's romantic rampages through the hearts of the men she ensnares with her charms--and the wretched women she leaves in her wake. We follow her exploits as she grapples with the challenge of securing enough money to survive along with her daughter in a society determined to hold women in check by keeping them forever at the financial mercy of their menfolk. The one way out is matrimony. And matrimony has been the grail of romantic female aspirations since the dawn of money. 

Even at this early age, Jane Austen offers us all the insight into the deepest darkest motivators of social discourse which keep her as essential to understanding the human heart today as she ever was two hundred plus years ago. And she presents her story with all the wit and elegance of language that ensures her generation after generation of appreciative fans.

It is my plan for this production that cast and crew be given an opportunity to deepen their knowledge of this extraordinary writer, her gifts and the society in which she lived. In terms of stagecraft, we shall try to gain a little familiarity with English accents and intonation. And actors will be encouraged to overcome the acoustical challenges of our Clarkdale Memorial Auditorium.

Reminder: Auditions are this Dec. 9 and 10, 7 pm, at the Clarkdale Grand Theatre, 919 Main Street, opposite the 10-12 Lounge and the Classic Car Gas Station. The show will run from March 4-7, 2010, only. There are still plenty of ways to get involved, on or off stage, so please come to the auditions to get all the information.

You may also email the director at michellelambeau@gmail.com, or call 928.282.4664.

Thank you!

Michelle Lambeau

Writer, Director

Things To Like About Edinburgh

Did I say how much fun the town is? Probably! A gem of Old Europe, the streets are for walkers, young, vibrant, sometimes thronging sometimes quiet, always something unexpected around the corner, endless shops, small to tiny, all offering different wares, tons of crafts by Scottish artisans from delightful, inexpensive souvenirs to astonishingly fine original jewelry, clothing, accessories and gifts of all kinds.

And there's more than the explosion of Starbucks to make an American feel at home: it has become quite the fashion for service and sales people to ask customers to have a nice day. What once seemed incongruous ('Yes, but they can't really mean it!'), is now quite commonplace. Nice!

And kudos also to England and Scotland (doubtless the rest of the country as well) for providing such ready access to fresh, healthy food. Nearly every grocery and drug-type store I visited had refrigerated displays of freshly prepared, individual portions of fruit, vegetables, small sandwiches, etc. Restaurants serve soft drinks in 6oz. bottles. You have the fun of drinking them, but don't take too much! In the several Boots and M&Ss I visited, the offerings of were much smaller. Worked for me!

Oh and if you eat out at a nice place, to wit, one providing cloth not paper napkins, be sure to let your waiter shake it out and place it on your lap for you. This is always done with a smile and appears to be a perk of the job.

London and Winchester

9-11 August 2009

Lovely London Town again. Yesterday, a good walk from Picadilly to Knightsbridge to vie for attention with the Saudi princesses at Harrods--yes, I did quite well, thank you. Then a tasty lunch of spicy lamb sausage at the Lebanese cafe where they clearly thought I was not plump enough: kept adding tiny tasty dishes to my table, with many desserts of phyllo dough, pistachios and honey dripping everywhere

What's a girl to do? It was delicious! Today Leicester Square and Covent Garden where I searched out the long overdue statue to the Oscar Wilde (always a hero of mine). He is rendered rising out of his grave for a cigarette and conversation with whomever sits on the bench next to him. Am proud to have contributed 5 pounds to the sculpture way back when.

Then a stroll up Shaftesbury Avenue--never get tired of the Wild West End. And now tea time. Sweet!

Now, I am hardly to blame if the London House of Caviar happens to be located a mere two blocks from where I'm staying! Perfect though the Arizona desert is, one doesn't often encounter sturgeon--or even other people who like them. So I can be forgiven I hope for stepping in and leaving with a tiny but costly jar of the stuff after a near three-year fast.

I slipped back to my lodgings, and thought how lovely it would be to share the delicacy with friends. Then I remembered I would not see them for another two whole days! Rather than slip into a decline--which might have proved fatal--I called for some lemon and an English muffin and, after a moment of silent acknowledgment of my lack of a mother-of-pearl spoon, I opened the precious jar and scoffed it right down!

It was delicious.

12 - 13 August 2009

Have left the city lights of London well behind me and am now ensconced in Philip and Diana's cozy 16th century thatched cottage in Hampshire (where hurricanes hardly happen!). Just back from a lovely walk through Jane Austen country and pleasantly awaiting the evening's first gin tonic...!

Just coming to after a much needed nap to round off that lovely lunch in ancient Winchester square, just a stone's throw away from where Jane Austen spent her final years. Perfect weather and now we gear up for the drive to Edinburgh tomorrow at the crack of dawn.