J*Company Youth Theatre Channels Its Inner Babs

The J*Company Youth Theatre will play tribute to Barbra Streisand this fall. Its 2012-13 season consists of Funny Girl, Yentl, Gypsy and Hello, Dolly! All shows will be performed at the David & Dorothea Garfield Theatre at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center in La Jolla.

“She’s basically the patron saint of musical theater to many of us,” said J*Company Artistic Director Joey Landwehr in an announcement. “Even though we are an inclusive theatre company for all youth; her Jewishness and the Jewish themes in each production make it a natural fit for our company of young performers. I’m excited to introduce this huge talent (acting, singing, directing) to the next generation of young theatre makers.”

J*Company provided these synopses:

FUNNY GIRL – Oct. 20-28

A gawky New Yawker, Brice, fast-talks her way into show business, certain that she's destined to be "the greatest star." Hired as a dramatic singer by impresario Flo Ziegfeld, Brice defies orders to play it straight, turning a beautiful bride tableau into a laugh riot. The stratagem turns Brice into an overnight star and the toast of Broadway. But all is not roses for Brice, especially in her turbulent private life as the wife of big-time gambler Nicky Arnstein. Nicky at first finds it amusing to be referred to as Mr. Brice, but he begins to resent his wife's fame and fortune.

YENTL – Dec. 8-16

In a time when the world of study belonged only to men, there lived a girl who dared to ask why. Yentl is the boyishly klutzy daughter and only child of long widowed Rebbe Mendel, who is a teacher to local boys and secretly to Yentl. When her father dies, Yentl is all alone in the world. She takes the momentous decision to leave the village (disguised as a boy and calling herself by the name of her late brother, Anshel) to seek and get admitted to a Yeshiva to study the Torah. She befriends Avigdor, who is engaged to Haddas, but her family discovers negative things about his past, so they call off the wedding. Anshel then finds himself in the awkward position of being called into service as substitute bridegroom, so that the wedding can go ahead. After numerous complications the story ends with everybody getting what they always wanted.

GYPSY – A Musical Fable – March 1-17, 2013

While the title suggests that this musical is about the famous queen of the stage Gypsy Rose Lee, it is really about her hard-driven, determined stage mother Mama Rose. In the beginning, Rose concentrates on her talented younger daughter, June, leaving the older, less talented Louise in the cold. When June tires of being cute and runs away, Rose turns to Louise instead. Louise eventually does become Gypsy and Rose is left by herself; her aspirations for her kids realized, but her own show-business aspirations still unrealized.

HELLO, DOLLY! – May 3-12, 2013

Dolly Levi, a modern matchmaker who merrily arranges things, takes a trip to Yonkers to see the well-known unmarried half-a-millionaire, Horace Vandergelder. She convinces him and his two stock clerks, Barnaby and Cornelius, as well as his niece and her beau to go to New York City where she proceeds to weave a web of romantic complications. As she fixes Vandergelder's clerks up with the woman he had been courting and her shop assistant we find out why Dolly has designs of her own on Mr. Vandergelder.

For tickets call the JCC Box Office at 858-362-1348 or visit sdcjc.org/jcompany online.