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Ayelet (Roneet Aliza Rahamim) discovers a surprising connection with Josh (Max Tachis) in Handle With Care. Show photos taken by Susan Mah Photography.

A companion guide to Handle With Care By Jason Odell Williams, with Hebrew by Charlotte Cohn Synopsis

Magic can happen anywhere—can't it? In this comedy about love, nostalgia, cross-cultural communication, and the importance of GPS tracking devices, a young Israeli woman with little command of English and a young American man with little command of romance are brought together on Christmas Eve under the most bizarre circumstances. Is it chance or destiny? Or the perfect Jewish Christmas story?

The cast of Handle With Care, from left: Ayelet (Roneet Aliza Rahamim), Josh (Max Tachis), Edna (Roberta J. Morris), and Terrence (Jeremy Ryan).

Characters

In his script, playwright Jason Odell Williams describes his characters this way:

Ayelet: Female. Thirties. Israeli. Beautiful, lovely, but has lost her smile. Wounded by a break-up last year, but not quick to cry. Practical. Focused. Searching for more from life but afraid to admit it.

Josh: Male. Thirties. American. Handsome. Has an innate charming-shy-funny way about him. Tends to talk quickly, words tumbling out when he’s nervous. Used to be an English Lit teacher at Virginia Tech, but quit after his wife died. Though wounded by his loss, he doesn’t like to dwell on the emotion and never becomes overly weepy when talking about her.

Edna: Female. Mid- to late seventies. Israeli. Ayelet’s grandmother. Loves life. Loves to smile. A ball of vitality, vigor, and energy.

Terrence: Male. Thirties. American. Virginia accent. Works as a delivery guy for DHX. Kind of a screw-up, but very well- meaning. Not an idiot, just not worldly. A solid good-guy. Funny without meaning to be.

Roneet Aliza Rahamim and Jeremy Ryan in Handle With Care.

The creators and backstory of Handle With Care

Handle With Care didn't start out as a holiday play. In fact, it was first performed in July. The comedy had its world premiere at the Kitchen Theatre Company in Ithaca, New York, in 2011, right in the middle of the summer. (Originally, it was called At a Loss, which makes sense considering that the characters of Ayelet and Josh meet because a delivery service has lost an important—crucially important—item.)

At the time of the Ithaca premiere, the writers had no idea that the romantic comedy Handle With Care would become a popular alternative holiday offering for theaters who were tired of the usual scripts. Their goal was to tell a story about communication and human connection.

For playwright Jason Odell Williams, who had started out as an actor, Handle With Care was his first full-length play. He specifically created Ayelet as a role for his wife, Charlotte Cohn.

Charlotte recalls that when Jason asked her what kind of part she dreamed of playing, she said, "I'd like to not be able to speak at all, or to be misunderstood.”

Why? Charlotte has always been fascinated with language, especially since she speaks more than one. A native of Denmark, she grew up in Israel, and the couple now lives in New York with their daughter, Imogen. Charlotte’s experienced many a culture clash and language barrier. "When they get in the way, how do people communicate?" she says. "What do human beings use in order to communicate with each other when language is not there to serve them?” Jason Odell Williams. After Jason finished Handle With Care, Charlotte came in to write Ayelet’s Hebrew lines. They found the experience so rewarding that they continued collaborating as writers. In November 2015, they premiered a new play they had written together, Someone Else, at the North Carolina Stage Company. Charlotte starred in this story of a marriage hitting some unusual mid-life bumps.

Being collaborators as well as spouses has worked surprisingly well, Jason said. "When you're with somebody else, you've always got to be careful with your words," he said, but with his spouse "there's no ego. It's just about 'make it better, make it cleaner, make it funnier, make it sharper.’"

Handle With Care has now been performed in 19 regional theaters, including a Charlotte Cohn. much-praised 2013 production Off-Broadway. The New York Times chose the production as a critics' pic, calling it "hilarious and heartwarming." While playing Ayelet, Charlotte had the thrill of performing with Carol Lawrence as Edna. A Broadway veteran, Carol was the original Maria in .

"She was so much fun," Charlotte recalls. "I almost started a blog with all the stories she would tell me at half-hour before the play every day. I heard every story about West Side Story and what that was like. We even had a night where we did a sort of reunion of all the surviving West Side Story cast members.”

That night, when Charlotte performed in Handle With Care, she got one of the thrills of her life: Chita Rivera gave her a standing ovation. "I couldn't believe it," Charlotte said, laughing. "If you had told me, when I was a little Orthodox Jewish girl growing up in Jerusalem, that one day this would be my life, that Chita Rivera would give me a standing ovation while I'm on stage with Carol Lawrence, I would be like, 'Nope, you are incorrect.' It was pretty incredible."

Jason Odell Williams and Charlotte Cohn spoke with City Lights' Rebecca Wallace via the magic of conference calls: he was in New York and she was in Asheville, North Carolina.

The couple met in grad school for acting before Jason pursued a career in writing, which has included his novel Personal Statement and writing and producing for the National Geographic TV series Brain Games. Charlotte’s long performing career has included La Boheme and Coram Boy on Broadway, and Happy End at A.C.T. in San Francisco.

To hear the full interview, go to bit.ly/hwc_podcast.

A moment with Carol Lawrence

Here we must pause to pay tribute to the great Carol Lawrence, singer, dancer, autobiographer, cookbook author, television guest star and thespian extraordinaire. Besides originating the role of Maria in West Side Story in 1957 and earning a Tony Award nomination, she has performed in many other Broadway shows, including I Do! I Do! and Kiss of the Spider Woman. She’s also starred in productions around the country, including , , Sweet Charity, and .

Were you watching General Hospital in 1992-93? She was playing the matriarch Angela Eckart. Carol has also guested on such TV shows as Rawhide, The Fugitive, Hawaii 5-0, Saved by the Bell, Murder She Wrote and Sex and the City.

In addition, Carol wrote the cookbook I Remember Pasta and hosted Chef du Jour on the Food Network, along with publishing her autobiography. She drew on her Italian heritage, mixing culinary advice with warm remembrances.

In 2013, when she starred as Edna in Handle With Care, she delighted audiences once more.

They included New York Times reviewer Anita Gates, who wrote in an enthusiastic review: “A remarkable 56 years after her star-making Broadway role as Maria in “West Side Story,” she still has the cheekbones, the smile and the eager charm. And we cherish her character’s belief in true love.”

Pictured: Above left: Carol Lawrence in a scene from General Electric Theater, an anthology television series that ran from 1953 to 1962. Below left: Charlotte Cohn and Carol Lawrence in Handle With Care at the Westside Theater in New York in 2013. Photo by Russ Rowland. The other real-life couple behind this rom-com

Love is in the air! Not only was Handle With Care written