Wanting to "help young people and the world find some
meaning" is probably a bigger goal than most people set for themselves, but for
Jeff Gottesfeld '77 it is the underlying principle of his work. Gottesfeld, a
theater/film producer and writer, believes he may have reached that standard
with his most recent play, Anne Frank & Me, in which "an ordinary
Christian girl meets Anne Frank." The idea for the play came from a discussion between Gottesfeld and Cherie
Bennett, his wife and co-writer of the play. On 60 Minutes they watched
a Northwestern University professor who, Gottesfeld said, "didn't believe the
Holocaust had ever happened. It's scary when someone who could be your uncle or
a deacon at your church says it didn't happen, because they're believable."
That was the beginning of a year-long endeavor to write a play that would help
a middle-class Christian American be able to "relate emotionally to the Jews."
Gottesfeld says it was a monumental research project. He and Bennett
contacted the National Holocaust Museum, which gave them the names of two dozen
survivors, several of whom they interviewed. Gottesfeld and his wife wrote and
rewrote the play, attempting to make it as authentic and historically correct
as possible. In May 1995 Gottesfeld produced the play's world premiere at the
Shalom Theater at the Jewish Community Center in Nashville, Tenn. A year and a
half and many performances later it opened off-Broadway in New York City to
critical acclaim. The play has won praise from, among others, the New York
Times. A book version will be published by Putnam.
In addition to Anne Frank & Me, Gottesfeld has written or
co-written two teen fiction series, some screenplays and soap opera scripts. He
has produced several plays by other playwrights, including his wife. Gottesfeld thinks his classmates would be surprised to learn that he was in
theater production. "I was much more politically involved than artistically
when I was at Colby," he said. "I was not a theater person at all." He says
Charlie Bassett's seminar, Popular American Fiction, helped him understand the
influence of popular fiction.In 1983, after attending law school at the University of San Francisco,
Gottesfeld went to work with a group of former lawyers at Brownstone Publishing
as the director of new projects, then joined Prentice Hall Information
Services. In 1988 he was given a script by Bennett, whom he married in1990. He
produced the play in less than a year. The idea of getting involved only in
"something I care about" was appealing enough to cause him to go into business
for himself in 1991. "I enjoy the challenge and thrill of taking an idea on
paper and having a hand in creating it. The rewards you get are psychic," he
said."It is an honor," he said, "to be able to make a living doing this, to know
that I might touch someone's heart."--Joanna Cheesman