Charna Rivka

Show Info

Welcome to LAByrinth’s 22nd annual Barn Series! The renowned free reading series is a festival of new plays, and a critical and exciting step in LAB’s development of new work.  Many of LAByrinth’s world premieres have come from the Barn, giving audiences a sneak peak into the artistic process, and a chance to see plays before they’re the next hot ticket.  

This reading series will be performed in-person. 

Charna Rivka
By David Deblinger
Sunday April 10th at 7pm

It is the morning of election day November 2020 when David is informed by his ultra Orthodox Jewish (and Trump supporting) older brother, Ari, that their mother has passed away. Ari asks David to go be with the body, so it's not alone. On the way, David encounters the spirit of his mother and must help her cross not the river Styx, but Sheepshead Bay.  The three are facilitated not by a ferryman but a Lyft driver to clash and struggle to understand what, for each of them, truly matters… before it’s too late.  

David Deblinger is an award winning actor, writer, director and a co-founder of LAByrinth Theater Company.  His critically acclaimed performance piece Lucky Penny, was adapted for an episode of the Podcast series The Truth, and picked up for a national broadcast on the NPR program Snap Judgment. As a director he created, Shakespearean Minute, which won the New York Foundation for the Arts Artist Fellowship Award and The Callback, an award-winning short film, he also wrote, starring Sam Rockwell.  As an actor David has appeared in a recurring role opposite Forest Whitaker in season one of “Godfather of Harlem,” on EPIX,  Broad City, Blue Bloods, Law and Order SVU, The Sopranos, Sex and the City, Law and Order, Damages, Clubland, Remember Me, Kiss Me Guido and more.  He has originated roles in two plays by John Patrick Shanley (Dirty Story, Where’s My Money?), as well as in Our Lady of 121st Street, by Stephen Adly Guirgis, directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman.  David received a commission by LAByrinth to write and perform in his short play, Hot Tea, for a streaming series called Backseat, in 2021.  Hot Tea has been adapted into a short film, is in pre-production, and will be shot in 2022. 

David

Deblinger