Synagogue Scratch at Manchester Jewish Museum

This spring, join Manchester Jewish Museum for ‘Synagogue Scratch’, a thought-provoking season of evening performances celebrating new and experimental Jewish works-in-progress. Experience poetry readings and conversation, new plays and vocal recitals – all performed in the museum’s beautiful grade II* listed Spanish and Portuguese synagogue.

Following the success of the inaugural season of ‘Synagogue Scratch’ last year, all of the events at the 2024 edition have a dash of Sephardi flavour, as a celebratory nod to the 150th anniversary of the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue.

Theatrical highlights this year include Lost Girl (19 May), a brand-new play exploring Jewish-Arab heritage, connection and family. Written and performed by Amy Lever, a northern Jewish writer and actor of Eastern European, Egyptian and Lebanese heritage, this one-woman show examines the expectations of womanhood alongside the revelation of family secrets.

The lineup will also see a screening of Into the Melting Pot (30 May), a unique concert play developed by groundbreaking theatre and music company The Telling. Audiences will be transported back to fifteenth-century Spain as women’s stories are played out to a soundtrack of Sephardic songs and lively medieval music, with full staging and atmospheric lighting design.

Additionally, the programme features an evening of cantorial songs, exploring the Jewish vocal tradition through time (9 May). Exciting and intriguing, the evening delves into the art of vocalising the Torah and explores how it has influenced jazz, contemporary and popular genres of music. And if poetry is your thing – you can also join Aviva Dautch, Jill Abram and Kitty Martin for The Manchester Minyanaires (26 May), an intimate evening of poetry and conversation about their Manchester Jewish roots.

So whether you’re into experimental new writing, spoken word or global music, be sure to support these bold and bright new works at Manchester Jewish Museum this spring.