The 21st annual Chutzpah! Festival—also known as the Lisa Nemetz Festival of International Jewish Performing Arts—has announced its schedule for 2021.

The festival will feature concerts, comedy, new dance works, film, theatre, and storytelling, as well as conversations and opportunities to interact with creative artists.

“Artists and arts enthusiasts alike have been eagerly awaiting our chance to come back together to share our stories,” says festival artistic managing-director Jessica Mann Gutteridge in a press release. “With the joy of reconnecting comes the knowledge that our lives have profoundly changed over the past year and a half.

"The Chutzpah! Festival will explore and celebrate the many ways we tell stories now," adds Gutteridge, "with a variety of ways to experience and participate in the work.”

The festival's opening-night event, on November 4, is a screening of the Marx Bros. classic A Night at the Opera with City Opera Vancouver singing the operatic music parodied in the film.

The rest of the schedule, in chronological order, includes: 

Project inTandem—Deep END & moving through, it all amounts to something at Norman & Annette Rothstein Theatre, November 6 and 7. Contemporary dance by Calgary producers and choreographers Sylvie Moquin and Meghann Michalsky that explores themes of female struggle and empowerment.

Lilach Dekel-Avneri & The Pathos-Mathos Company: The Eichmann Project—Terminal 1 at the Norman & Annette Rothstein Theatre, November 8. Multidisciplinary stage event created by Israeli theatre artists revisits one of the seminal events in the history of Israel—the Eichmann Trial—and the public storm that followed.

Tamara Micner Old Friends (installation) at the Sidney & Gertrude Zack Gallery, November 8 to 12. UK-based theatre artist Tamara Micner transforms her theatrical work-in-progress (workshopped in the 2020 festival) into an audio installation.

Ophira Eisenberg at the Norman & Annette Rothstein Theatre, November 10. Canadian-born, New York-based stand-up comedian, storyteller, and writer, host of NPR's comedy and trivia show Ask Me Another.

Shay Kuebler/Radical System Art at the Norman & Annette Rothstein Theatre, November 13 and 14. Choreographer and dancer Shay Kuebler returns to the festival with the world premiere of Momentum of Isolation.

Alexis Fletcher and Ne.Sans Opera at the Norman & Annette Rothstein Theatre, November 16 and 18. Alexis Fletcher gives a solo performance integrating movement and the visual art of Vancouver painter and HIV/AIDS activist Tiko Kerr; Ne.Sans Opera & Dance artistic director Idan Cohen premieres a new solo drawing inspiration from the myth of Orpheus, and Gluck’s opera Orfeo ed Euridice.

The Flame—An Evening of Storytelling at the Norman & Annette Rothstein Theatre, November 17. A multicultural group of storytellers—including Stephen Aberle , Glenda Zenoff, Eleanor Lipov, and Helen Schneiderman—share their personal true stories, with musical guest Anton Lipovetsky.

Josh “Socalled” Dolgin—Di Frosh at the Norman & Annette Rothstein Theatre, November 19. Montreal-based pianist and accordionist leads an evening of rediscovered Yiddish songs, accompanied by a local string quartet.

Avi Liberman at the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre, November 20. Israeli-American standup comedian performs as part of the 21st annual Chutzpah! Festival.

Surplus Production Unit—A Timed Speed-Read of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Trial Transcript at the Wosk Auditorium, November 21 and 22. Halifax-based Surplus Production Unit races against time to tell the true story of the fire that devastated the Jewish and Italian immigrant communities of New York in 1911.

Iris Bahr at the Norman & Annette Rothstein Theatre, November 23. Israeli-American writer, actor, director, and host of the hit podcast X-RAE performs her new solo show.

Guy Mintus Trio—A Gershwin Playground at the Norman & Annette Rothstein Theatre, November 24. Israeli jazz combo channels the genius of the legendary George Gershwin.

Tickets go on sale September 15 at 10 am Pacific time and you can find them here.