A musical about dying might not sound like a barrel of laughs. But Benjamin Kintisch promises that “Life Review: The Hospice Musical” won’t just move audiences but also will make them laugh.
The live concert by Kintisch – a former cantor at Columbia Jewish Congregation who wrote the lyrics, co-wrote the script and stars in the show — will be performed on Saturday, May 9, at the Arellano Theater in Levering Hall at Johns Hopkins University’s Homewood Campus.
A New York native and Columbia resident who teaches elementary school at Friends Community School in College Park, Kintisch says his first job as a cantor at a New Jersey synagogue led him on the path to hospice chaplaincy and the creation of “Life Review.”
“Many of our congregants were rather elderly,” he says. “So even before I was trained as a chaplain, there was a tremendous pastoral care workload. At that point I decided I’d better get some training, so I enrolled in chaplaincy training known as clinical pastoral education, or CPE. I worked for one year as a chaplain intern.”
Kintisch, who served as a chaplain for the Jewish Social Service Agency Hospice Program in Montgomery County, learned that a big part of a chaplain’s job is simply to visit people, remain quiet and listen.
“If the person talks, you have a conversation,” he says. “If they’re not verbal because of age, disability or illness, you’re often speaking with a spouse or adult child. My experience was there was a lot more storytelling than praying. The chaplain has prayer as a skill, and as a cantor I had a guitar, so I sometimes played music for patients and their loved ones.
“What really stuck with me emotionally were the stories. They were amazing,” he says. “One night I was driving home and got my wife on the phone and said, ‘Honey, I think these stories want to be songs.’ That night, I opened up one of those black-and-white composition books and started writing.”
The song written by Kintisch that evening was “Will It Still Snow?” based on a dying patient’s reflections on how life will go on after she was gone. It is one of the most poignant numbers in “Life Review.”
Kintisch performed “Will It Still Snow?” for the first time several ago at a Jewish educators’ conference in a song-sharing workshop led by musician Sue Horowitz, founder of the Jewish Songwriting Cooperative Retreat.
“Even though it was rough and the melody didn’t quite stick, the words were there and deeply moving to people,” Kintisch says. “Half the room was in tears by the time I finished, and Sue came up to me afterwards and said, ‘Ben, you’ve created something of great power here.’”
Horowitz encouraged Kintisch to keep working on his songwriting and offered him an opportunity to perform at the following year’s concert. Later that year, she invited him to a Jewish songwriting retreat, where he met two other composers, Michael Miller and the late Andy Bossov, who would go on to help him and Jason Spiewak, a musician friend from his local JCC, compose many of the show’s 16 songs.
When describing “Life Review,” Kintisch says it’s “a little bit like ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ meets ‘A Chorus Line,’ set in a hospice.”
The musical’s main character Rabbi David — based on Kintisch — is “wrestling with God,” much like Tevye in “Fiddler,” because he lost his parents quite young. Yet in his new job as a hospice chaplain, Rabbi David must aside put his own grief to support patients grappling with their own mortality.
A diverse group of patients share stories of their lives through song in “Life Review,” much like the characters in “A Chorus Line.”
Kintisch says while the “Life Review” project has been performed in different forms and venues over the past 11 years, the performance at Hopkins will be special for several reasons.
For the first time since its inception, the show will feature a complete ensemble, including five conservatory musicians from the Peabody Institute under the direction of music director and orchestrator Kieran Casey. “Life Review” will also be recorded for a live album.
After the performance, guests can enjoy a dessert reception and small-group discussions about the themes addressed in the show.
“People sometimes cringe or recoil when I give the title of my play and then they make a yucky face,” Kintisch says. “And I say, ‘You’re not the first person to make that face. A lot of people find death challenging,’ or they laugh nervously and I say, ‘Yes, that’s a good reaction because it’s a very funny play.’ … Come out and hear for yourself!”
For tickets, visit lifereviewmusical.com. Can’t make the show but want to support the live album? Donate to the Kickstarter campaign.
A junior at Roland Park Country School, Katie Grossman writes about a recent experience that spurred her to take action to fight antisemitism.
Presented by Jews United for Justice and a consortium of local synagogues, "Beyond Welcoming the Stranger" offered a Jewish approach to helping immigrants.
John Singer wants to help Marylanders of all economic backgrounds to afford ankle foot orthoses.
At Krieger Schechter Day School, joining in the later elementary or middle school isn’t a setback -- it’s a launch pad.