ARTS&LIFE
PHOTO BY SEAN CARTER PHOTOGRAPHY
MUSICAL THEATER
Grace Choi, Brittany Jeffery, and Brooke Quintana in The Pin-Up Girls at Meadow Brook Theatre through May 15.
To Israel and Back
Jeffrey Lodin’s unplanned musical theater career. JULIE SMITH YOLLES CONTRIBUTING WRITER
DETAILS
The Pin-Up Girls runs at Meadow Brook Theatre on the campus of Oakland University in Rochester, Mich. through May 15. Tickets range from $36 to $46 and are available by calling the Meadow Brook Theatre box office at (248) 377-3300 or going online at www.ticketmaster.com. Student discounts are available at the box office. Groups of eight or more should call (248) 370-3316 for group pricing. Masks are encouraged, but not required. Meadow Brook does not require proof of vaccine or proof of a negative COVID-19 test at this time.
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MAY 5 • 2022
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s his mother tells the story, Jeffrey Lodin started playing music on a Magnus Chord Organ at age 3. By age 7, he was acting and starring in productions at his school, community theater and synagogue. “I was humming songs before I could talk. Instead of playing chords with the buttons on the organ, I could just play chords with my left hand. It was like speaking English,” says Lodin, a composer, music director, arranger and co-author of the musical The Pin-Up Girls, running at Meadow Brook Theatre now through May 15. “I would have rather played football with my brothers than practice piano. I always loved theater, but I never thought of it as a career choice in any form.” Jeffrey Lodin Following his bar mitzvah at Beth Torah Synagogue in North Miami Beach where he grew up, Lodin continued religious studies and started cantorial school. “What derailed me was the language. I couldn’t retain the Hebrew or speak it fluently to any degree at all. I didn’t understand what I was praying, and it just became rote. And the fact that those around me didn’t seem bothered that I didn’t understand it caused me to rebel and stop,” Lodin said. During that same time, Lodin met with his chazzan who played Lodin the new soundtrack of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. “It blew my mind. ‘I can do that,’” Lodin thought. “It sent me flying toward a career in musical theater, and I never
