Esther

Esther

Introduction

A note on the Book of Esther. Five books of the Hebrew Bible are known as the Five Scrolls (Chamesh Megillot). Song of Songs is read on the Shabbos of Passover week (Sepherdim read it on Seder night and Friday afternoons). Ruth is read on Shavuos (Pentecost). Kohelet is read on the Shabbos of the week of Sukkot. Ekhah (Lamentations) is read of the Ninth of Av, a fast commemorating the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. And, finally, the book we are studying, the Scroll of Esther, is read on Purim. Both Esther and Job could certainly be produced as plays or musicals with a high professional production level. In writing a musical, the scenario has to be laid out for the story by identifying the points in the play, visualized as a series of scenes, where the conflicts in each scene rise to a crescendo requiring song and/or choreography. Here are a few ideas on how to organize the telling of Estherʼs story in this way. A few possible lyric lines for songs have been put in quotation marks. Why not think of how you could write an original play or musical to be presented every Purim? Try your own creative hand — you can polish the ideas below or come up with better ones: Scene: Persian city of Susa (modern Iran). Time: 483 B.C.E. Possible ideas for a scenario with a few song lyric ideas: King Ahasuerus and company (tipsy): “Queen Vashti, you're not acting very pretty.” Queen Vashti could sing a song to her maidens to go tell the King she is now a “liberated” woman. The chorus made up of King Ahasuerusʼs counselors (“wise men [chachamim]” —