*View a record­ing of this pro­gram on Face­book or YouTube.*

To pur­chase a copy of Rachel Bloom’s I Want to Be Where the Nor­mal Peo­ple Are and Tovah Feld­shuh’s Lilyville, please click here! Also, we are offer­ing you a spe­cial treat: email us a screen­shot or image of the receipt of your pur­chase of either book (or both!), and we will send you a signed book­plate from the author(s), along with a treat from Jew­ish Book Coun­cil! Email the screen­shot to evie@​jewishbooks.​org. We can only ship to address­es in the Unit­ed States.

Join Gold­en Globe and Emmy Award win­ner, co-cre­ator and star of Crazy Ex-Girl­friend Rachel Bloom, and six-time Emmy & Tony nom­i­nee Tovah Feld­shuh as they dis­cuss humor, fam­i­ly, writ­ing, and how to laugh in a time when humor seems almost impos­si­ble, while shar­ing sto­ries and mus­ings from their two recent books: Rachel Bloom’s I Want to Be Where the Nor­mal Peo­ple Are and Tovah Feldshuh’s Lilyville. Mod­er­at­ed by Stephanie But­nick, host of Tablet’s Unortho­dox podcast.

Rachel Bloom is a come­di­an, actress, writer, and singer born and raised in Los Ange­les. Rachel co-cre­at­ed and starred in the TV series Crazy Ex-Girl­friend on The CW Net­work and earned a Gold­en Globe and Crit­ics Choice award for her per­for­mance, as well as a Prime­time Emmy Award for the song­writ­ing. In 2019, she toured her Crazy Ex-Girl­friend Live show across the US and Europe, sell­ing out at icon­ic venues such as Radio City Music Hall and the Lon­don Pal­la­di­um. Rachel is cur­rent­ly exec­u­tive pro­duc­ing a new roman­tic mys­tery com­e­dy dra­ma tele­vi­sion series for The CW Net­work titled I​’m In Love With The Dancer from My Bat Mitz­vah, and she is set to write the Unti­tled *NSYNC Com­e­dy for TriS­tar pic­tures. She is also pen­ning the lyrics for an upcom­ing Broad­way musi­cal of The Nan­ny. Rachel’s first book, I Want To Be Where The Nor­mal Peo­ple Are, was pub­lished by Grand Cen­tral Pub­lish­ing on Novem­ber 17, 2020. 

Tovah (born Ter­ri Sue) Feld­shuh is a six-time Emmy & Tony nom­i­nee and has been award­ed three hon­orary Doc­tor­ates of Humane Let­ters. Addi­tion­al­ly, for her the­atre work, she has won four Dra­ma Desks, four Out­er Crit­ics Cir­cle, three Dra­ma­logues, the Obie, the The­atre World, and the Helen Hayes and Lucille Lor­tel Awards for Best Actress. She is a play­wright, con­cert artist, and author. Her mem­oir, LILYVILLE: Moth­er, Daugh­ter, and Oth­er Roles I’ve Played, comes out April 13 for Mother’s Day. TV cred­its include: Holo­caust, Law & Order, The Walk­ing Dead, and Crazy Ex-Girl­friend where Feld­shuh can be seen singing the dig­ni­fied show­stop­per: ​“Where’s the Bath­room!”. Films include: Kiss­ing Jes­si­ca Stein, A Walk on the Moon, The Idol­mak­er, Golda’s Bal­cony the film, and Clif­ford (release Novem­ber 2021). Broad­way: Yentl, Golda’s Bal­cony, Irena’s Vow, Pip­pin, etc. Most recent the­atre por­tray­al: Supreme Court Jus­tice Ruth Bad­er Gins­burg in Sis­ters in Law by Jonathan Shapiro and Ms. Feldshuh’s night­club acts, Aging is Option­al and Tovah is Leona! (Helm­s­ley). Most recent film por­tray­al: Miryam, Oscar Isaac’s moth­er, in Scenes from a Mar­riage for HBO. Tovah is the recip­i­ent of the Eleanor Roo­sevelt Human­i­ties Award, Hadas­sah’s Myr­tle Wreath & Moth­er of the Year Award and the Israel Peace Medal. Fol­low Tovah on Insta­gram @tovahfeld, and on her web­site www​.tovah​feld​shuh​.com.

Stephanie But­nick is deputy edi­tor of Tablet Mag­a­zine and a host of the Unortho­dox pod­cast. She is the author, along with her co-hosts, of The Newish Jew­ish Ency­clo­pe­dia: From Abra­ham to Zabar’s and Every­thing in Between. She has writ­ten for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Cop­re­sent­ed by Jew­ish Book Coun­cil, The Jew­ish Muse­um, and Tablet Mag­a­zine