Departures of note

Yoram Falk was an Israeli theater director and adapter who devoted much of his four-decade career to bringing the literary works of S.Y. Agnon to the stage. Born in 1941, he grew up in Kibbutz Sde Eliya in the Beit She'an Valley and studied literature and theater at Tel Aviv University before training in theater at the Drama Centre London in the 1970s. Returning to Israel, he became the house director of the Beersheba Theater, staging productions including The House of Bernarda Alba, Romeo and Juliet, and A Doll's House. He went on to direct at the country's leading theaters, among them the Cameri, Habima, and Khan, and taught generations of actors at the Beit Zvi school. His 1989 adaptation of Agnon's unfinished novel Shira, staged at the Cameri with Ilan Dar and Sandra Sadeh, won the Meskin Prize for best original production and was hailed as a landmark in adapting complex literary texts for the stage. He also adapted and directed other Agnon works such as Tmol Shilshom, Farenheim, and Shvu'at Emunim, and in 2014 adapted Amos Oz's Tmunot Mechayei HaKfar for the Khan Theater. His later work included directing Hanoch Levin's Solomon Grip at the Yiddishpiel Theater, the first Levin play staged in Yiddish.