Ventura County Star Review

Sandy Gelfound chronicles path from Raiderette to 'Jewette' in 'Kosher Cheerleader' show

Pompoms and epiphanies

• By Jeff Favre
  Correspondent
• Ventura County Star
• Posted October 8, 2010 at 12:01 a.m.

There are, at last count, 43 different characters floating around in the brain of Simi Valley’s Sandy Gelfound. She’ll introduce them all Sunday when she performs her one-woman show, “The Kosher Cheerleader,” at Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza.
The autobiographical play chronicles the unique twists, turns and challenges of Gelfound’s life: her turbulent upbringing (she was, for a time, consigned to an orphanage), her battle with overeating, her job as an NFL cheerleader and her spiritual awakening, which led her to study and embrace Modern Orthodox Judaism.

'THE KOSHER CHEERLEADER'

Sandy Gelfound of Simi Valley will perform her one-woman show at 3 p.m. Sunday in the Scherr Forum Theatre at Civic Arts Plaza, 2100 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks. Tickets, $39, are available in person at the box office or through Ticketmaster, 800-745-3000 or http://www.ticketmaster.com. To watch a nine-minute highlight reel from the show, visit http://www.youtube.com and search on "kosher cheerleader."

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Courtesy photo
Sandy Gelfound of Simi Valley is the creator and star of "The Kosher Cheerleader." "The theme running through the show is to see the glass as half-full and not half-empty," she says. "Once you do that, you can see how wonderful life can be."

As she relates in her act, that epiphany came when she and other Oakland Raiders cheerleaders were signing autographs at an East L.A. automotive store in 1996. One of the young girls in line to get her picture taken was named Amanda and she was from an orphanage. She sat on Gelfound’s lap as a Polaroid was snapped and said, “I hope I can be like you someday.”
Gelfound lost it. “The next thing I knew, I’m sitting there sobbing and wailing,” she says in her act. “I’m having a spiritual epiphany at Pep Boys in hot pants with Manny, Moe and Jack.
Cheerleading, she tells the audience, suddenly seemed empty. She wanted to “cheer for something bigger than football.” Gelfound, who is half Jewish, quit the Raiders and immersed herself in Modern Orthodox Judaism. “When I go for something, I go all the way,” she said.
She spent the next decade exploring her faith, trading in her hot pants for long skirts. The idea of putting her life on the page — and the stage — began five years ago. She had, by then, made the transition from Raiderette to “Jewette.” But something was still missing. She missed performing.
“If you’re a creative person and you don’t exercise that part of you, then it’s like a kind of death,” she said. “One day I was meditating with the big guy upstairs and I was reflecting on how I wasn’t being fulfilled creatively. Then it came to me. How about that show I wrote? So I pulled it out.”
During her time as a cheerleader, Gelfound had written a treatment for a sitcom called “View from the Sidelines.” Using that show treatment as a starting point, Gelfound started storyboarding her two-act play. She clipped papers with jokes, stories and characters onto a clothesline and strung it across her kitchen.
“People would come in and read names on the papers and say, ‘Uh, what’s this?’ It was how I put it all together,” she explained.
She started performing pieces of “Kosher Cheerleader” in friends’ houses, receiving feedback and making changes. Gelfound said she entered a portion of the play in a contest called “Fifteen Minutes of Fem” and she won. Eventually, the play expanded to include 43 characters, all performed by Gelfound. Among the characters are her castanet-playing mother (an Orthodox Christian), her father (a Jewish atheist) and her five siblings.
“I started imitating when I was young,” she explained. I would imitate my mom and dad when they were arguing and it would get them to laugh and then they would stop. Now, when I perform and people don’t laugh I feel like I’ve lost my power.”
Gelfound has performed “The Kosher Cheerleader” in Arizona and Florida. Though much of the story is designed for laughs, she does address some of her difficult memories.
“What I hope people see is that if I can come through the things I have and be so happy, then anyone can do it,” she said. “The theme running through the show is to see the glass as half-full and not half-empty. Once you do that, you can see how wonderful life can be.
“There’s something for everyone,” she continued. “If you like cheerleading, football, or you’re interested in any kind of religion, you’ll have fun.”
The newest character in her play is her husband Craig, an engineer-turned-attorney who brought his four children — Scotty, Heather, Jeff and Mike — into her life. They were married last December.
“Now I have the family I’ve always wanted,” she said.
And Craig has a new favorite football team.
“He used to be a Rams fan before he met me,” Gelfound said. “I told him if you’re going to marry an ex-Raiders cheerleader, you’re going to have to change allegiances.”


Read more: http://www.vcstar.com/news/2010/oct/08/pompoms-and-epiphanies-sandy-gelfound-chronicles/#ixzz13PKwxenv
- vcstar.com