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style='FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic'><FONT
color=#333333 face=Arial>‘A Kid Like Jake’ is a captivating, contemporary
Cinderella story</FONT></SPAN></B><B><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"'></SPAN></B></P>
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face=Arial></FONT></SPAN></SPAN></B> </P>
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face=Arial>Bob Abelman</FONT></SPAN><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"'></SPAN></P>
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align=center><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
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face=Arial>Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning
Journal</FONT></SPAN></I><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"'></SPAN></P>
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align=center><SPAN
style='BORDER-TOP: windowtext 1pt; FONT-FAMILY: ; BORDER-RIGHT: windowtext 1pt; BORDER-BOTTOM: windowtext 1pt; COLOR: ; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0in; PADDING-TOP: 0in; PADDING-LEFT: 0in; BORDER-LEFT: windowtext 1pt; PADDING-RIGHT: 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in'><FONT
face=Arial>Member, International Association of Theatre
Critics</FONT></SPAN><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"'></SPAN></P>
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face="Times New Roman"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P style="BACKGROUND: white; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: "><FONT face=Arial><FONT color=#333333>Daniel
Pearle’s one-act play “A Kid Like Jake,” currently on stage at none too fragile
theater, provides a landing pad for helicopter parents – those cossetting
caregivers who hover over their children in order to maximize their potential
for greatness.</FONT></FONT></SPAN></P>
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style="FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: "><FONT color=#333333
face=Arial></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P
style="VERTICAL-ALIGN: baseline; BACKGROUND: white; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: "><FONT face=Arial>Alex (Rachel Lee Kolis) has
given up a legal career to be the perfect mom and is now fully committed to
getting her bright and precocious 4-year-old son, Jake (who remains unseen),
into a top-tier private kindergarten.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P>
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style="VERTICAL-ALIGN: baseline; BACKGROUND: white; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: "><FONT face=Arial></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P
style="VERTICAL-ALIGN: baseline; BACKGROUND: white; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: "><FONT face=Arial>And by fully committed, we’re
talking obsessed.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P>
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style="VERTICAL-ALIGN: baseline; BACKGROUND: white; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: "><FONT face=Arial></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P
style="VERTICAL-ALIGN: baseline; BACKGROUND: white; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: "><FONT face=Arial>She sends out applications,
which have been written with great care and then re-written again and again,
months in advance. She works diligently with Judy (Laura Starnik), the placement
adviser at Jake’s fancy preschool, to best prepare the boy for the battery of
assessments that are part of the application process.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>She neglects her husband Greg (Geoff
Knox), a clinical psychologist, who taps his infinite patience and vast
knowledge of crazy behavior to keep his wife from imploding.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P
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style="FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: "><FONT face=Arial></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P
style="VERTICAL-ALIGN: baseline; BACKGROUND: white; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: "><FONT face=Arial>Despite everyone’s best efforts
to act in Jake’s best interest, no one quite knows how to handle the boy’s
enthusiasm for “gender variant play,” such as dressing up as Cinderella and
favoring dolls over toy trucks.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Jake, it seems, is starting to identify as female.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P>
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style="VERTICAL-ALIGN: baseline; BACKGROUND: white; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: "><FONT face=Arial></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P style="BACKGROUND: white; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: "><FONT face=Arial>“A Kid Like Jake” is very much a
domestic drama about what happens to a family when childcare is turned into a
blood sport.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But it also raises
questions about the current state of primary education and whether human
intelligence and gender identity are created by nature or molded through
nurturing.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P>
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style="FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: "><FONT face=Arial></FONT></SPAN> </P>
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face=Arial><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
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more of this article, go to </SPAN></I><I
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color=#0563c1>www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/</FONT></SPAN></I><I
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