Gil Alon

Gil Alon (Hebrew: גיל אלון; born 1960), is an Israeli Zen master, singer, actor, theater director and teacher.

Gil Alon spent his army service as an actor at the IDF's theater, performing among others in: "Our Town" by Thornton Wilder and "The Zoo Story" by Edward Albee(as Jerry).

After his service was completed, he was accepted to Nissan Nativ Drama school (1980–1982), and performed during his graduation year among others in the following plays: "Don Juan" by Michel de Ghelderode, "Twelfth Night" by William Shakespeare, "Saved" by Edward Bond and "Too True to Be Good" by George Bernard Shaw.

Alon played a long series of roles in the repertoire theater and the fringe, specializing in historical characters, among which are Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Milan Kundera, Jacques Brel, Alexander Penn, Lord Irwin (The British Viceroy in India) and Charles J. Guiteau(Assassin of the USA president James A. Garfield).

He participated among others in the following productions: "Ghetto" by Joshua Sobol, "Much Ado About Nothing" by William Shakespeare, "The Trojan War Will Not Take Place" by Jean Giraudoux, "Penn" (as the Israeli poet Alexander Penn), "Assassins" by Stephen Sondheim, "Jud Süß" by Paul Kornfeld, "A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess, "Side by Side by Sondheim", "From Crystal to Smoke" by Jacques Attali (as Heinrich Himmler),"The Chinese" by Murray Schisgal, "Five screams" (based on Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", represented Israel at the Edinburgh Festival), "The Goldberg Variations" by George Tabori (as God), "Little Shop of Horrors" by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, "Water Drops on Burning Rocks" by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, "On Tidy Endings" by Harvey Fierstein, Medea by Euripides (as Jason), "Hamlet Machine" by Heiner Müller (as Hamlet),"Antigone" by Sophocles (as King Creon).

He also directed overseas: Salome by Oscar Wilde – Bombay, India; "Six Characters in Search of an Author" by Luigi Pirandello; "Woyzeck" by Georg Buchner and “Life of an Actor” – Madras, India; "Buddhist Bible 4" – Bangkok, Thailand; "Five" – New Zealand, "A Room With Soft Light" – South Korea, "My Fado" – Lisbon, Portugal, and "The Invisible Village" – Taipei, Taiwan.

He was also asked to sing the songs of Jacques Brel in a special series of concerts with the string quartet of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and the pianist Astrit Balzan.

Alon cooperated as singer, actor and narrator with the Musicia Nova contemporary music orchestra in "Tel Aviv Pictures" (Moshe Zorman), "Soldier's Tale" (Igor Stravinsky), "Gniton and Gnitemus" (Abel Ehrlich), "Lecture on the Weather" (John Cage).

With the Israel Sinfonietta Beer Sheva: "La clemenza di Tito" (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart), "Peter and the Wolf" (Sergei Prokofiev), "The Carnival of the Animals" (Camille Saint-Saëns), with the Tel Aviv Opera Workshop:"Die Fledermaus" (Johann Strauss II), and also in "The Mikado" (Gilbert and Sullivan),"Visions" (Leon Schidlowsky).

Gil Alon as Hamlet in "Hamlet Machine"
"Jacques" – Gil Alon Sing and Say Jacques Brel
As the transgenger in the play "Alive"
In the musical Men of Mahagonny in Germany
Alon as Lord Irwin , the British Viceroy along with Surendra Rajan playing Gandhi in the movie Legend of Bhagat Singh
Teaching Zen in south Thailand
The cover of the book "It Is What It Is" – Zen Talks with Yo