Ofira Bondorowsky is passionate about building community. And she thinks in rapidly growing southwest Orlando that the arts are just the ticket to doing that.
To that end, Bondorowsky has launched Arts at the J, a new arts initiative at the Rosen Jewish Community Center outside Lake Buena Vista, where she is CEO and executive director. The program will bring touring acts as well as local mainstays such as Opera Orlando and the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra to the area.
Fueled by a $1 million donation from Andy Pargh, the JCC’s performance venue will be revitalized over the next 18 months and renamed the Pargh Event Center. Arts at the J officially kicks off its debut season there on Nov. 23 with a performance by Orlando Ballet School students.
“I realized there was an opportunity to share our space with the arts community and bring the arts to southwest Orlando,” said Bondorowsky, who became head of the Rosen JCC in 2023. “There was a gap in the community that needed to be filled.”
That area of greater Orlando has limited artistic programming. To the north, in the Dr. Phillips neighborhood, Theatre South Playhouse stages professional and student plays throughout the year. About seven miles up Apopka-Vineland Road from the JCC, St. Luke’s United Methodist Church stages a big summer musical and smaller smaller student productions and concerts at other times of the year.
The Pargh Event Center could help diversify the area’s cultural offerings while building a stronger sense of community among the residents who live nearby, Bondorowsky said. Arts at the J programming would also make cultural events more accessible to those who might not want or be able to drive downtown or are intimidated by the traffic and parking issues that occur closer to the city center.
“A community theater space like ours allows us to provide those opportunities right here,” she said.
The Pargh can seat 600 for a theatrical presentation, or 350 with tables for a banquet-style event. While the stage has shallow wings, there’s a greenroom for performers, storage space backstage and a full kitchen.
A temporary banner announces the new Pargh Event Center name at the performance venue of the Rosen Jewish Community Center in southwest Orlando. A permanent sign is coming. (Matthew J. Palm/Orlando Sentinel)
To support the Arts at the J program, staff members are now focused on marketing, logistics and even group sales.
Arts leaders are enthusiastic about the JCC’s initiative.
“Our students are excited and honored to help debut this new venue,” said Chris Alloways-Ramsey, Orlando Ballet School’s director of education. “As the inaugural performers, the Orlando Ballet School is proud to be the first of many artists who will have the opportunity to share their passion for their craft while gaining valuable performance experience.”
In 2017, Opera Orlando staged the youth opera “Brundibar” at the center, and general director Gabriel Preisser describes the venue as “a lovely event space.”
He praised Bondorowsky’s “great vision for launching an arts series and really becoming a go-to venue on that side of town.”
Opera Orlando will stage “All Is Calm,” a work that combines beautiful singing and poignant spoken word from actual soldiers’ letters to tell the true story of the World War I Christmas Eve truce, at the Pargh Event Center in December.
Fliers at the Rosen JCC advertise the first two programs in the new Arts at the J program at the southwest Orlando community center. (Matthew J. Palm/Orlando Sentinel)
Future bookings in the Arts at the J series include the Bridge Theatre’s production of the play “Anne and Emmett,” an imagined conversation between victims of bigotry Anne Frank and Emmett Till, in January; the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra in February; a Central Florida Community Arts jazz band concert in March; Comedy for Peace, featuring Christian, Jewish and Muslim comics, in April; and an AARP interactive Latin dance production in May.
A partnership with Osceola Arts in Kissimmee will bring youth theater to the JCC. Orlando Family Stage already offers specialty youth theater camps during the summer months.
Bondorowsky hopes to eventually add lectures and art classes to the program, too.
The $1 million refresh of the Pargh Event Center will see an upgrade to the stage’s lighting in early 2026; a formal rededication ceremony for the venue is planned for Feb. 12. The biggest investment in the space will come some months later with the installation of a retractable seating system that will allow both stadium-style plush theater seats for good sightlines to the stage as well as a “flat-floor” option with tables and chairs for banquets or other events.
The newly named Pargh Event Center at the Rosen JCC will receive lighting upgrades and retractable seating through a $1 million donation to the southwest Orlando community center by Andy Pargh.(Matthew J. Palm/Orlando Sentinel)
“We’re at the start of something bigger,” Bondorowsky said. “We want to do it right.”
The Rosen JCC already builds community through its all-faiths-welcome preschool. In another community-building project, the nonprofit recently was awarded $570,000 in the state budget to develop a senior-citizen center on its campus, an endeavor championed by Sen. Kristen Arrington and Rep. Rita Harris. The Harris Rosen Foundation will match those funds for an investment of more than $1 million.
Bondorowsky grew up in east Orlando but fell in love with the arts while living in New Jersey with “Manhattan in my back yard.” She has seen first-hand how cultural events bring people together — and she already has found a community of nonprofit artistic leaders ready to help her with Arts at the J.
“This is reflective of how a collaboration across nonprofits really shows what we can accomplish when we come together,” she said. “I’m not an arts professional but I’m a community builder. I know the arts are a powerful force in bringing communities together.”
Follow me at facebook.com/matthew.j.palm or email me at mpalm@orlandosentinel.com. Find more entertainment news and reviews at orlandosentinel.com/entertainment or sign up to receive our weekly emailed Entertainment newsletter.
Arts at the J
Inaugural event: Orlando Ballet School performance at 2 p.m. Nov. 23. $10 adults, $5 students and children.
In December: Opera Orlando’s holiday musical of hope, “All is Calm,” at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 18. $29 adults; $25 students and seniors
Where: Pargh Event Center at the Rosen Jewish Community Center, 11184 S. Apopka-Vineland road in Orlando
Info: rosenjcc.org/arts-at-the-j
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/11/20/jewish-community-center-event-space-orlando/
