THIS MUCH I KNOW

LETTER FROM THE MANAGING DIRECTOR

Dear Patrons,

Young people in our community are experiencing a mental health crisis. Even before the COVID19 pandemic, the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System had reported increasing feelings of sadness or hopelessness among youth beginning in 2015. After March 2020, many young people were further isolated when schools were closed, many parents and caregivers were suddenly unemployed, and over 200,000 children experienced the death of someone in their household. Many studies have shown how arts programs in schools increase psychological well-being and academic performance, but many schools had to cut or scale back their arts programs in the past several years.

Theater J is expanding our educational programming to meet the needs of the youth in our community. Thanks to the generous support of the Shapiro Family Foundation, Share Fund, and the Robert M. Fisher Memorial Foundation Theater for Youth Fund, Theater J welcomed our first full-time Educational Programs Manager Hester Kamin in September 2023. Since her arrival, we have had over 600 students attend a performance, and we have established school residencies with six DC public and charter schools where students have been able to participate in workshops on performance, writing, and costume design.

In addition to providing opportunities for youth to express themselves through theater, Theater J’s work is fighting antisemitism and building crosscultural connections by creating opportunities for youth to learn about Jewish culture and celebrate the many different cultures and identities that make Washington, DC one of the most vibrant communities in the world.

The need is much greater than we currently have the resources to provide, so if you are able to help support the work on our stages and in classrooms by making a contribution to Theater J, it would help us give the gift of theater to the next generation and help us do the work of building a better future for our youth.

Thank you for your support of Theater J. Enjoy the show!

David Lloyd Olson, Managing Director

LETTER FROM THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Dear Patrons,

I hope your new year is off to a beautiful start. I’m thrilled you are here for Jonathan Spector’s East Coast premiere of This Much I Know. I first read this play in 2020 while it was still being developed, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

This play grapples with philosophical ideas deeply rooted in our everyday choices. It asks questions ingrained in our humanity. Can we break out of preconceived beliefs? What is the difference between responsibility and culpability? How do we comfort our loved ones? And ultimately, tackles the big question: What can we know?

The play travels back and forth in time in the ways memory and imagination enter our thoughts. Formally, it is adventurous and ambitious, yet only three actors perform the entire epic journey – it invites us into its theatrical play. It encourages us to imagine and consider how we piece together narratives. The storytelling is prismatic. The interrogation is rigorous. It sits in conversation with the great Jewish thinkers who wrestled with epistemology.

In fact, Jonathan Spector was inspired by the brilliance of Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahnman’s book Thinking Fast and Slow. Mixing philosophy, history, and fiction, Spector creates a distinct story that I hope stays with you for days and encourages conversation.

Through my process on this play, in addition to working with a brilliant team of designers and actors, I’ve had the pleasure of researching and conversing with historians, psychologists, religious leaders, and even a magician. Through the run of this play, we invite thought leaders in various fields to join us in conversation. I hope you’ll stay or return for one of these discussions or create your own conversation circle.

Thank you for being here and taking this journey with us.

With appreciation,

Hayley Finn, Artistic Director

THANK YOU TO OUR 2023/2024 SEASON SPONSORS

Leading Producer

Covenant Foundation

DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities

National Endowment for the Arts

Sponsoring Producer

Cathy Bernard

Norbert Hornstein and Amy Weinberg

Sari R. Hornstein

Arlene and Robert Kogod, The Robert and Arlene Kogod Family Foundation

The Marinus and Minna B. Koster Foundation

Nussdorf Family Foundation

Patricia Payne

Revada Foundation of the Logan Family

Kay Richman and Daniel Kaplan

Share Fund

The Shubert Foundation

Supporting Producer

Patti and Mitchell Herman

Dianne and Herb Lerner

Alfred Munzer and Joel Wind

Helene and Robert Schlossberg

Barney Shapiro and Susan Walker

Thank You To Our Production Angels

Susan and Dixon Butler

Howard Menaker and Patrick Gossett

Kenneth and Amy Krupsky

Saul and Nancy Pilchen

Ilene and Steven Rosenthal

April Rubin and Bruce A. Ray

Les Silverman

Terry Singer

Joan Wessel

This production is supported in part by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

THEATER J PRESENTS

Hayley Finn, Artistic Director

David Lloyd Olson, Managing Director

East Coast Premiere

This Much I Know

By Jonathan Spector
January 31 – February 25, 2024

Director: Hayley Finn^
Scenic Designer: Misha Kachman+
Costume Designer: Danielle Preston+
Lighting Designer: Colin K. Bills+
Projection Designer: Mona Kasra+
Sound Designer: Sarah O’Halloran+
Props Design: Pamela Weiner
Casting Director: Jenna Place
NYC Casting: Elizabeth Hay
Associate Costume Designer: Jessica Utz
Production Stage Manager: Anthony O. Bullock*
Assistant Stage Manager: Hansin Arvind
Assistant Stage Manager: Grace Carter

CAST (in order of appearance)

Lukesh: Firdous Bamji*
Natalya: Dani Stoller*
Harold: Ethan J. Miller*

The video or audio recording of this performance by any means is strictly prohibited.

^Member of SDC, the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society

*Appearing through an Agreement between this theater, Theater J, and Actors' Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States

+Member of United Scenic Artists Local 829

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Firdous Bamji* (Lukesh): Theatre includes: The Lehman Trilogy (Huntington); Indian Ink (Roundabout, Obie Award: Outstanding Performance); Homebody/Kabul (BAM, New York Theatre Workshop, Steppenwolf, Mark Taper Forum); Mary Stuart (Huntington); The Changeling, Measure for Measure (TFANA); Gum, Crocodiles in the Potomac (WP Theatre); SubUrbia (Lincoln Center); The Birthday Party (ACT); In the Heart of America (Long Wharf); Othello (Hartford Stage); As You Like It, Galileo (Center Stage); Dollhouse (Goodman); Much Ado About Nothing, Richard II, Troilus & Cressida (Shakespeare Theatre); The Lisbon Traviata (Studio Theatre); Burn This, Bent, Beirut, Danny & the Deep Blue Sea, (Trustus Theatre). International: A Disappearing Number (Complicité, Olivier, Evening Standard and Critics Circle Awards: Best New Play); Hamlet (Bristol Old Vic). TV (includes): Madame Secretary, Berlin Station, Law & Order, Law & Order SVU. Film: Ashes, The War Within (Independent Spirit Award nom.), Justice, Analyze That, Unbreakable, The Sixth Sense.

Dani Stoller* (Natalya) Theater J debut. DC: Which Way to the Stage, Ragtime (Signature Theater, Helen Hayes Nomination Best Supporting Performer); My Body, No Choice (Arena Stage, Helen Hayes Nomination for Best Supporting Performer); As You Like It, Midsummer, District Merchants (Folger Theatre); The Joy That Carries You, The Humans, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Crucible (Olney Theatre Center). She has also performed at Studio Theatre, 1st Stage, Keegan Theatre, and The Kennedy Center. As a playwright her piece, The Joy That Carries You, co-written with Awa Sal Secka, was the winner of the Helen Hayes for Best New Play, and her play Just Great was recently published by Broadway Licensing.

Ethan J Miller* (Harold): Ethan is honored to be making his Theater J debut in This Much I Know. Other DC credits include: The Chosen (1st Stage), The Last Match (1st Stage), A Measure of Cruelty (4615 Theater Company), Turn of the Screw (Creative Cauldron), Macbeth (Drunk Shakespeare). Other credits include: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Theater at Monmouth) and Paint Your Wagon (The Jackson hole Playhouse). Training: University of Minnesota BFA Guthrie Actor Training Program.

Jonathan Spector (Playwright) is a native of Annandale, Virginia and delighted to return to Theater J, where he was once an intern. His plays include Eureka Day, Best Available, Good. Better. Best. Bested., and Siesta Key. His work has been produced across the country and abroad with theaters including The Old Vic (starring Helen Hunt), Asolo Rep, Mosaic Theater, Syracuse Stage, Hampstead Theater, InterAct, Aurora Theater, Burgtheater (The National Theater of Austria), and the State Theater of South Australia. Honors include two Glickman Awards, two Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Awards, Rella Lossy Award, Theater Bay Area Award, Edgerton Award, WhatsOnStage Award Nomination and a New York Drama Critics Circle Award Nomination. Current Commissions: Roundabout Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Manhattan Theater Club, Miami New Drama. Jonathan is a graduate of the much-besieged New College of Florida.

Misha Kachman+ (Scenic Designer) Theater J: Either/Or, Lost in Yonkers, After the Fall, Race, The Odd Couple, The New Jerusalem, Our Class. DC: Kleptocracy, Holiday, Junk (Arena); Unleashed!, Beastgirl, Dr. Wonderful, Barrio Grrrl (Kennedy Center); Nancy (Mosaic); Colossal (Olney); The Lyons, Oslo, Young Robinhood (Round House); Cabaret, Xanadu, The Fix, Midwestern Gothic (Signature Theatre); Good Bones (Studio); Fever/Dream, Chad Deity, Marie Antoinette, Hir, Fairview, Stupid Fucking Bird, An Octoroon, Kiss (Woolly Mammoth). Off-Broadway: The Originalist (59E59); The Gett (Rattlestick); Remember This (Theatre for a New Audience). Regional: Arizona Theatre Company, Baltimore Center Stage, Berkeley Rep, Children’s Theatre Company, Cincinnati Playhouse, Cleveland Playhouse, Court Theatre, Pasadena Playhouse, Portland Center Stage, Seattle Opera, Seattle Rep, Syracuse Stage, Village Theatre, Wilma Theater. mishakachman.com

Danielle Preston+ (Costume Designer): Theater J: The Chameleon, One Jewish Boy, The How & The Why, The Christians, Roz & Ray. DC: The Sensational Sea Minkettes (Woolly Mammoth), Fat Ham, Clyde's, The Mis-edumacation of Dorian Belle (Studio Theatre), Passing Strange, Penelope (Signature Theatre), A Good Indian Boy (Olney Theatre), Regional: Blues for an Alabama Sky (Barrington Stage), Locomotion (Children's Theatre Company), Schoolgirls: Of the African Mean Girls Play, The Realness (Hangar Theatre) Education: MFA in Costume Design, University of North Carolina School of the Arts, daniellepreston.com @danielleprestondesign

Colin K. Bills+ (Lighting Designer) he/him/his returns to Theater J, where his most recent designs have been Gloria: A Life, Nathan the Wise, Becoming Dr. Ruth, Sheltered, The Jewish Queen Lear, and The Last Night of Ballyhoo. He is a Board Member and Company Member at Woolly Mammoth Theatre where he has designed over fifty productions. Colin has designed at nearly every theater in the DMV and his work has been seen at theaters across the US. He has won three Helen Hayes Awards and is a recipient of a Princess Grace Fellowship in Theater. He has taught design at Howard University and is a graduate of Dartmouth College.

Sarah O’Halloran+ (Sound Designer) is a sound designer and composer. Her theater credits include Theater J: The Chameleon, Gloria: A Life, Nathan the Wise, Compulsion, Talley’s Folly; Woolly Mammoth/The Second City: She the People: The Resistance Continues; 1st Stage: The Phlebotomist, The Brothers Size, Swimming with Whales, Trevor, and When the Rain Stops Falling; Studio Theatre: Cry it Out; Rep Stage: The Glass Menagerie; E2, The 39 Steps, The Heidi Chronicles, and Things That Are Round; Everyman Theatre: Sense and Sensibility, Be Here Now, Proof, Dinner with Friends; Mosaic Theater: In His Hands, The Return; Olney Theater Center: The Humans, Our Town, Labour of Love; Theater Alliance: A Chorus Within Her; Forum Theatre: Nat Turner in Jerusalem; What Every Girl Should Know, and Dry Land.

Mona Kasra+ (Projection Designer) is an Iranian American new media artist, interdisciplinary scholar, and Associate Professor of Digital Media Design at the University of Virginia. Her practice-based research questions, critiques, and experiments with the affordances of media technologies within artistic forms and in a variety of improvisational framings. Mona's work has been exhibited in numerous art galleries and film festivals in the US and around the world, and she has juried, curated, and programmed for many exhibitions and conference programs. She holds an MFA in Video Art and a PhD in Arts & Technology. Her selected design credits include The Till Trilogy (Helen Hayes Award Nomination- Outstanding Projections/Media Design), Unseen, Marys Seacole (Mosaic DC), We Swim, We Talk, We Go to War (Golden Thread SF), When the Rain Stops Falling, Seven Guitars, Arctic Circle (UVA Drama), Holy Bone, Flesh World, (w)hole, T.N.B, blahblah (DWZ Collective Dallas).

Anthony O. Bullock* (Production Stage Manager) is the Resident Production Stage Manager for the 23-24 season. Theater J: Moses, The Chameleon, One Jewish Boy, Gloria: A Life, Two Jews Walk into a War…, Intimate Apparel, Nathan the Wise, Compulsion or the House Behind, Tuesdays with Morrie, The Wanderers, Sheltered, Occupant, Love Sick, The Jewish Queen Lear, and Actually. DC: Red Velvet, Our Town (Shakespeare Theatre Company); The Pajama Game (Arena Stage); SOUL: The Stax Musical, Twisted Melodies (Baltimore Center Stage); Billy Elliot (Signature Theatre); The Children, The Hard Problem, Cloud 9, Hedda Gabler, Moment, Between Riverside and Crazy, Chimerica, Jumpers for Goalposts, Laugh (Studio Theatre). NYC: The School for Lies (Classic Stage Company) and workshops with Project Springboard: Developing Dance Musicals. Other regional credits include Barrington Stage Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival, McCarter Theatre, TheatreSquared, among others. BFA from Oklahoma City University. Proud member of AEA.

Shana Laski (Assistant Director) Theater J debut. DC: The Tempest, Jennifer Who Is Leaving (Round House Theater); The Winter’s Tale (Folger Theatre); Birds of North America (Mosaic Theatre Company); Scorched (Expats Theater); Dua: A Monster’s Story (Theatre Prometheus); Grief Containers (Spooky Action Theater). Instagram: @shana.laski, shanalaski.com

THEATER CAMPS

When school is out, join us at the Edlavitch DCJCC for fun theater camps! These multi-age adventures, led by Theater J artists, are a wonderful introduction to theater and a great way to make new friends!

ONE-DAY CAMPS DATES: 2/16, 2/19, 4/5, 6/4 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM

SPRING BREAK THEATER CAMP: Monday, April 15 – Friday, April 19 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM

LEARN MORE AND REGISTER AT EDCJCC.ORG/THEATERJCAMPS

WELCOME TO THE THEATER J TEAM:

Hester Kamin, Education Programs Manager

Theater J’s educational and family programming have grown due to multi-year grants from the Shapiro Family Foundation, the Share Fund, and the Robert M. Fisher Memorial Foundation. In September, we welcomed Hester Kamin as our first Education Programs Manager. She previously served as Director of Education of five regional theatres, including Synetic Theater, and created the programs at two historic places: the 1400-seat Hawaii Theatre and Bucks County Playhouse. Hester has also directed and choreographed more than 200 shows around the world. Member SDC, AEA, Dramatists Guild of America.

THEATER J’S EDUCATIONAL OFFERINGS THIS SEASON INCLUDE:

• Classes for Theater Lovers

• Matinee performances for schools with post-show discussions

• Classroom residencies led by professional artists

• One-Day Theater Camps for grades 2-8 (February 16, February 19, April 5, and June 4)

• Vaudeville Fairy Tale Spring Break Camp for grades 2-8 (April 15-19)

• Summer Musical Theater Camp: The Jungle Book & The Wizard of Oz (July 1–18, July 22–August 8)

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Visit theaterj.org, email hester@theaterj.org, or call 202.777.3244.

THEATER J LEADERSHIP

Hayley Finn (Theater J Artistic Director) is an accomplished director and producer with over twenty-five years of experience in professional theater across all aspects of the profession, including producing, directing, casting, education, fundraising, and has been instrumental in creating national partnerships for theaters across the country. Prior to joining Theater J, she was the Associate Artistic Director at the Playwrights’ Center, where she worked with some of the nation’s leading playwrights and in her tenure produced over 1,000 workshops. She also served as a Co-Artistic Director of Red Eye Theater from 2019-2023 where she co-produced and curated the New Works 4 Weeks Festival—an annual four-week festival that commissions 11 artists each year to make new performance works—and co-led the fundraising and development of a new 150-seat black box theater in Minneapolis.

She has directed nationally and internationally, including at Cherry Lane Theatre (New York, NY), Curious Theatre Company (Denver, CO), the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (Edinburgh, Scotland), Ellis Island (New York), Guthrie Theatre (Minneapolis, MN), HERE Arts Center (New York, NY), History Theatre (St. Paul, MN), Flea Theater (New York, NY), The Kitchen (New York, NY), LAByrinth Theater Company (New York, NY), Marin Theater Company (Mill Valley, CA), New Dramatists (New York, NY), O’Neill Theater Center (Waterford, CT), Pillsbury House (Minneapolis, MN), People’s Light (Malvern, PA), Public Theater (New York, NY), Playwrights’ Horizons (New York, NY), Red Eye Theater (Minneapolis, MN), Six Point Theater (St. Paul, MN), South Coast Repertory Theater (Costa Mesa, CA), and the Nine Gates Festival in Prague. Finn was Assistant Director on several Broadway productions, including the Tony Award-winning production of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge.

Finn is an Alumna of the Drama League Director’s Program, recipient of the Ruth Easton Fellowship, TCG Future Leader Grant, National Endowment for the Arts support, and a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant. She received her BA and MA from Brown University.

David Lloyd Olson (Theater J Managing Director) made his stage debut at age five at the Marcus JCC of Atlanta preschool and is now proud to be one of the leaders of the nation’s largest professional Jewish theater. He most recently served as managing director of Quintessence Theatre Group in Philadelphia where he oversaw the organization’s largest ever fundraising campaign and the doubling of their annual foundation support. He was manager of the executive office and board engagement at the Shakespeare Theatre Company where he supported the transition of the theater’s artistic directorship from Michael Kahn to Simon Godwin. He has also held positions at Arena Stage, GALA Hispanic Theatre, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and Pointless Theatre. He was an Allen Lee Hughes management fellow at Arena Stage, a Fulbright English teaching assistant in Valmiera, Latvia, and the recipient of two DC Commission on Arts and Humanities Felllowship program grants. He proudly serves on the board of the Alliance for Jewish Theatre (alljewishtheatre.org) and the board of Adas Israel Congregation.

Truth in the Illusion

By Sarah Rose Leonard, dramaturg

Look at these two images:

Which line do you think is longer?

They are in fact of equal length if you measure, but our mind perceives the second image as longer. According to psychologist Daniel Kahneman, most of us will still perceive the second line as longer even after we know the truth. The Müller-Lyer illusion, as the set of images is called, is a classic cognitive illusion that Kahneman uses in his book Thinking Fast and Slow to illustrate how often we are unable to change how we process information, even when we know we are wrong. The only way to battle cognitive illusions is to recognize them and attempt to not believe or act on them…but this is nearly impossible for the human brain to do. As Kahneman says, “Constantly questioning our own thinking would be impossibly tedious…the best we can do is a compromise: learn to recognize situations in which mistakes are likely and try harder to avoid significant mistakes when the stakes are high.” (good luck to us!)

When playwright Jonathan Spector read Kahneman’s book he wondered if he could craft the theatrical equivalent of cognitive illusions. To do so would be to base a play in classic theater magic: now you see something, now you don’t. He began to write This Much I Know in 2018, when he stumbled down an internet rabbit hole about Svetlana Iosifovna Alliluyeva, Joseph Stalin’s daughter. (How he got to Alliluyeva is lost to the magic of our cognitive inability to remember what happens in an internet rabbit hole). He learned that Alliluyeva defected to the U.S. in the middle of the Cold War — using a bit of dramatic illusion herself — which caused a political dust up. By the time the Soviets realized Alliluyeva had defected, it was too late — she was quickly thrust into the public spotlight, giving a press conference shortly after her plane landed in New York.

Svetlana’s defection happened suddenly, but her recognition of her own cognitive fallacies about her father and her country slowly built over time. When the love of her life died, the remaining belief she had in her country withered away. As she writes, “I could live in Russia—being a hypocrite, hiding my true opinions. More than half of our people live like that. We have no opportunity to criticize, we have no press, no freedoms, and also nobody wants to risk… My husband’s death changed my nature. I feel it impossible to be silent and tolerant anymore.”

Svetlana found her way into Jonathan’s play, burrowing into a plot structure inspired by Kahneman’s work. A New Yorker article about the psychological aftereffects seen in people who caused accidental deaths caused inspiration for another plotline, as did Derek Black, an heir to a prominent white nationalist legacy who later renounced his beliefs.

Derek attended Jonathan’s alma mater: New College, a tiny hotbed of liberal free thinkers in Sarasota, Florida. Derek’s own cognitive illusions changed very gradually due to his exposure to, and eventual acceptance of, students who thought differently than him and engaged him in ongoing conversation. Derek was outed on campus while he was still knee-deep in his transformation. Jonathan watched current students wrestle with how to treat this very particular student on alumni threads in his inbox. Derek’s peers ostracized him, but some friends and teachers continued to engage him, and those repeated encounters resulted in real change over the years. Eventually, Derek could no longer participate in his family’s belief system. His journey proves Kahneman’s point that it’s near impossible to align ourselves with how we used to think once we have undergone a shift.

These plotlines weave into each other in This Much I Know, finding common themes in the questions, “What are we responsible for?” “How do we change our minds?” “How do we determine what is real?” Characters wind their ways through these questions by following their intuition, acting mostly on a subconscious level. Harold, the character influenced by Derek, confides in his mentor and favorite professor, Lukesh, about being publicly outed as coming from a white nationalist family on campus. Lukesh — unlike Harold’s peers and other professors — engages in conversation with Harold. The seemingly simple power of listening helps each character on their journey. A bevy of Russians listen to Lukesh’s wife Natalya as she tries to uncover a mystery. The audience, cast as Lukesh’s students, aid him as he unravels his own trials.

But don’t try to think too hard as you listen, your brain will fall into cognitive illusions no matter what you do. We’re only human. We follow stories. At the core of this particular story are three characters learning to see each other as they really are, leaving illusions and previous perceptions behind.

TRADITION!

Looking at a Play through Judaism's Lens

By Rabbi Atara Cohen

While This Much I Know does not predominantly feature Jewish characters, this incredible performance is distinctly Jewish. Experiencing this play reminded me of experiencing a page of Talmud, a foundational Jewish text of Rabbinic conversations from about the year 500 CE. This is not because this play has rabbis, nor does the Talmud address Zebras and Stalin, but because the multivocal and overlapping structure of this play is distinctly Talmudic.

The Talmud reads like a debate, seamlessly jumping from topic to topic in an argumentative flow of tradition, optimized for memorization. While the text is written as if it were a conversation between speakers in the same room, the speakers often are often from different centuries, different countries, and even mythical places. A man in the fourth century CE might be in dialogue with one from the first, Biblical verses abound, and occasionally prophets from previous millennia appear to offer guidance.

So too, here, characters in different centuries, continents, and relationships to fictionality, join to create a cohesive story arc. By weaving together time periods and unlikely characters, the Talmud and This Much I Know (albeit on a smaller scale) create richly textured explorations of some of our most fundamental questions.

One such question haunts Natalya and other characters: to what degree are we responsible for actions that we cannot control? Are we culpable for harm that we caused which we did not intend? The Rabbis of the Talmud argue over similar questions at length. According to Biblical law, if a person kills someone accidentally, they are not subject to the death penalty as in a case of ordinary murder, but they are subject to exile.

Centuries later, the Rabbis of the Talmud attempt to define the parameters of “accident:” is there a difference between someone who causes harm due to negligence verses someone who causes harm in a way they could not have anticipated?

The Talmud concludes yes: there are gradations of culpability, and not all accidents can be understood in the same way. As you watch the actions of our play unfold, consider how the play addresses this question. How does our consciousness of our actions impact our culpability for our actions?

COMING NEXT: HESTER STREET

INTERVIEW WITH PLAYWRIGHT SHARYN ROTHSTEIN

Why and how you're adapting HESTER STREET, from novel to movie to play?

It’s an honor to be adapting Hester Street for the stage. The film itself is a feminist and film landmark; Joan Micklin Silver was one of the first successful female filmmakers, and her talent is evident in every frame of the movie. I was deeply inspired by how Micklin Silver adapted her own source material; Abraham Cahan’s 1896 short story Yekl: A Tale of the American Ghetto. Micklin Silver had transformed the novella, which focuses on the character of Jake, into a story about Gitl, Jake’s wife. In so doing, she completely shifted our point of view, simultaneously telling a historical story and making it feel deeply modern to the moment she was writing in, the early 1970s.

I saw the opportunity to do that same thing in bringing the movie to the stage. While the film is based in realism, the stage allows and demands that you open your mind to more poetic ways of storytelling. I wanted to stay true to the heart and humanity in both Cahan’s novella and Micklin Silver’s film, while adding a layer of theatricality that allows a modern audience to reckon with the current state of American Judaism, and consider our past as immigrants and refugees in light of current events.

What's changed? What remains the same? Why now?

There’s music! Beautiful, haunting songs by Joel Wagonner that are somehow of the past and the present at the same time. I’ve also worked to give every character a fuller backstory and arc in the show, taking liberally from both the film and the novella to add depth and complexity. The rhythm of the show, the way it moves from one scene to the next, and over time, is a major change from the film—there’s a dance element to it that adds magic and grace.

Yet I think the most significant change is the audience (presumably, you, reading this right now!). This a show about love, hope and what it means to become an American. I know that a live audience, bringing their own history and experience to this story is going to electrify the world of Hester Street.

END OF PROGRAM