2015's Jewish Playwriting Contest Winner will be produced at JCHS of the Bay in the spring of 2016! 

Sarah Gancher's searing, epic, true-life adventure received a fantastic reading in Washington DC's Women's Voices Theater Festival, produced by our good friends at Mosaic Theater Company.

We produced the full, 8-hour cycle of heater maverick Rob Askins' True Bible Tales last year for the Downtown Tikkun Leil Shavuot at the 14th Street Y. It was EPIC. 

Rob has had an amazing year, and will have one production off-Broadway at MCC Theater, and another ON BROADWAY - the 2nd remounting of his genius dark comedy HAND TO GOD. We are so thrilled to work with this awesome NY star.  

Read up on Rob in the New York Times

2012 OPEN Resident and LABA Fellow Zvi Sahar's amazing new art form - puppet cinema - has received support from the Jim Henson Foundation, Dixon Place, and the Washington DC Fringe Festival. The full piece will premiere at the HaZira Theater in Israel (September), with a subsequent US premiere in the BAM Next Wave Festival in October.  

Read the New York Times Review!

See great clips of the piece here. 

http://www.bam.org/theater/2014/salt-of-the-earth

Renee Calarco's investigation of the Menachem Youlis fake-torah scandal hinges on the motives of its unbelievably likeable protagonists, Larry and Roberta. Why do we believe, and how do we continue to in the face of hard facts? Why do we fetishize the Holocaust? What role does money play in contemporary Jewish life? It's all up for debate here. 

The World Premiere will take place at Washington DC's Theater J in March of 2015. We'll be there!

http://washingtondcjcc.org/center-for-arts/theater-j/on-stage/14-15-season/gds_honest_truth/

Brooke Berman's stellar new play from the 2013 OPEN Festival had two runs in Detroit - the city in which the play is set - produced by Jewish Ensemble Theatre and Plowshares Theatre. 

March 6 - 30, 2014

Read about Brooke and the play here!

Strong reviews here.

Martin Blank's searing look at the life and motives of Jonathan Pollard played off-Broadway at the East 4th Street Theater, directed by Elise Thoron and produced by Lanie Zipoy. 

“As satisfying as any spy movie and twice as smart! Director Elise Thoron amazingly keeps us on the edge of our seats for the full 75 minutes…[Playwright Martin] Blank is able to raise a lot of intelligent questions about the nature of trust and duty. [Joel] Rooks is stunningly authentic in his portrayal of Eitan, using a soft approach to achieve his hard objectives.”
— Zachary Stewart for TheaterMania.com

http://thelawofreturnplay.com/

Click here to see the great Times review. 

2012 jpc Top 10 playwright Ian Cohen's true rendition of the Akeda story in modern times received a workshop production at New Haven's JCC Theaterworks in the winter of 2014. 

http://www.newhavenreview.com/index.php/2013/12/a-simple-twist-of-faith/

We don't take a huge credit for this, but one of the plays we shouted out in our 2012 Contest, B'Shalom by Meron Langsner, had its premiere at the NYC Fringe Festival in 2014, produced by Mortal Folly Theater. 

http://www.thejewishweek.com/blogs/well-versed/bridging-middle-east-borders-fringe

2012 OPEN Resident Melissa Moschitto and her dedicated company The Anthropologists  were invited for the World Premiere of their Egyptian revolution/Passover play Mahalla in July of 2013. We were so proud to be able to support the second phase of its development with a space residency in 2013 as well. 

 Click here for more about the Berkshire Fringe Festival. 

Presented in 2013's OPEN in partnership with LABA: a laboratory for New Jewish Culture, Misha envisions an Israel in 2030, radicalized and yet seeking peace. A tense, taut thriller with messianic overtones, Martyr's Street opens Spring 2015 at Theater for the New City. 

Check back here for more info.

Observant writer MJ Kaufman's exploration of tracing one's roots and unearthing the mystical moved on from the 2014 OPEN Festival to Boston's Huntington Theatre for an extended workshop directed by 2013 OPEN Director Pirronne Yousefzadeh. 

www.huntingtontheatre.org/murmurrock

2012 jewish playwriting contest winner SIX by Zohar Tirosh-Polk was commissioned by a commercial producer for a new draft and potential off-broadway run. 

See what else Zoe is up to! 

 After readings with The Playwrights Center and the jpp, Adam Kraar's haunting and heartfelt play will have a reading at Ensemble Studio Theater, directed by 2013 jpc director Tamara Woodard.  

Click here for more information.  

2012 and 2013 Finalist Peter Ullian was so inspired by his experience in the OPEN Festival, that he rewrote his entire play, and then wrote a complete sequel to the play . That's right, an entirely new, jewishly-centered, radical new piece of art, created for the jpp. 

The new play, Spirit in the Sky was read at Hollis University while Peter taught a recent graduate seminar.  

2014 Top 3 playwright Sam Graber will head to Hollywood for a reading of his take on the story of Elijah - Modern Prophet. At turns learned, funny, surprising and current, the play will play at Noah Haidle's Blank Theater in April, 2015.