What makes a Jewish play too Jewish to produce. Would the same comments be made about other culturally-specific plays? What is the value in including things in a play that an outside group wouldn’t understand? How should artists respond to this issue?

Throughout that struggle, Jews used comedy to challenge the status quo, speak truth to power, grease the skids of social acceptance, and express their full pride and humanity. In this talk about Punching Up, their work in progress, AJT board member Gwydion Suilebhan and his co-author Steven Gimbel will tell the story of how comedians earned Jewish Americans a meaningful place in the nation’s cultural fabric.

AJT Completes

36 Years!

(Image: Staged reading of Sholem Asch's  "On the Road to Zion" ( translation by Caraid O'Brien). Featured: Diana Bukowska, Lena Sibony, Seated: Bekka Fink, Dov Hassan, Laura Sheppard, Bill Liebman. Photo credit: Jeremy Knight. Presented by AJT Member Company Yiddish Theatre Ensemble, with support from the AJT re-granting program.) 

As the Alliance for Jewish Theatre completes its 36th year of preserving and promoting Jewish theatre, we hope you’ll consider donating to our annual fund to help sustain our future!

Click Here To Donate!

Congratulations to our 2024 Regranting Recipients! Click below to learn about their projects.

AJT In-Person, in Washington D.C. at Theater J's Expanding the Canon National Convening. New plays that center around the stories of ethnically and racially diverse Jews, six playwrights will convene in Washington, DC at the Edlavitch DCJCC on Sunday, February 2 at 1:00 PM to showcase excerpts from their new plays.

Check out AJT's upcoming events for the First Quarter of 2025! We kick off with important discussions, an in-person event, and more!

AJT's official Podcast, On The Bimah, produced by Danielle Levsky and Danny Debner. New episodes drop each month or so.

Listen to Latest Episodes!

Image: Theater J (Washington, D.C.): Nathan The Wise, by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, adapted by Michael Bloom. Directed by Adam Immerwahr. April 2022. Ryan Maxwell Phoography.