AJT Programs and Events

AJT MEMBER Monthly Meet-Ups!

UP NEXT: Thursday, January 16th at 7pm Eastern/6pm Central/4pm Pacific - via Zoom, 1 hour

Hosted by David Lloyd Olson, Theater J Managing Director and AJT Board Member

Our Monthly Meet-Ups are a chance for Members to connect in a virtual space.

What’s on your mind? What are you celebrating? What industry questions do you have? What New Year’s Resolution do you want to share?

Bring topics to talk about or just come to listen and uplift.

For current members only.

Future Meet-Ups:

Tuesday, February 11th at 7pm Eastern/

6pm Central/4pm Pacific via Zoom

Hosted by Hank Kimmel, Playwright and AJT Board Member 

Tuesday, March 11th at 7pm Eastern/

6pm Central/4pm Pacific via Zoom

Hosted by Becca Meyers, multi-hyphenate theatre Artist, Producing Director of the San Diego Jewish Arts Festival and AJT Board Member

PANEL DISCUSSION: Can Theatre Be Too Jewish?

Thursday, January 30th at 7pm Eastern/6pm Central/4pm Pacific - via Zoom, 1 hour

 “That play is too Jewish for our audience.” “If we produced it, the Hebrew would have to go.” AJT President and Theatre Ariel Artistic Director Jesse Bernstein has heard responses like these many times over the years. So he decided to convene a few people for a discussion of 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?

Panelists include: Ali Viterbi (playwright), Becca Myers (writer/producer/performer)

Free for Members. $18 for Non-Members. 

PUNCHING UP: JEWS, COMEDY, & BELONGING IN AMERICA

with Gwydion Suilebhan & Steven Gimbel

Thursday, February 27th at at 7pm Eastern / 6pm Central / 4pm Pacific via Zoom

1 hour

At the turn of the 20th century, a great wave of immigration hit Ellis Island like a tsunami, depositing two million Jews on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Poor, tough, scarred by the tyranny they fled from, and deeply disadvantaged by the antisemitic America they arrived in, they spent the next hundred years working toward a sense of true belonging in their adopted home. 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.

Free for Members. $18 for Non-Members. 

EXPANDING THE CANON: National Convening

AN IN-PERSON EVENT, Hosted by Theater J

Sunday, February 2nd at 1 pm EST, at Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center / Theater J, 1529 16th Street Northwest, Washington, DC 

Presented with the Alliance for Jewish Theatre and Moment Magazine

Sponsored by the Covenant Foundation, CANVAS, and the Leshowitz Family Foundation, Terry Singer.

Six playwrights from across North America have been working for three years on writing new plays that center around the stories of ethnically and racially diverse Jews, part of Theater J's Expanding the Canon initiative sponsored by the Covenant Foundation. Theplaywrights will convene in Washington, DC at the Edlavitch DCJCC on Sunday, February 2 at 1:00 PM to showcase excerpts from their new plays. The playwrights will participate in a panel discussion hosted by Moment Magazine, and a dessert reception will follow sponsored by the Alliance for Jewish Theatre. 

Attend with your fellow colleagues and friends from The Alliance for Jewish Theatre.

Tickets available at the link below.