New Play Commission About the American Jewish Experience in Partnership with Brooklyn Jews and Rattlestick Playwright’s Theater
Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, in partnership with CBE and Brooklyn Jews, opened their search to commission a new play focusing on the American Jewish experience. The commission is looking to support an emerging, early-career playwright in creating a new work that will encourage meaningful dialogue around the complexity of being Jewish in America.
“So many in our community identify strongly with Jewish culture. Some call themselves ‘cultural Jews,’ and many more approach Jewish culture as a constitutive part of their Jewish experience,” says Rabbi Matt Green, Assistant Rabbi of CBE and Director of Brooklyn Jews. “Through this partnership with Rattlestick, CBE and Brooklyn Jews are excited to offer our community a rare chance to produce new Jewish culture as well as the chance to consume it. By advancing the work of an emerging playwright, our hope is to advance our own broader communal conversation about what being Jewish means today.”
Applications are due February 15th, 2019. The playwright will receive $7,500 for this commission, along with two guaranteed readings—currently intended to be presented by CBE and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. The playwright will be selected by a panel of theater professionals, and it is intended that the selected playwright will be notified by early April, with a completion deadline of Spring 2020.
Rattlestick Playwrights Theater’s mission is to present diverse, challenging and provocative plays that might not otherwise be produced and to foster the future voices of the American theater. They produce theater to inspire empathy and provoke conversations in response to the complexities of our culture. It is essential that Rattlestick’s artists, audience, and core team reflect the diversity of New York City, and that a wide array of perspectives are represented on the Rattlestick stage.
Brooklyn Jews is a community of young Brooklynites looking to enter the Jewish conversation through art, text, politics, food, and ritual. They affirm the values of progressive, egalitarian Judaism alongside secular culture, fostering Jewish involvement that reflects a Brooklyn lifestyle. Brooklyn Jews offers ritual and learning opportunities to everyone regardless of formal membership.
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