By Erin Silliman
Guest Columnist
Theater has always been a mirror held up to the human soul, but for the Jewish community, storytelling is something even deeper. It is how we preserve our history, process our struggles, pass down our values, and, perhaps most importantly, how we laugh at ourselves. This fall, CenterStage at the Trager Family Jewish Community Center is proud to launch an exciting new cultural program that celebrates this rich heritage of storytelling: the Jewish Play Reading Series, debuting on Sunday, Oct. 18.
As the Trager Family JCC’s Artistic Director/Arts and Ideas Director, my goal with this series is to create an afternoon that does more than just entertain. The series is designed to showcase authentic Jewish voices, taking a closer look at the nuances, complexities, joy, and distinct humor that define not only the universal human experience but the specific Jewish experience across different eras and contexts.
At the heart of our Trager Family JCC are our core organizational pillars: creating a sense of belonging for everyone who walks through our doors and continuously growing our community’s education about and engagement with Jewish life. By gathering together to hear these texts, we grow our community in such authentic ways, learning about where we come from while deepening our connection to who we are today.
To bring this vision to life, we are tapping into the incredible wealth of talent right here in our own Jewish community. The upcoming Oct. 18 presentation will feature eight exceptional local Jewish actors, whose diverse backgrounds and personal connections to the material bring an unmatched layer of authenticity to the stage. Zoey Wexler, a local actor and CenterStage favorite, says: “I feel honored to be part of a program that has made space for these stories and experiences to be shared. As a Jewish American, it is incredible meaningful to be a part of a community that values and celebrates these stories.”
Guiding these performers are two brilliant local Jewish directors, Ariane Barrie-Stern and Jordan Price, who have volunteered their time, vision, and expertise to help shape these stagings. Price shares, “As a Jewish performer and director, it is very rare in our community to have an opportunity to explore works that correlate with my identity and religion. I’m excited to get a chance to work with other Jewish actors in the area to tell these stories and create an afternoon that will allow our local audiences to feel connected; seeing how similar they are to their own experiences. In a world with growing antisemitism, I believe a lot comes from the fear of what people don’t understand. Hopefully these stories will show our audiences that there is nothing to fear. We may not always agree with one another, and that is all right, but we can still listen and grow our own empathy and tolerance.”
The afternoon program features selected scenes from five distinct works, each offering a different window into Jewish life. Together, they span genres from historical tragedy to contemporary comedy, showing the full spectrum of our overall narrative.
We begin with featured readings from The Bintel Brief. Originally a famous advice column in the early 20th-century Yiddish newspaper The Jewish Daily Forward, The Bintel Brief served as a lifeline for Eastern European immigrants adapting to life in America. Their letters and replies are filled with authentic expression, capturing the confusion, aspirations, heartaches, and triumphs of individuals trying to build new homes while holding onto their heritage.
The program then shifts to the warmth and laughter of a true American classic: Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs. This beloved coming-of-age story captures the humor and friction of a working-class Jewish family navigating life in 1930s Brooklyn. Simon’s brilliant wit highlights the universal joys and trials of family dynamics, showing how humor is often our greatest tool for survival and connection.
Act I will conclude with scenes from I Never Saw Another Butterfly, a deeply moving play written by Celeste Raspanti that centers on the lives of children living in the Terezín concentration camp. Based on the actual poetry and art left behind by those children, this piece reminds us of the enduring power of hope, creativity, and resilience even in the darkest of times.
Moving into contemporary themes in Act II, our series will showcase scenes from Claudia Haas’s Making Some Noise and Jennifer Maisel’s The Last Seder. Both of these sharp, modern plays explore the complexities of family dynamics in more contemporary settings and contexts. Each beautifully captures the tension between tradition and change, offering us a relatable, nuanced look at modern Jewish identity and family loyalty.
We’ll conclude with a short talkback segment for our audience to further engage with our stories, cast, and team.
We invite you to join us on Oct. 18 for this special afternoon of community, culture, and conversation. Come support our local artists, engage with our heritage, and discover your own sense of belonging in the stories we share. Tickets are $32 and the runtime is approximately 2.5 hours. To purchase tickets, go online at jcclouisville.org/centerstage.
Erin Silliman is Arts & Ideas Director and CenterStage Producing Director at the Trager Family JCC and the Jewish Federation of Louisville