WASHINGTON, D.C.: Theater J has announced its 2019-20 season, featuring four plays and a musical.
“We’re thrilled to welcome our audience home to a warm and glowing Theater J inside a beautifully restored and refreshed Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center,” said artistic director Adam Immerwahr in a statement. The new season “promises to bring a season of entertaining, smart, funny plays that explore the Jewish experience and the universal human condition with passion, humor, and delight.”
The season will kick off with Love Sick (Sept. 4-29), written and adapted by Ofra Daniel, with music by Daniel and Lior Ben-Hur. Based on the Song of Songs, it tells the story a young wife in a lifeless marriage who discovers she has a secret admirer. The cast will include Sasha Olinick, and Christopher Renshaw will direct.
Next up will be Edward Albee’s The Occupant (Nov. 7-Dec. 8), about a renowned sculptor who immigrated to the U.S. from Russia as a young girl and is asked to participate in an interview after her death. Aaron Posner will direct.
Following will be Alix Sobler’s Sheltered (Jan. 9-Feb. 2, 2020), about a night of cocktails with friends that turns into a call to action to help save the lives of many Jewish children in 1939. The cast will feature Kimberly Gilbert, David Schlumpf, Alexander Strain, and Erin Weaver. Immerwahr will direct.
The season will continue with The Wanderers (Feb. 19-March 15, 2020), by Anna Ziegler, about modern love through two different couples: one a pair of Hasidic Jews embarking on an arranged marriage, the other high-powered celebrities entangled in an affair. Amber Paige McGinnis.
Mark St. Germain’s Becoming Dr. Ruth (March 27-April 19, 2020) will be next. It tells the story of one woman’s journey from fleeing Germany to being a sniper in Jerusalem to becoming a sex therapist. Naomi Jacobson will star, and Holly Twyford will direct.
The season will close with Rinne Groff’s Compulsion or the House Behind (June 5-28, 2020), a semi-fictional story about a writer’s battle to publish and adapt Anne Frank’s diary into a play. Johanna Gruenhut will direct.
Theater J, founded in 1990, is a program of the Edlavitch JCC of D.C. and produces thought-provoking plays and musicals that celebrate Jewish culture.
