The power of unconditional love is illuminated when a daughter decides to adopt a new strategy for dealing with her abrasive mother: She will respond only with love. Their subsequent conversations reveal much about the past, and why expressions of love have been so few and far between. The new st...

Dr. Ron Wolfson, a Jewish Educator, recalls what happens when, as a post–bar mitzvah Hebrew school dropout, he trades the pleasures of hanging out with friends for attending Shabbat dinner with his family. His worried parents call the police when he fails to appear at six o’clock sharp, then exch...

On the way to their weekend home in Connecticut, a Manhattan couple pull into a rest stop and observe a distressed woman sitting in her car, gripping the steering wheel and unable to move. The husband impulsively takes action and an emotional and intense scene plays out in front of his wife, wait...

Growing up Black and Jewish, award-winning actor, comic, writer, and beatboxer Joshua Reuben Silverstein takes us on a tour of his outrageously funny world. Sometimes an outcast and sometimes a special and exotic addition to friends’ scrapbooks of life, he opens his comedy act by announcing, “He...

Two-time Emmy-nominated writer and award-winning comedian Debbie Kasper tells a hilarious and tender story of how her father brought home a shocking surprise when she was 12. Expecting a puppy, she instead is greeted by a teen-aged hippie who turns out to be her half-sister from a previously unk...

Struggling with the aftermath of his mother’s death, a man takes his children to a local street fair, where they all fall in love with a Golden mix whom they adopt and name Gabby. As Gabby the dog becomes a family member, sometimes irritating and often hilarious, Robin learns a valuable lesson ab...

Separated in isolation due to COVID-19, Jenn yearns to spend time with her deteriorating father in a nursing facility. She misses hugging him and bringing him matzo ball soup and chocolate milkshakes, comfort foods that keep them connected. While sadness permeates her days, she is grateful for...

This true, candid, and uproarious story by author and comedian Judy Carter takes us along on her precarious quest to find love as a 66-year-old lesbian. While her family has long accepted her sexual identity, she wonders whether they will be prepared for the shock of her decision to have a relati...

A determined daughter strives to reach her father, who suffers from severe Alzheimer’s. In a tender and touching story, the essence of the father she once knew is revealed, confirming that the man she remembers and loves is hidden somewhere inside the confused shell she now encounters.

Prod...

The daughter of a white Jewish mother and half-Black, half-Chinese father is raised without discussion of race because her mom was color blind and wanted to believe the rest of the world was too. But this utopian ideal is not the reality she experiences growing up. Instead, she feels like an ou...

Advised by her gynecologist to obtain a dildo to save her most important, post-menopausal body part, well-known actress Melanie Chartoff heads off to the new Hustler store on the Sunset Strip. It is opening day, so she thinks no one will notice her if she arrives at 9 a.m. Dressed in a trench c...

Growing up in the Soviet Union, young Feldman has had no contact with his forbidden religion. Despite being a good Communist, his Jewish name dooms him to be a second- or third-class citizen. A frequent target of unkind names, beatings, and taunts, he is told he is different and does not belong...

Esther Amini tells a poignant story from her memoir, Concealed, of her family of Persian Jews, who having fled the religious zealotry of Iran are looking forward to celebrating their first shabbat at an American synagogue in Manhattan. Dressed in their Sabbath finery, they approach the sanctuary...

A young woman rents an apartment above a 91-year-old Holocaust survivor. She is soon invited to dinner and the unlikely pair become fast friends, even as the younger woman wonders if spending so much time with her new best buddy might be thwarting her plunge into the dating pool. Will she find ...

Ronda Spinak, The Braid/Jewish Women’s Theatre’s co-founder and artistic director, takes us on a deeply personal tour of her childhood, filled with relatives who cared for her while she was growing up. As a teenager, when she finds her Uncle Jack to be an embarrassment, she realizes he is unlike...

At the age of four, Susan’s eight-year-old sister, Jeanne, suddenly dies from a fall on ice, and her family casts off all connections to Judaism. Her parents “couldn’t live with a God who took their beloved firstborn daughter.” Diane, a new sister, is born 14 months after the tragedy, but their r...

A note from a friend and a Facebook post affect Kate’s attitude to sheltering in place. This true and inspirational story tells us how we, like caged birds, might choose to handle our confinement.

Produced by The Braid/Jewish Women’s Theatre
USA, 2020
True story, Drama
English
2:02 minutes

Decades after graduating college, a middle-aged man, David Masello, essayist and editor, reunites with his roommate’s—and sometimes his—love interest. Over dinner, he and she reminisce about the good old days and the secrets of their unusual love triangle. He recalls his mother’s relationship a...

A 90-year-old tenant in a rent-controlled apartment building becomes an activist when the new manager of her building removes the chairs in the lobby, critically necessary for the many elderly residents who cannot stand while waiting for rides. When she confronts the manager, he tells her there ...

Master storyteller Vicki Juditz’s story begins in the waiting room of her 15-year-old daughter’s therapist’s office. After her husband’s suicide, her daughter is struggling and blames her for ruining her life. Worst of all, the teenager can’t believe her beloved dad is in “Heaven,” because Vick...