January 9th was a long day. Our morning started bright and early at 8:00 am, when part of our group journeyed to the Dirksen Senate Building to meet United States Senator Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota at her “Minnesota Morning” program, a time in which Senator Klobuchar invites Minnesotans to visit her office for coffee on every Thursday morning that the Senate is in session. After an exciting “Minnesota Morning” with delicious pastries (featuring potica, a traditional Slovenian pastry, as a nod to Senator Klobuchar’s Slovenian heritage) and an interesting conversation with Senator Klobuchar about the artwork displayed in her office, we met the rest of the group at the National Museum of the American Indian. Our tour of the NMAI’s exhibition “Americans” on the changing nature of the portrayal of Native American history and how it has been generalized and wrongfully altered throughout the nation’s history, was incredibly enlightening. After a FANTASTIC lunch in the NMAI’s Mitsitam Native Foods Cafe, we traveled to the offices of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities where we met with professionals who spoke with us about careers in the arts, funding for arts initiatives, and the experience of being a civil servant.
With the insanely busy, but incredibly interesting morning and afternoon finished, I was eager to get some rest back at our hotel and take a much-needed nap. I knew that we had tickets for a performance that evening at 8:00 pm, so we would need to leave around 7:30 pm to travel to the venue. After rushing back to our hotel, I changed into pajamas and laid down in my comfortable hotel bed, ready for a refreshing nap before the evening’s performance. One problem… I slept through my alarm. After jumping out of bed, changing into the first clothes I saw, and grabbing my phone to put the theater’s address in Google Maps, I rushed onto the streets of Washington D.C. and made my way to the venue. Despite my tiny setback, I made it to the theater and settled down to see a touching performance about empathy in the midst of injustice.
This performance was of Sheltered, a new play by Alix Sobler that is in its second production at Theater J, after premiering at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta, Georgia following the play’s success in winning the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition in 2018. Sheltered interprets the contemporary moral and ethical questions that arise from the Syrian refugee crisis by presenting a mirroring fictional story of an American Jewish couple in 1939.
Summary of Sheltered from Theater J’s website
Ordinary people in extraordinary times
It is 1939, and Hitler’s assault on Europe has begun. Though much of the world has turned its back on the Jews of Europe, Evelyn and Leonard Kirsch suspect that the menace is real. This ordinary American couple makes a bold decision that could save the lives of many Jewish children and change the course of history. But first, they must convince their estranged friends to help. What begins as a night of cocktails and conversation becomes a tense negotiation of politics, morality, and survival – and the stakes are life and death. A suspenseful story that will bring you to the edge of your seat. Featuring McLean Fletcher, Kimberly Gilbert, David Schlumpf, Alexander Strain and Erin Weaver.
Theater J is a program, established in 1990, of the Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center and is now recognized as “the nation’s most prominent Jewish theater.” Since its establishment, the program has grown to offer an increasingly robust season, moving into the Irwin P. Edlavitch Building to current 238-seat Aaron and Cecile Goldman Theater in 1997. As Theater J has grown, its programming has expanded to include productions of new plays and the Yiddish Theater Lab. Currently, Theater J is run by Adam Immerwahr, Artistic Director, and Jojo Ruf, Managing Director.
Mission for Theater J
Theater J is a nationally-renowned, professional theater that celebrates, explores, and struggles with the complexities and nuances of both the Jewish experience and the universal human condition. Our work illuminates and examines: ethical questions of our time, inter-cultural experiences that parallel our own, and the changing landscape of Jewish identities. As the nation’s largest and most prominent Jewish theater, we aim to preserve and expand a rich Jewish theatrical tradition and to create community and commonality through theater-going experiences.
After an emotional performance of Sheltered, we were able to meet with staff members Jojo Ruf, Managing Director, and Chad Kinsman, Director of Patron Experience. Our conversation with Jojo and Chad was rich and impactful, as they spoke of how Theater J, as part of the Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center, seeks to create a diverse, equitable, and inclusive community by nourishing an inter-religious experience that both honors Jewish tradition and is respectful of the varying faiths of audiences and staff. Theater J and the Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center illustrate the significance of an inter-religious community that is seen through the art they produce, a beautiful example of the arts connecting with the democratic concept of individual liberty and religious freedom. For example, Sheltered deals with identity in a creative way, noting how our identities as humans are made up of a variety of important factors, notably religious, national, and political identities. The mission of Theater J to portray the “nuances of both the Jewish experience and the universal human condition” can be seen vividly in the interfaith, democratic portrayal of identity in Sheltered.