Almanac Projects to Present Double Bill: DEAD MUSE, and KADDISH (HOW TO BE A SANCTUARY)
Before each performance, audiences are invited to participate in an interactive, reflective menorah lighting.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Dec. 08, 2025
Almanac Projects will present an intimate double bill pairing two powerful solo works examining Jewish identity, family memory, and the path toward justice. Dead Muse by Adam Kerbel and Kaddish (how to be a sanctuary) by Sam Sherman perform together December 19-21, 2025 at Plays & Players Theatre's Skinner Studio.
Falling during Hanukkah 2025, these performances honor the holiday's deeper themes of liberation, perseverance, and connecting to ancestors. Before each performance, audiences are invited to participate in an interactive, reflective menorah lighting, a moment of sanctuary before entering the theatrical space.
Both 60-minute works draw from real family histories to explore how we inherit our ancestors' stories... and what we do with that inheritance.
About Dead Muse
You've come to see another show about the weight of the Holocaust, 80 years on. But this time, meet Adam, a hard-on-his-luck Hollywood actor haunted by bombed auditions, sexting while driving, and his dead Mexican and Jewish grandparents.
Developed through Adam Kerbel's study of his grandparents' real oral testimonies and family lore, Dead Muse is a wry, interactive journey through contemporary LA as a struggling artist navigates the ghosts of his ancestors. The show's minimalist design and sharp physical storytelling flip 80 years of precedent about how we talk about the Holocaust and renewal in the modern era.
"This isn't just an hour of someone telling their story," notes thINKingDANCE in their 2024 review. "It's diving into the sensations of life with [Adam]: images, sounds, movements, and emotions overlapping, layering, interrupting each other... not afraid to be witnessed, to be seen, and to be with us."
About Kaddish
Care to learn how to curse in Yiddish and witness a reckoning between a Jewish grandson going to do solidarity work in Palestine and his long-passed grandfather who fought the Nazis in World War II?
Sam and his dead grandpa have a conversation about everything from resisting fascism (in the US, in Europe, and in Palestine) to growing up with mobsters, all with the help of a mystical creature from Yiddish folklore. Developed from the private journals of Saul N. Sherman, a Jewish WWII veteran from New Jersey, and interspersed with Sam's own writing, Kaddish explores what our ancestors can teach us about the messy path toward standing up for what is right.
Kaddish's premiere at the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe was met with the prestigious Bobby Award by Broadway Baby, who praised its "profound writing, imaginative staging and precise direction" and its "[invitation] to listen to the moral inheritance of our ancestors."
About The Double Bill: Dead Muse & Kaddish
Two Jewish artists. Two generations. Two journeys through moral inheritance. Consider this a part of your holiday time.
Artistically, Hanukkah is a holiday of liberation, of connecting to ancestors and celebrating perseverance when one temple fell so another could be built. Isn't that what we do in the arts? We build community to look toward brighter futures together.
The word "sanctuary" appears in Kaddish's title. The light of Hanukkah can be seen as a symbol of shelter, of renewed refuge as we reckon with social justice issues across time. Dead Muse creates shelter in the darkness of Holocaust memory, honoring those who have passed and preserving their value, an essential Jewish principle.
Dead Muse navigates Los Angeles haunted by Chicano and Jewish ancestors, asking what it means to inherit trauma while searching for meaning in the present. Through dark comedy and virtuosic movement, it builds sanctuary in memory itself.
Kaddish wrestles with resisting fascism across decades, from WWII battlefields to contemporary solidarity work. Through intimate conversation and Yiddish folklore, it asks how we become sanctuaries for moral action.
Together, they illuminate individual and community perseverance. They refuse easy answers, instead offering what sanctuary truly is: not comfort, but an honest space for reckoning with history, identity, and the difficult work of justice.
Both creative teams collaborated extensively on how to activate these themes in the theatrical space, resulting in an installation connecting audiences to the Festival of Lights and its resonance with the evening's deeper meanings.
Philadelphia Awards - Live Stats
Best Musical - Top 3
1.
CATS (Shawnee Playhouse)
17.3% of votes
2.
INTO THE WOODS (The Milford Theater)
6% of votes
3.
NEWSIES (Viviana Theatre)
3.9% of votes
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