Broadway Seder: A Cultural Experience for the Theater Community and Friends

As a grown-up theater kid, seeing a Broadway actor out and about in the “real world” always had a bit of a “seeing a teacher in the grocery store” feeling to me. You spot them in their street clothes, think you recognize them from somewhere, but can’t quite put your finger on it, and then have the “oh my god!” realization that you’re occupying the same space as this person and perhaps have something in common. 

Attending the Broadway Community Seder last Monday as a fan, not a theater professional but a friend of a theater professional, felt a little like that, except the thing we have in common isn’t that we both eat Cheerios, it’s that we’re both Jewish. 

Here was the collision of two communities that define my life and my identity—theater and Judaism—all in one space, being celebrated together. I felt both like an imposter sitting among theater royalty, and like family sitting among Jews and allies, all there to celebrate Passover on the only night Broadway can, a Monday. Admittedly, Passover has always been one of my least favorite holidays, mostly because I can’t eat bread but also because the Haggadah we read from to conduct the Seder and tell the Passover story is usually so dry and boring. Every year we gather to retell a story dynamic enough that inspired both “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” and “The Prince of Egypt” and yet everyone around the table is bored to tears, not-so-secretly counting the page numbers until the part where we get to eat. 

But not at the Broadway Seder. The Broadway Seder is the first of the 60+ Seders I’ve attended in my lifetime that treated the story of Passover with the drama, intrigue, and musical interludes it so rightly deserves. Led by Rabbi Arielle Stein and told through a mix of traditional songs and readings, personal anecdotes, and modern (and often comedic) retellings of the Passover Haggadah, the Broadway Seder was a night of dynamic storytelling, captivating performances, and pure Jewish joy. 

Elliot Levey, who I’d seen just weeks before in “Giant” portraying a character excusing Roald Dahl’s antisemitism, opened the evening with the Urchatz, the ritual blessing over the washing of hands, recalling the rituals of Temple priests in the days of Moses. Etai Benson led the most dynamic “Dayeinu” I will likely ever hear in my life, galloping in the tight space between the long tables to engage everyone in the room. Judy Gold retold the story of Pharaoh and Moses (the “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” and “The Prince of Egypt” portion of the evening) with both the biting humor and modern day relevance the story needs to resonate when you’ve heard it every year twice a year for your entire life. And, like any gathering of theater people, there was the impromptu “Defying Gravity” performance, albeit this time performed by the only Jewish Glinda and Elphaba duo to perform together on stage, Alexandra Socha and Talia Suskauer. 

Yes, the performances were memorable, the food delicious, and the company delightful. But once the starstruck feeling wore off, what I was left with was the comfort of community, both the Broadway community and the Jewish community. Now is not a time where people feel open, or even comfortable, talking about or displaying their Jewishness with non Jews. I put on my Star of David necklace and donned my “Matzoh Ballers” tee shirt for the Seder, while also tucking my necklace under my shirt and wrapping my jacket around me tightly on the subway to keep both concealed until I arrived safely. And yet when I arrived, I arrived to an unabashed  celebration of Jewish past, present, and future. I arrived as a stranger to what’s clearly a tight knit family of Broadway who’s who, and I left feeling part of the Broadway mishpucha.

There’s a line in the Haggadah that more or less reads “let all who are hungry come eat,” which is often interpreted to invite strangers and non Jews to a Passover Seder. I showed up as a stranger among these Broadway professionals who not only welcomed me with open arms, they gave me a Seder to remember. I hope that next year there’s a Broadway Seder Haggadah to bring the joy of the evening to my own family’s celebration, and I hope I get to join the community again myself. 

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