GANDHI AND THE JEW to Open Miami New Drama's 10th Season

Miami New Drama has announced the cast and creative team for their World Premiere production of Gandhi and the Jew, a new play written by Harley Elias, commissioned and developed by Miami New Drama. Directed by Margot Bordelon, the two-person play stars Keshav Moodliar as Gandhi and Max Katz as Kallenbach. Moodliar, born in India and a graduate of The Juilliard School's Drama Division, most recently starred in the title role of Don Juan with Molière in the Park, following a season at Hudson Valley Shakespeare as Orlando in As You Like It and Edmund in King Lear. Katz, a native New Yorker, trained at Drama Centre London and Moscow's Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute and was most recently seen in Death of a Salesman at Hartford Stage and in the three-time Drama Desk-nominated Try/Step/Trip at Under the Radar.

“I am thrilled to open our landmark 10th anniversary season with Gandhi and the Jew, a revelatory exploration of a little-known chapter of history that speaks directly to some of the most urgent questions of our time: identity, violence, survival, and the limits of our convictions,” said Michel Hausmann, Founding Artistic Director of Miami New Drama. “This marks our fifth collaboration with Harley Elias, a playwright I believe will have an extraordinary impact on the American theater, and reflects our commitment to investing in the artists who will help shape its future.”

In addition to Margot Bordelon as Director, the creative team also includes Justin Swader and Christopher Swader (Scenic Design), Beth Goldenberg (Costume Design), Oliver Wason (Lighting Design), and Sinan Zafar (Sound Design). Tara Rubin is the Casting Director and Katie Wilhelm is the Stage Manager.

Gandhi and the Jew brings to the stage a remarkable and little-known relationship: the decades-long friendship between Mahatma Gandhi and Hermann Kallenbach, the Lithuanian-born Jewish architect who became his closest companion, housemate and benefactor in South Africa, and who helped him build the philosophy of nonviolence.

Drawn from years of research, travel, and hundreds of unpublished letters, the play begins before Gandhi became an international icon, when he was a young attorney searching for a way to confront injustice. Kallenbach was a successful architect looking for something larger than the comfortable life he had built. Together, they forged an extraordinary friendship that would help shape Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence. But decades later, as Nazism rose in Europe and Kallenbach became increasingly committed to Jewish self-determination, their deeply held convictions would put that friendship to the ultimate test.

Gandhi and the Jew is the third commission of Miami New Drama's Jewish Play Initiative, which develops new plays about Jewish life, history, and identity. It is also the company's third world premiere with director Margot Bordelon. "Margot brings the artistic vision, sensitivity, and generosity that developing a new play requires," said Hausmann.

“I am telling this story now because I hope other people, no matter what their background or connection to this history, will fall in love with it the same way I did,” playwright Harley Elias shared. “Every one of us has our own complicated relationship with identity and belonging. Here are two people who engaged as deeply as they could with theirs, who argued passionately over a lifetime, searching for truth and imagining a future that recognized every part of their humanity. I hope audiences experience the exhilaration of watching two people discover one another, challenge one another, and imagine that they might change the world, and feel the pain of watching the world challenge them back.”

Gandhi and the Jew stands as a human exploration of a brotherhood, and the tragic crossroads that nearly shattered it. It captures the vibrant pulse of a bond stretched to its breaking point, serving as a reminder that our strength is found through listening to one another, and ensuring this forgotten chapter remains unforgettable.

“Harley, who has meticulously researched this history, takes on one of the most charged debates of our time and gives both sides its full force. He does so by putting the argument in the mouths of two men who love each other, men for whom the political is always personal,” said director Margot Bordelon. “I am a huge admirer of Michel's vision, and this company's commitment to creating work for this community. To me, that is theater at its most vital, at its most effective, and ultimately its most necessary.”