Don’t Cry For Me, My Yeshiva at 92nd Street Y

Celebrating NYC Pride Month, the award-winning Don’t Cry for Me, My Yeshiva is a 90-minute musical memoir about a lifelong search for family, love, acceptance, and that elusive rainbow connection, written and performed by Joe Fox and directed by 23-time Manhattan Association of Cabaret’s award-winner Lennie Watts, with musical direction by Dan Furman.

Part musical parody, part memoir, part love letter to Broadway, with reimagined show tunes, original songs, and razor-sharp storytelling, Don’t Cry for Me, My Yeshiva grows in part from Fox’s experience returning “back into the closet” while filming a 2009 documentary in Maine around a same-sex marriage referendum. A story of identity, family, and acceptance, told through music and memoir, this unforgettable evening follows his journey from the yeshiva classroom to the most unexpected of places, promising an evening of laughter, recognition, and standing-ovation-worthy joy. Also featuring Camille Diamond and Karen Steinberg.

“Everyone has their own pride story. As we celebrate, we should always remember in these trying times that one’s sense of pride can be inspired thru the most adverse situations,” shared Fox. “As the son of an Orthodox Rabbi, my story is told through the lens of being Jewish and Gay, and what it was like to reconcile faith and sexuality.”

Don’t Cry for Me, My Yeshiva won the 2025 Manhattan Association of Cabarets Best Director award. The production was also nominated for Manhattan Association of Cabarets Best Special Production 2025 and BroadwayWorld’s Cabaret Awards (Best Director 2025).

“Don’t Cry for Me, My Yeshiva is my way of turning a period of fear and contradiction into something joyful, theatrical, and hopefully universal,” continued Fox. “A Broadway-loving, music-filled reminder that the struggle to be fully yourself can lead to the most human, authentic and liberating kind of truth.”