‘Unleavened’ brings spirit of Passover to stage
Broadway’s brightest Jewish talent presented an ‘immersive musical Seder’ in a room designed like a Beduin tent
What happens when you cram a bunch of Broadway’s brightest Jewish talent into a room to celebrate a festival-like Seder on the last evening of Passover?
The answer, as you might have guessed, is much more than a lively rendition of “Dayenu.”
On Monday night, Benj Pasek (who penned the lyrics for the La La Land and Dear Evan Hansen scores), actor Adam Kantor (Rent, Fiddler on the Roof) and other Broadway insiders hosted about 90 guests at “Unleavened,” a multifaceted night of music, comedy and poetry based on the themes of the Seder.
The diverse group of performers included Tovah Feldshuh, Danny Burstein (Tevye in the latest Broadway Fiddler production), Cynthia Erivo (who won a Tony Award last year for her lead role in The Color Purple), NPR’s Ari Shapiro (host of All Things Considered), Kantor and poet Lemon Andersen.
Pasek, who famously referred to his JCC soccer career while accepting an Oscar in February for his La La Land work, later told JTA he had wanted to pull off an event like this for a long time.
“The goal of the evening was to pilot an idea of how we can reinterpret the Seder ritual to encompass modern-day concerns and show that the age-old themes of Passover – the journey from slavery to freedom – are as relevant as ever,” he said in an email. “For years, my quirky Jewish family has hosted an alternative Seder connected to issues of the day, set in a Beduin tent in my living room. Some good friends and I wanted to bring that experience to a larger group of people in an intimate setting, and use performances by a variety of artists from all denominations to tell a modern version of the story of Exodus.”
The event was primarily sponsored by the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation’s #MakeItHappen initiative and Reboot, a foundation that aims to modernize Jewish traditions.
“Unleavened” – held in a Midtown Manhattan space that was, yes, decorated like a Beduin tent – wove together storytelling and a variety of artistic genres. Other performers like the singer Josh Groban and Dear Evan Hansen star Ben Platt sat on pillows around low tables stacked with wine and food. The performers were up close and personal with the audience; microphones were barely needed. (This reporter was instructed not to take any notes during the event, so as not to look conspicuous and disrupt the “intimacy of the night.”) The Syrian civil war, global slavery crises and US President Donald Trump’s immigration policies were all recurring themes.
Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie of New York’s buzzy Lab/Shul explained the Seder plate and urged participants to meditate on how to use the Passover themes as motivation for activism. Burstein and Feldshuh, performing a funny script by Joshua Harmon (author of the plays Bad Jews and Significant Other), sped through Haggada technicalities and offered interludes between performances: “slavery, slavery, slavery, suffering, suffering, suffering,” they quipped at one point.
Comic relief came from standup Mario Cantone (Sex and the City), who portrayed a hapless Sean Spicer, press secretary for “Pharaoh,” desperate to downplay the danger of the 10 plagues.
“I’m kind of bowled over by this night,” Burstein said during a dinner intermission as participants munched on matza with toppings from Russ and Daughters. “There’s a rare kindness pervasive in this room.” – JTA