24/6: A JEWISH THEATER COMPANY, founded in 2010, is a home for professional Sabbath-observant artists in New York. 24/6 is committed to cultivating innovative theater grounded in a rigorous engagement with Jewish tradition, believing that the performing arts play a critical role in the vitality of American Jewish life. 24/6 was featured on the PBS/WNET Channel 13’s Theater Talk and was a finalist for the Lippman Kanfer Prize for Applying Jewish Wisdom.
Led by Yoni Oppenheim, 24/6: A Jewish Theater Company is the first of its kind: a professional Jewish theater company and an artistic home for professional Sabbath-observant Jewish artists. It aims to provide a space for these artists to create cutting-edge, contemporary work, featuring a talented ensemble of actors, writers, directors, dancers, and puppeteers. 24/6: A Jewish Theater Company was founded by Avi Soroka, Jesse Freedman and Yoni Oppenheim.
Past productions: Last Tree in Jerusalem (American premiere, World premiere translation by Yoni Oppenheim) and A Page of Talmud (translated by Michael Posnick and Yael Feldman) by Israeli playwright Dani Horowitz; the World Premiere of Looking Through Glass by Ken Kaissar, A Dybbuk for Two People by Bruce Myers, If Not Now by Ken Kaissar, an original translation and adaptation by Avi Soroka of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, staged for the Jewish arbor day of Tu Bishvat as a ritual seder and invited to Limmud NY 2015; a performance of Passover Plays an evening of short works for the holiday, including Tony Kushner’s Notes on Akiba, two original works Cleaning Out the Chametz and Freer by company members Ken Kaissar and Chai Hecht, and an excerpt of August Strindberg’s rarely done play Through Deserts to Ancestral Lands (Moses). The company debuted with the original piece Sabbath Variations: The Splendor of Space, a collection of short plays based on interpretations of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s texts. Sabbath Variations made its international debut several months later as part of the Stage One English Language Play Festival in Israel and its regional debut at LimmudPhilly in 2012. In its first year, 24/6 also went on to produce a modern-day Purim-time adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s classic A Doll House by Yoni Oppenheim with original songs by Bronwen Mullin, which was reviewed to critical acclaim in the New York Post, The Jewish Week, and Ibsen News and Comment. The Sixth Street Synagogue invited 24/6 to be the theater company in residence for the 2011-2012 season, featuring a successful reading series that included Brooklyn Boy by Donald Margulies, Searching for Eden: The Diaries of Adam and Eve by James Still, and The Victims: Or What Do You Want Me To Do About It? written by company member Ken Kaissar. On its first anniversary, 24/6 was commissioned to write and perform a short musical Nittel Nacht, music by Bronwen Mullin and Book/Lyrics by Yoni Oppenheim for John Zorn presents: Nittle Nacht (Xmas Eve) Radical Jewish Culture Blowout. 24/6 continues to grow and participate in broader cultural conversation. It collaborated with Theater Communications Group (TCG) for SHINSAI: Theaters for Japan, a national theater benefit for the 2010 earthquake victims in Japan. To mark the 70th Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, 24/6 partnered with New Jersey Repertory Company for their staged reading of the Richard Rodgers Award-winning musical To Paint the Earth by Jonathan Portera and Daniel F. Levin. To mark 10 years to Israel’s disengagement from Gaza, 24/6 presented a two part series of staged readings at JCC Manhattan including Goliath by Karen Hartman and voices from Israel including, The Settler by Orit Arfa directed by Jessica Schechter Orchard adapted from Chekhov by Avi Soroka and Last Tree in Jerusalem translated and directed by Yoni Oppenheim. 24/6 continues to expand its reach through the development of a children’s theater program including an interactive The Purim Story written and directed by Stacy Horowitz. 24/6 is a recipient of a 2017 and 2019 Creative Engagement Grant from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts. 24/6: A Jewish Theater Company is incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit.