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’s current TELEPHONE PLAYS featuring 16 short plays by writers ranging from Pulitzer Prize finalist and Obie Award winner Dael Orlandersmith to long time 24/6 members - responds to the social isolation experienced by the housebound during COVID. In June 2020, Lola Arias selected My Archive of Mourning and Memory for her international live-streaming MY DOCUMENTS series. In 2019 we presented two plays by Israeli playwright Dani Horowitz, Last Tree in Jerusalem and A Page of Talmud and were invited to participate in the BroadwayCon panel “God of Theatre Smile on Us: Working in the Theatre While Keeping a Religious Lifestyle.” We commissioned and premiered Looking Through Glass a contemporary response to The Dybbuk by Ken Kaissar in 2017-18. In 2016, we presented If Not Now by Ken Kaissar at Nuyorican Poets Cafe as part of Variety Show on a Weekday and Jessica Schechter's interactive Where You Go, I Go as part of JCC Manhattan's Tikkun Leil Shavuot all-night extravaganza. We presented a two-part event DIS/ENGAGEMENT: Gaza 10 Years Later at JCC Manhattan in 2015 featuring readings and conversations around plays dealing with the Gaza disengagement including Karen Hartman's Goliath and Israeli based works. A Dybbuk for Two People in 2014 capped a year which included premieres of 24/6’s original translation and adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, staged for the Jewish arbor day of Tu Bishvat as a ritual seder, a performance of Passover Plays an evening of short works for the holiday, including Tony Kushner’s Notes on Akiba, two original works by company members Ken Kaissar and Chai Hecht, alongside an excerpt of August Strindberg’s rarely done play Through Deserts To Ancestral Lands (Moses), as well as performances throughout the year by our improv wing, IMPROVODOX. 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, the company also went on to produce a modern day Purim-time adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s classic A Doll House, which was reviewed to critical acclaim in the New York Post, The Jewish Week, and Ibsen News and Comment. For the 2011-2012 season, The Sixth Street Synagogue invited 24/6 to be the theater company in residence. It featured 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 for "John Zorn presents: Nittle Nacht (Xmas Eve) Radical Jewish Culture Blowout". 24/6 continues to grow, and participate in broader cultural conversation. We 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 Rogers Award winning musical To Paint the Earth by Jonathan Portera and Daniel F. Levin. 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. We have received seed funding from the Dorot Foundation to create a show for Jewish middle school students addressing bullying and peer harassment. Additionally, the company has expanded to include the improvisational comedy group IMPROVODOX, which made its debut as part of 24/6 on Purim 2011, and has since performed in New York, New Jersey, and Maryland.
Yoni Oppenheim (Artistic Director) directs and dramaturges new and devised work. For 24/6, he directed Last Tree in Jerusalem (in his own translation); A Page of Talmud; Looking Through Glass; A Dybbuk for Two People; Passover Plays; conceived and directed Uncle Vanya; Sabbath Variations (LimmudPhilly); SHINSAI: Theaters for Japan; The Victims; adapted/directed A Doll House (The Tank); book and lyrics for Nittel Nacht. His work has been seen in the United States, Israel, and Norway. Yoni served as researcher to playwright Doug Wright on his new play Posterity, which received its world premiere off-Broadway at Atlantic Theater Company. His translation of At Night’s End by Israeli playwright Motti Lerner, received its first production at Knox College following workshops at Israeli Stage in Boston and at The Lark Playwrights Center in New York. In 2012 and 2013 he was NEA/NYC Dept. of Cultural Affairs SPARC (Seniors Partnering with Artists Citywide) Grantee. During his 2012 SPARC Residency he created Home of the Brave: WWII Experiences in the Military and on the Homefront, based on oral histories of senior citizens at the Riverdale Y, where he led an "Improv for Seniors" group for 6 years. Additional Directing credits: Evolutionism or Dammit We Took the Shortcut! by Zhu Yi (Manhattan Rep), Etta Sings for Change (Duplex), The Perfect Human 2009 (The 6th Obstruction) (14th Street Y LABA), FAST and The Consistency of Flour (Drisha Institute/JCC); Yo Miss!... by Judith Sloan (LPAC); Crito and Na’im (The Lover) (S.E.E. Theater); Oleanna, The Love of Don Perlimplín for Belisa in the Garden, and Swan Song (NYU Tisch). Assistant Director: Bratslav-Beethoven-Bratslav conceived and directed by Yossi Yzraely; Dog and Wolf by Catherine Filloux, directed by Jean Randich (59E59); To Paint the Earth by Portera/Levin directed by Michael Bush (NYMF/37Arts); The Beauty Inside by Catherine Filloux (pre production workshop InterACT/New Georges) and Killing the Boss by Catherine Filloux (New Dramatists workshop) both directed by Kay Matschullat, Earthquake Chica by Anne Garcia Romero, directed by Leah C. Gardiner (SPF/Theater Row). Dramaturg: He Who Laughs by Ian Cohen (JCC Theaterworks, New Haven); Yo Miss!...by Judith Sloan; To Paint the Earth (NYMF/37Arts); HAGGADAH… (Witness Relocation /LaMama). Contributing Artist: Knut er død: Hamsunjubileet 2008-10 (Teater NOR, Norway). Yoni is a recipient of the John Dana Archbold Fellowship at the University of Oslo; Dorot Fellowship in Israel; and the Spielberg Fellowship in Jewish Theater Education. He is the associate editor of the Foundation for Jewish Culture’s catalogue “Plays of Jewish Interest” has written about the Origins of Jewish Theater, Religious observance in the theater, has guest blogged for Sh'ma: A Journal of Jewish Ideas, and has been the artistic consultant to both the Drisha Arts Fellowship and the inaugural JOFA Dinner/Exhibition “Putting Women Back in the Picture”. He was the was the 2013 Theater Faculty for Brandeis University's BIMA Summer Arts Institute. BFA in Drama: NYU-Tisch/PHTS; M. Phil. in Ibsen Studies: University of Oslo-Centre for Ibsen Studies. Member: Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab.
Avi Soroka (Co-Founder) has worked as an Equity Stage Manager, as well as an actor and director, in NYC and around the US for over 10 years. For 24/6 he has acted in Passover Plays, played Vanya in Uncle Vanya for which he also wrote a new original translation, Sabbath Variations: The Splendor of Space (LimmudPhilly), played Krogstad in A Doll House (The Tank), and Bassee in The Victims, Or What Do You Want Me to Do About It? Directing credits for 24/6 include, Nittel Nacht: a short musical, a reading of Brooklyn Boy by Donald Margulies, and Tongue Play. Some of his career highlights have been with The Arizona Jewish Theater Company, Genesis Rep, Mimum Productions, Plain Clothes Performance Group, The Yeshiva College Dramatics Society, Queens College, American Playwrights Theatre, The Rhetorical Question Players and Black Box Entertainment. Most recently Avi served as Company Manager for Daniel Levin's critically acclaimed Hee-Haw: It's A Wonderful Li e which was chosen as a Critics Pick by the New York Times for the 2009 holiday season.
Jesse Freedman (Co-Founder) is a director, performance artist, and teaching artist. As artistic director of Baltimore's Jewish Theatre Workshop from 2006-2008 he directedIsn’t it Romantic, Ajax, The Cherry Orchard, Small Acts of Kindness, Bella's Dream, Wit and Fires in the Mirror. New York credits include original ensemble creations The Tehillim Project (Jewish Initiative Grant) and Vanity of Vanities, with the Eschatological Theater and The Living Theatre. Jesse has performed his solo-magic-show The SpaZZaltooFat the Stamford Center for the Arts, Riverview Arts Center, and La MaMa Experimental Theatre.As a teaching artist, he has performed taught and designed curriculum for JCC’s, Siegel College, Limmud UK, Jews For Judaism, Black Box Studios, Jewish Education Center of Cleveland and Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center. He has trained with the SITI Company and is a graduate of Eugene Lang College at The New School.
Avi Soroka (Co-Founder) has worked as an Equity Stage Manager, as well as an actor and director, in NYC and around the US for over 10 years. For 24/6 he has acted in Passover Plays, played Vanya in Uncle Vanya for which he also wrote a new original translation, Sabbath Variations: The Splendor of Space (LimmudPhilly), played Krogstad in A Doll House (The Tank), and Bassee in The Victims, Or What Do You Want Me to Do About It? Directing credits for 24/6 include, Nittel Nacht: a short musical, a reading of Brooklyn Boy by Donald Margulies, and Tongue Play. Some of his career highlights have been with The Arizona Jewish Theater Company, Genesis Rep, Mimum Productions, Plain Clothes Performance Group, The Yeshiva College Dramatics Society, Queens College, American Playwrights Theatre, The Rhetorical Question Players and Black Box Entertainment. Most recently Avi served as Company Manager for Daniel Levin's critically acclaimed Hee-Haw: It's A Wonderful Li e which was chosen as a Critics Pick by the New York Times for the 2009 holiday season.
Jesse Freedman (Co-Founder) is a director, performance artist, and teaching artist. As artistic director of Baltimore's Jewish Theatre Workshop from 2006-2008 he directedIsn’t it Romantic, Ajax, The Cherry Orchard, Small Acts of Kindness, Bella's Dream, Wit and Fires in the Mirror. New York credits include original ensemble creations The Tehillim Project (Jewish Initiative Grant) and Vanity of Vanities, with the Eschatological Theater and The Living Theatre. Jesse has performed his solo-magic-show The SpaZZaltooFat the Stamford Center for the Arts, Riverview Arts Center, and La MaMa Experimental Theatre.As a teaching artist, he has performed taught and designed curriculum for JCC’s, Siegel College, Limmud UK, Jews For Judaism, Black Box Studios, Jewish Education Center of Cleveland and Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center. He has trained with the SITI Company and is a graduate of Eugene Lang College at The New School.
