The Red Jews

Created by Sam Hunter in collaboration with Shai Cohen, Claire Kaplan, Sean Robinson, Sarah Maria Sander, Bryan Schall, and Lisa Ulrich. Direction and text in development.

Page in progress · Last updated May 2026

§ 01

Project Description

A team of actors has a diary, which grandpa Max brought from The Old Country. Max was directing a Purimshpiel, and rumor has it that when it was performed it stopped a pogrom. This show is dedicated to that one.

The ensemble experiments with different performance techniques, argues about how to be Jewish today, and even lists every pogrom in history all in an attempt to recreate this miraculous performance. Or are they simply trying to capture a time that was somehow more Jewish?

§ 02

Research Threads

Form

The Purimshpiel as a tradition of ritualised reversal — what it permits, what it transforms, and how the form has been carried, abandoned, and reinvented.

History

The long history of antisemitism in Europe — pogroms, expulsions, blood libels, the cyclical scapegoating of Jewish communities across nearly a millennium. The Shoah is a part of this history, but it is not the whole of it, and the temptation to let it stand in for everything else is itself a problem the project sits with.

Ensemble

How collective devising — with all of its argument and discomfort — is itself the most faithful instrument for thinking about collective memory.

§ 03

Development Timeline

Oct 2022

Development began with a residency at the Jarvis Street Theatre in Chicago. Sam Hunter and Claire Kaplan developed the story.

Mar 2023

Sam and Claire worked with Shai Cohen, Sean Robinson, Sarah Maria Sander, Bryan Schall, and Lisa Ulrich at Theaterhaus Mitte in Berlin to develop imagery, movement, and character.

2026 →

Workshop phase and first public showing. Looking for co-producers and venues in Berlin and beyond.

§ 04

Inquiries

Open to conversations with co-producers, venues, dramaturgs, and ensemble collaborators interested in the work or in the broader research line. Press and academic enquiries also welcome.

Get in touch →

§ 05

Research Gallery

Links, images, videos, and other references collected during research — useful companions while reading the script.

Dueling Shylocks

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