A new year— a chance at new beginnings, and most importantly, a new round of Broadway and off-Broadway shows. The fall season brought us singing sponges, live goats, and Amy Schumer. What will the next months bring, and, of course— is it good for the Jews?

It depends on what you’re looking for. While musicals continue to boast Jewish stars (Elsa in the upcoming Broadway production of Frozen went to Camp Ramah!) and creators (shows by writing teams Rodgers and Hammerstein and Lerner and Loewe are being  revived), if you want to look for overtly Jewish content onstage, you’re probably going to need to see a play. But on Broadway and off, you’ll have plenty of options, first off-Broadway, and later on in the season, on the Great White Way itself:

Off Broadway:

In the Body of the World (begins performances January 16):

While the play may not have much Jewish content, it is a new autobiographical piece (based on a recent memoir) by an artist of Jewish descent— Eve Ensler, the creator of The Vagina Monologues, has a one-woman show about becoming deathly ill while doing advocacy work abroad.

Jerry Springer the Opera (January 23):

This one is a revival, and, yes, an opera. It actually has fairly Christian themes, but it is what it says on the label: an opera about Jewish television personality Jerry Springer.

Amy and the Orphans (February 1):

This new family drama features a bickering bunch on a road trip on the Long Island Expressway following the death of their father; while the degree of Jewishness is not yet clear, one character is a Jewish convert to Christianity, so it follows that the rest of his family is probably of Jewish origin as well.

Admissions (February 15):

This play is the latest from Jewish writer Joshua Harmon, the mind behind Bad Jews and Significant Other. It features a woman trying to diversify a prep school and explores larger questions of ideology and privilege. The main character’s name is Sherri Rosen-Mason, and like many Harmon protagonists, she is a secular Jew.

Broadway:

Angels in America (February 23):

Tony Kushner’s famous two-part play on New York and the AIDS crisis is revived in New York, by way of London. It features the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg serenading a dying Roy Cohn in Yiddish. Enough said.

Travesties (March 29):

This production is another revival— of a 1974 play by Jewish playwright Tom Stoppard. One of its three protagonists (the other two being Lenin and James Joyce) is Tristan Tzara, the Jewish co-founder of Dadaism.

Photo of Jerry Springer the Opera via Wikimedia

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(OK, OK, it also stars David Hyde Pierce, and its director is the great Jerry Zaks. The Jerry Herman-written musical tells the story of a meddling matchmaker who turns the town upside down at the turn of the twentieth century. It’s also worth noting that Midler hasn’t been in a Broadway musical since the 1960s.)

But yes, with half a year to go, you’re going to be able to make a purchase for so far into the future you’ll think you’re seeing Hamilton. The Divine Miss M herself bestowed us with this amazing tweet:

Move over Wikileaks! Betteleaks! “Hello, Dolly!” tickets go on sale Saturday 9/17 at 10am!! RUN!!https://t.co/Hh2JsNtDw3

— bettemidler (@BetteMidler) September 14, 2016

Wait, Saturday? It’s annoying that Shabbat observant Jews won’t be able to sit at their computers the second virtual box offices open for a Jewish musical starring a Jewish performer, but that’s Broadway for you.

181 days until previews. 3 days to ticket sales. Take Midler’s advice, and don’t walk. Run.

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The Book of Mormon (the musical, not the scripture), opens with young Mormon missionary Elder Kevin Price trying to interest people in the holy Book of Mormon.  If a door-to-door missionary looked like Kevin Price—perfect hair, gleaming smile, all-American good looks—I would let him prattle about Jesus forever. As one of his peers gushes, Price is  the “smartest, best, most deserving Elder the world has ever seen.”

Other charming, put-together missionaries join in. They ring doorbells and sing in perfect harmony, smiling, complimenting houses, and praising their amazing holy book.

Then, the unkempt Elder Cunningham breaks the synchronicity, barging in and shouting: “HELLO WOULD YOU LIKE TO CHANGE RELIGIONS I HAVE A FREE BOOK WRITTEN BY JESUS!!!”

Price and Cunningham are a Mormon Odd Couple, a devoted Golden Boy partnered with a schlubby, loud, and shrill Star Wars nerd. Eventually, Cunningham reveals that he hasn’t even read the Book of Mormon, to Price’s horror. Together, they must go to Uganda to convert as many people to Mormonism as they can.

Andrew Rannells, whom Ben Brantley called a “human Ken doll,” originated the role of Elder Price on Broadway. Josh Gad—the voice of Olaf from Frozen, lest we forget—originated Elder Cunningham. Rannells went to an all-boys Catholic school in Omaha. Gad is Jewish, as was his understudy and eventual replacement Jared Gertner, as was Gertner’s understudy, Jon Bass (I could go on).

In the Chicago tour, the pair was played by Nic Rouleau, another Catholic school alumnus, and Ben Platt, another Jew. Although Platt deviates from the physical formula of previous Cunninghams (“You’re skinny, I’ll say it,” Rouleau says in an interview), he still looks more New York corned beef than Utah cornfield—in other words, visibly Jewish.

Gertner is the only actor to talk at length about how (at that time) every Elder Cunningham had been played by a Jewish person. In an interview with Jewish Journal, he explains, “Maybe if you’re looking for people who are very different from an all-American, uptight, very white, very blond person, then physically you’re going to look for a difference; maybe you’re going to find a Jewish person… And if there’s any Jewish humor in the show, it’s just humor that comes from us, because we actually all are Jewish.”

Sure, Jews are funny, but there are other types of people who look different than, say, Rannells and Rouleau. So why are Jews consistently cast as a Mormon? Is it anti-Semitism? Should we be offended?

Maybe—if the show’s character arcs didn’t end in brilliant subversion.

It turns out Price’s greatest asset in Utah is a liability in Uganda. He’s too full of his faith—and himself—to convince anyone to listen, let alone convert. His preaching of the “blonde-haired, blue-eyed voice of God” is profoundly tone-deaf (meaning “not receptive to his African audience.” Everyone who has played Elder Price sings beautifully). He bravely marches up to a warlord, confident that his faith will protect him. He is wrong.

On the other hand, Elder Cunningham breaks through to the Ugandans, not through strict adherence to the Scripture, but through creativity and adaptation. Unlike Price, he is willing to alter Mormon text to include problems like dysentery and AIDS, which are conspicuously absent from the original teachings. Cunningham starts as the comic relief and sidekick, but his weakness  in Utah—making things up—becomes his strength.

If  the embodiment of Mormonism starts out as a rigid literalist from the American Midwest heck-bent on converting as many people as possible, then clearly his physical—and ideological—opposite would be Jewish, or at least Jewish-coded.

Strangely, show-writers Trey Parker and Robert Lopez are not Jewish. The third writer, Matt Stone, is the exception, having a Jewish mother, though he identifies as Jewish only ethnically, and religiously as secular/agnostic.  Still, the show taps into Judaism’s inherent curiosity and questioning as a contrast to Price’s strict adherence to stories that, by his own admission, sometimes don’t make sense.

Yes, there is the immediate physical contrast of the Mormons’ perfect (usually light) hair and impeccable posture with the slouching Cunningham’s dark, wild Jewfro. There’s also the strong connection of Judaism and humor, as Gertner points out. But more important than the comedy of the mismatched duo is the musical’s message about faith.

At the end, a humbled Elder Price proclaims, “We are all Latter Day Saints, even if we change some things, or break the rules, or have complete doubt that God exists.” His new faith focuses on helping others, not his own personal glory. The conclusion wouldn’t be possible without the culture clash between not just the Americans and the Ugandans, but also between Price and Cunningham. When unquestioning faith fails, Price embraces what Cunningham represents: a fluid, realistic, but still hopeful religion—what Judaism happens to be known for.

That’s not to say that The Book of Mormon is like an inverted Jews for Jesus, trying to stealthily convince Mormons to become Jewish. The Book of Mormon ends with a message that is oddly both agnostic and faith-affirming. As irreverent as The Book of Mormon can be, at its heart is deep respect for whatever belief systems help create kinder, better people.

Image credits: Wikimedia and André-Pierre du Plessis via Flickr.

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If it wasn’t enough for you that Zach Braff is starring in Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway, get excited for Leighton Meester and James Franco in Of Mice and Men. Coming to Broadway for the first time in 40 years, Anna D. Shapiro will direct the John Steinbeck classic, The Hollywood Reporter reports.

Produced by David Binder, it begins previews March 19 at the Longacre Theatre, with official opening set for April 16. Tickets go on sale Jan. 11 for the limited engagement, which runs through July 27. Remaining cast is to be announced.

Meester will play Curley’s wife, who attracts the attention of Lennie, played by Chris O’Dowd. Franco takes on the role of George, Lennie’s friend and protector.

Let’s all go see it. Adam Brody will definitely be there.

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