Field Trip to Berkeley Rep! Seats limited to first 23 buyers.
Carpool from Congregation Beth Shalom or take the free van (compliments of Molly’s Angels)
The Interestings
Music and lyrics by Grammy Award-winning artist Sara Bareilles
Book by New York Times best-selling author Meg Wolitzer and Pulitzer Prize-nominated Sarah Ruhl
What to do:
Synopsis:
Six teenagers meet at an arts summer camp in the 1970s and form a lifelong bond over their shared dream of leading creative and inspiring lives. Decades later in New York City, that bond remains powerful, but so much else has changed. The Interestings explores friendship, love, envy, class, art, money, and power — and how all of it can shift and tilt precipitously over the course of a life.
What’s Jewish about The Interestings?
The core group of teenage friends meet at an arts camp in the 1970s that is implicitly and culturally a Jewish sleepaway camp. One of the main characters, Ethan Figman, is Jewish, and Wolitzer has noted that his empathy and worldview reflect a secular Jewish sensibility. Other characters in the ensemble also come from similar secular Jewish backgrounds familiar to the author’s own. Rather than focusing on religious ritual, the Jewish content manifests culturally and philosophically, including explorations of concepts like tikkun olam (repairing the world) through Ethan’s later success and philanthropy.