Although Jewish-themed plays have long been a presence in New York, the resurgence of Jewish content in the country's commercial and regional theaters in recent years is remarkable for the confidence, and Jewish specificity, that permeates the works.
Examples abound of current or recently closed productions.
Although New York is clearly the center of Jewish theater in America, many of the above plays have traveled to communities across the country, with major regional theaters like the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, the Northlight and the Steppenwolf in Chicago and the Long Wharf in New Haven also producing plays about the Jewish experience in America. Even smaller and more specialized theaters have adopted deeply Jewish plays as being canonical or sure-fire crowd pleasers. Companies like San Francisco's A Traveling Jewish Theatre have also created new models for Jewish dramatic expression that are influencing Jewish cultural life and the broader theater community in Northern California and throughout the country. American Jewish theater has also been emboldened and enriched by its interaction with Israel's increasingly sophisticated and confident theater and performance community. And for many American artists, especially in the theater, being Jewish ends up being more interesting than they had thought.