Alex Edelman’s very Jewish show, ‘Just For Us,’ is heading to Broadway
‘Just For Us,’ a stand-up show from Alex Edelman, a Modern Orthodox standup comedian, centers on the time he attended a white nationalist meeting. Photo by Stephanie Augello
By Julia Gergely April 5, 2023
(New York Jewish Week) – After a successful off-Broadway run, Orthodox Jewish comedian Alex Edelman will bring his one-man show “Just For Us” to Broadway this summer.
The show had a sold out run in 2021 and 2022, starting at Cherry Lane Theater and then moving to the SoHo Playhouse and the Greenwich House Theater. It closed on September 2.
The show focuses largely on Edelman’s infiltration of a white supremacist meeting in Queens. At the same time, however, Edelman, 34, weaves in tales of his childhood, from celebrating Christmas — despite growing up in an observant Jewish family — to his brother’s unlikely journey representing Team Israel at the Winter Olympics.
Throughout the show, Edelman, who hails “from a racist part of Boston, called ‘Boston,’” confronts his own Jewishness and how it interacts with his whiteness, including the times they are at odds with one another and the times they afford him privilege. In doing so, he forces his audience to as well.
Edelman — who made a name for himself by heckling neo-Nazis on Twitter — has been a rising star in the comedy world since he was named “Best Newcomer” at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards in 2014. “Just For Us” premiered at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in 2018 and, since then, Edelman has been performing, tightening and tweaking aspects of the show, as he told the New York Times.
“Just For Us” won a special citation at this year’s Obie Awards, which honors Off and Off-Off Broadway productions. Edelman was also named one of the New York Jewish Week’s “36 to Watch” in 2022.
Preview performances for the Broadway run start on June 22 and the show will open on June 26. It is scheduled to last eight weeks at the Hudson Theatre (141 West 44th St.), taking over after “A Doll’s House” starring Jessica Chastain and Arian Moayed closes. It is being produced by Jenny Gersten, Rachel Sussman and Mike Birbiglia, who helped produce the Off-Broadway production as well. The show will be directed by Adam Brace.
“The best and most surreal experience of my life,” Edelman wrote on Twitter of the announcement. “Could not be more excited and nervous and everything everything everything.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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