I don't know that there has been a day of my life wherein I haven't taken some kind of solace in the absolute absurdity of those things which we hold so formally; so statically in our minds. Among them: sleep-wake cycles, unspoken dress codes, and of course, family gatherings.
The thing about the particular exercise of getting a bunch of blood-related human beings to sit in a room together and participate in some sort of structured tradition is that try as we might to "keep it together;" to avoid those things which reveal our status as something other than daughter, wife, brother, cousin, uncle, dad; in the words of one Benjamin Martin Garcia, the titular Nice Jewish Boy of this whole undertaking, "the realest things we are come to light."
In such revelation, there can coexist absolute hilarity and absolute horror. It is my personal objective to traffick in the former in order to reveal, examine and heal the latter.
When I was crouched in the back of my mother's SUV writing the first, then second, then third draft of this play, I alternated between minutes of total invigoration and total creative paralysis. Both states were marked by the same over-arching fear: what if one of a pair--hilarity and homophobia-- manages to upstage the other? What then?
Don't ask me how, but after watching this incredible cast bring my words to the stage, I can confidently say: nothing has been lost.
Nice Jewish Boy is an ode to getting out by getting through, to misguided creativity in the name of love, to the anchor a yearly Seder has genuinely provided me, and to defining "family" for ourselves-- if not solely in blood, in soul and in love.
I can't thank you enough for being here. I hope you enjoy Nice Jewish Boy as thoroughly as I enjoyed writing it.
Chag Pesach Sameach to all those who celebrate!
With love,
Amia S. Korman
