genesis

In 2003, I was invited by John and Ruth Rauch and the Center for Jewish Culture & Creativity to “write my next play in Israel.”  They had seen Looking for Louie, which explores my own family’s secrets, an injury, and a reach for forgiveness through tshuvah (forgiveness, or return, in the tradition of the Talmud).

Their invitation to me was the beginning of a series of grants and fellowships to research, write, teach, tour and perform in and around Israel, over the course of nearly two years.

The Dig was conceived during that time, and was written here in LA, in the time since my return from Israel in May 2005.

In addition to the substantial support and inspiration of the Rauches and the Center, the project has received developmental funding from the Memorial Council for Jewish Culture and, recently, from the Durfee Foundation, which has funded the creation of a video backdrop for the New York Festival performances.

synopsis (don’t read this if you’re going to see the play)

An American archaeologist, Sally Jenkins, has developed cutting-edge technology for the extraction and analysis of genetic information from ancient teeth and bones.  She is summoned from her work on native American burials in Southern California — in the wake of her own mother’s death — to the ancient Arab-Hebrew town of Jaffa, at the northern tip of modern Tel Aviv.  The Israelis have found something, something that could change political boundaries, change what and how we believe we know.  Jenkins is the only one who can tell them, categorically, what it is.

The Israelis believe they have found the remains of the legendary matriarch Sarah who, according to most modern archaeologists, did not exist.  Over the course of her work on the Jaffa dig, Sally comes to believe there was a Sarah, and she is here in Jaffa.  Her data, as well as her gut sense, indicates that this is true.

If the discovery of these burials in Jaffa were to be made public — as it certainly, triumphantly, will be — what would the effect of such a finding have on this fragile world? What is Sally’s responsibility — as a scientist, a woman, a daughter — given the history of the land, and its political volatility that descends, it would seem, from generation unto generation, as if it were part of our familial - national - human DNA?

Doesn’t sound like a comedy? Well, it is one.

history

This play, like all my solo work, has been developed in relationship with an audience.

The first public reading of The Dig took place in December 2006 at the Boston Court Theatre in Pasadena.  Subsequently, a series of six readings were presented at Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, California, in December of 2007.  I rewrote the play after every performance, based upon the response and questions I received from the audience.

future

The play had its first four performances in June of 2009 as part of the Untitled Theatre Company #61 Festival of Jewish Theatre & Ideas, in New York City.

A staged reading was produced as part of the Visions & Voices program at the University of Southern California in October of 2009, and the play will be presented in an open-ended run in Los Angeles in the spring of 2010.