Shanghai Kaddish
Comedy
Cast: 3w, 2m
Synopsis
A successful Chinese-Jewish, stand up comic, Richard Eisenberg, who routinely references his mixed ethnic heritage in his act, travels to Shanghai to discover the truth about his mother’s unusual life there from the 1930’s to1950’s, first as a Jewish refugee from the Nazi’s and later as a supporter of Communist revolution. When Mao exiled all foreigners in 1959, his mother, then unaware she was pregnant with him, made her way to the US where Richard was raised in a predominantly Jewish suburb. Now at fifty, he is determined to discover the truth behind his mother’s silence about his father, and to uncover the legacy of the man known as the Savior of Shanghai.
Reading and development
Table reading at InterAct Theatre Company 1/10
Reading at Azuka Theatre 5/10
Reading at Id Theater 10/10