Oy vey

A play called "The Last Seder" would ideally be targeted at Passover springtime, but here it is opening Park Square Theatre's 2010-11 season.

Written by Jennifer Maisel, "The Last Seder" uses the traditional Passover feast to explore the familiar holiday-family-gathering genre -- siblings squabble and frail parents try to hold things together. The show opens Friday in St. Paul.

Artistic director Richard Cook talked recently about the theater's history of producing plays that mine the Jewish experience.

Q There's a long list of Jewish writers you've produced, yes?

A It's a filter I hadn't really looked through, but if you include Arthur Miller as a Jewish playwright, which he didn't really admit until late in his career, it's a very rich repertoire. But there are plays by Jewish writers that are not necessarily about a Jewish situation.

Q What about something like "Last Night of Ballyhoo," by Alfred Uhry?

A Yes, that takes Jewish characters and a family and makes it an overt part of the story. The first of those for us was "Awake and Sing!" [by Clifford Odets] back in 1981.

A It works both ways. Sometimes we'll have a play that ends up on this list because I'm attracted to the play and it happens to be Jewish. However, the flip side is that I have had my antennae out over the years because a lot of the audience that expresses themselves as longtime fans are from Jewish heritage. Plus, the literature is so rich.

Q Your timing on this show -- opening on Yom Kippur -- seems odd.

A It's unfortunate that this production is opening on a High Holy Day. I won't do that again. I got caught by the calendar. Because this is such a big show, there are only three times a year I can do it: at the beginning of the season, or January or the summer. It's not a summer show. I wanted to do "The Odyssey" in January to make it available to students, so this fell here. What I thought I was doing was putting this show that celebrates Jewishness at a time of year when there are holidays. But then I stubbed my toe.

Q How have Jewish plays done for you at the box office?

A A number of them have been big hits. When we look at "Taking Sides," which is bleak, it did the same as other bleak plays. "Sisters Rosensweig" set records in its time, and "Ballyhoo" and "Visiting Mr. Green" in their time. One thing I was thinking of, what makes a play Jewish other than a character or an acknowledgment of a ceremony? A lot of these plays have an earnest yearning for social justice. That's true of "Mr. Green," of "Ballyhoo." It comes up a lot.

A That was a bit of a revelation to a lot of us. You think of "Porgy and Bess" or "Rhapsody in Blue," and you don't trace his roots. That show is cool because it teaches without turning you into a student.

Q What about Miller as a Jewish playwright?

A I was so proud of "Broken Glass" [produced in 1996] because Miller explored an overtly Jewish story for the first time, and that was in the 1990s. And when he did, he really took it seriously. I thought it was a really distinguished production of a secondary play.