Meet Dani, Jewish Playwright of the Week

The GatherDC blog strives to present a holistic portrait of the DMV’s Jewish community, sharing a wide variety of Jewish voices and perspectives. If you have a 20- or 30-something to nominate as our Jewish Person of the Week or for a Spotted in Jewish DMV feature, please email us!

Dani and I caught up at Java House earlier this winter to chat about her career in DC theater, which Muppet she relates to (and whether her friends agree), exploring Judaism through art, teaching at Catholic University, and keeping your cool in traffic. We also talk about Dani’s 2024 work with Theater J, which earned her two Helen Hayes Awards nominations for Outstanding Supporting Performer in a Play!

Samuel: So, you’re a playwright, but you also act and teach. [Editor’s note: You’ve been dropped into the middle of ten or so minutes of me listing plays I’d seen recently and asking Dani what she thought of them. Sorry!]

Dani: I work as an actor. My Master’s is in playwriting, but acting is a huge part of my life. You get to put it all together when you teach a text analysis class. My final year of grad school, I noticed there was a bit of a blind spot in students feeling uncomfortable with how to approach writers like Chekhov and Ibsen and even Miller – writers that they felt were separate from themselves, because the writing felt antiquated. We don’t speak like that anymore, so how do you imbue that with a sense of humanness? As part of our grad program, we had to pitch a class, and I pitched this one on how to lessen that distance between the unplayable and the playable. How do we make it more comfortable for young actors and give them more breadth to play into that humanity?

Samuel: Anyway, we always start here: What brought you to the DMV?

Dani: I was in an on-again off-again relationship with someone I went to college with. He was here in DC, and I’m from Brooklyn, and every break I would come to DC and started going to all these theaters. I realized: the DMV is like a tri-state repertory company, and I want to be here. So I was auditioning and getting jobs here, and even when he and I broke up, I was like: I’m coming to DC regardless. That’s how it happened. I just fell in love with this place.

I think that being in a space like this is very conducive to being a multi-hyphenate. Your hustle is really different in a lot of ways, because there’s so many ways for you to be involved artistically. There’s so many ways to have jobs that are also artistic, that allow you to make a living and then go audition and do those sorts of things. You never have to let go of your artistry completely – or at least I haven’t had to, which is very very lucky. I don’t want to ever skate over the fact that, at this point, I’m breathing a little bit of rarefied air; I’m coming up on 15 years in the District.

Samuel: Apart from the theater scene, what has kept you here?

Dani: It’s hard to not say theater; I’ve developed a really great community here of people who I just adore and love. I’ve lived a bunch of different lives; I’ve been a yoga teacher, a personal trainer, a nutrition coach, a teaching artist, and now I teach as a college professor. I do believe that teaching is something I will never give up. I don’t care, I want to be one thousand years old and still teaching, because it’s the thing that keeps me from being jaded. I’m a get-off-my-lawn curmudgeon. My husband thinks I’m like Larry David. But there’s something about working with young people who are really hungry and just starting out that reminds me what a privilege it is to do what we do. 

Samuel: What does your Jewish community look like?

Dani: I talk about this in this play I wrote, The Joy That Carries You, which was at Olney Theatre – I had always been what I would refer to as ‘Seinfeld Jewish.’ I was bat mitzvahed, we went to synagogue twice a week…but then you get into theater, and unless you’re working at Theater J, you have shows on Yom Kippur, you have rehearsal [on Shabbat]. It wasn’t something that I was like “Nooooo” about, because theater was my religion. It’s an interesting thing – it’s the cost of assimilation into a more Christian society.

It wasn’t until 2020 when things started – because it is only a matter of time until Jews start getting blamed when something is going wrong in the world – where I saw friends of mine who were posting what they believed to be activism, but it was antisemitism. And that’s very scary. I went pretty hard [in response], and my Instagram suddenly blew up to the point where I was inundated with both lovely and horrible comments. It got to the point where I was like: I’m just going to share this stuff on my Close Friends stories.

But I want to humanize – when you’re talking about Jews, you’re talking about me. I want to make sure that people know who I am. Weirdly, I have sort of become ‘the Jew’ that some people know when it comes to talking about all the stuff that’s going on right now. I get a lot of “Can we talk about this?” And that’s been part of my community. I want to have honest conversations; I refuse to be part of the screaming-in-your-face, and I think if I don’t have some of these conversations, then we get sucked into our own vacuums.

Samuel: You mentioned the way that the theater calendar and Jewish calendar often conflict, outside of specifically Jewish theater spaces. How have you approached that as a working actor?

Dani: I’ve realized – and this isn’t exactly kosher, but – it’s not about the When. If I get to do Shabbat on Saturday morning because that’s when I have time before I go out for a matinee, that’s enough, you know?

Samuel: What else is resonating Jewishly for you?

Dani: I’m fascinated by academia – reading about Jewish history, Jewish law, reading about rediscovering one’s Jewishness. That’s the big practice: finding things that I didn’t know, becoming a student again. I’m not always going to be able to practice. I teach at Catholic University, so on Yom Kippur, I’m starving. I’m teaching several classes a day. I’m going to eat something. I think it’s less about the ritual and more about the fact that, unlike other religions, this is also an ethnicity that is DNA-deep. So how do I honor that part of it?

Samuel: Okay, a few quick ones to close. What are you feeling proud about right now?

Dani: I’m feeling very proud that 2025 will involve me doing shows out of town, including Birthright by Jonathan Spector at Miami New Drama! I leave in March! 

Samuel: What’s something you’re bad at? 

Dani: Keeping my cool in traffic.

Samuel: Do you have a least favorite intersection in DC?

Dani: Any of them.

Samuel: Not a prepared question, obviously, but where did you get this sick orange coat? [Editor’s note: Dani was wearing an, objectively, sick orange winter coat]

Dani: This sick orange coat? I don’t remember, actually. I think it looks like a Muppet, like I skinned a Muppet. I look like a large carrot. 

Samuel: Do you love the Muppets?

Dani: I do love a Muppet. When I worked on Ragtime and Which Way to the Stage, we cast our casts as Muppets. People generally give me Animal, though I don’t cast myself as Animal.

Samuel: What Muppet are you, if not Animal?

Dani: Well, I think they’re right. But don’t we all want to be Big Bird? He’s so kind and loving. 

Samuel: You’re hosting Shabbat dinner and can bring any three people. Who are you inviting?

Dani: I would want to bring my grandpa. It would be nice to see him again and hang out with him and just see what’s going on. Then, it would be fun to bring Patti LuPone and Iron Chef Alex Guarnaschelli. I love her, and we could cook Shabbat dinner together. That would be awesome. 

Samuel: Last one. Finish the sentence: When Jews of the DMV gather…

Dani: Magic happens.