In partnership with the Jewish Plays Project and The Ebell of Los Angeles, Holocaust Museum LA presents the second annual Los Angeles Jewish Playwriting Contest, a combination of “American Idol,” a play reading and a Ted Talk.

This unique event will feature 20-minute excerpts from three plays, which are finalists in the national Jewish Playwriting Contest. Each play is introduced by a video from the playwright, and then the audience votes to select a winner.

Over fifty readers including actors, directors, community members, and theater lovers, met for several weeks to read, discuss, and narrow down the finalist plays for the LA contest:

• Flatbush Lysistrata by Lila Rachel Becker: Three Hasidic women gather at an axe-throwing parlor to plan a sex strike.
• A Play About a Baby Carrot by Juliet Roll: A grieving mother starts to see her child in an unexpected place in this absurdist comedy set over the seven days of shiva.
• This Place Stinks by Jacob Surovsky: Noah chooses to destroy his family to save the world. Noah will be played by Jonah Platt, actor, activist and creator and host of the podcast Being Jewish with Jonah Platt.

The results of the Los Angeles event will go towards selecting the national winner, which will be chosen at the National Finals at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia on Monday, June 29.