Join us for Joanna Castle Miller's staged reading of CONVERSA – her story of finding her way to Jewish identity through migration and change – before its world premiere in Florida next season. After the reading and talk back with Joanna, we'll have a potluck dinner followed by a Musical Selichot service with Luke and Rabbi Justin.

• 5:30PM-7:00PM CONVERSA The show runs approx 85 minutes, with no intermission. CONVERSA is generally considered appropriate for ages 13+, with some adult language and themes.
• 7:00PM-8:00PM Potluck dinner & Talk back/Q&A with Joanna
• 8:00PM-9:30PM Musical Selichot Service with Rabbi Justin & Luke Wygodny

About CONVERSA:

Young Joanna knows all the Jewish prayers... and how they’re really about Jesus. That’s because her mother, who once planned to be a rabbi, instead converted to evangelicalism through Jews for Jesus. Joanna learns all the tricks of Christian missions, eventually becoming a missionary herself. But then something ancient draws her away, to traditions she never learned and dark histories she never studied. And to a tiny village where, centuries ago, her father’s father’s father made a very different choice. 

CONVERSA is an epic new solo show about identity, migration, and change, and how the worst parts of religion keep us from the best parts – the parts that help all of us survive persecution and find our way home. It was named a 2024 Special Finalist with the Jewish Plays Project and will receive its world premiere in February 2026. 

Joanna Castle Miller is a BHA member and Beacon-based playwright, performer, and satirist whose DECONSTRUCTION TRILOGY includes the plays CONVERSA and INFERNA, both premiering next season. Other recent work includes EKPHRASIS, The Storehouse, and her new solo show They Painted Us Real. She is a recent Nexus Fellow with New York Stage and Film and a commissioned playwright with We the Women. As a satirist, she’s written for McSweeney’s, Time, The Hill, and Funny or Die and currently hosts local comedy shows The Town Criers and The Hudson Valley Bechdel Test. Joanna is the co-founder of Hire Survivors Broadway, which works to end retaliation and create safer spaces for survivors of sexual violence in the arts; and she’s the founder of Wait Don’t Leave Productions, which focuses on projects related to historical memory – including Project Sefarad: An English Guide to the Jewish Sites of Spain. http://joannacastlemiller.com