AMERICAN THEATRE: Who founded theatre dybbuk, when, and why? 

AARON HENNE: In 2011, I founded theatre dybbuk with great support from our first managing director, Barbara Müller-Wittmann, and our earliest company artists, Julie Lockhart and Clay Steakley. I had been considering starting a company for some time and wanted to focus on work infused with multiple disciplines and developed with a group over time.

In addition, I started to note that ideas centering on Jewish thought and history were really resonating with me, and could serve as vessels for thinking about issues of marginalization and identity in a variety of ways. I also noted that, given my particular aesthetic interests, there wasn’t a lot available in an ongoing manner that brought together Jewish history with such modes of expression. Out of all of this, theatre dybbuk was born. 

Tell us a little more about yourself and your background. 

Until I was 15 years old, I grew up in New Jersey, doing mostly musical theatre from the time I was 5 years old. My family then moved to the East Bay area, just outside of Oakland, where I continued to perform regularly. From there, I went to Occidental College in Los Angeles, and, aside from a brief sojourn in Alabama for some graduate work in playwriting, I have been in L.A. ever since. Occidental is really where I discovered that, while I enjoyed acting, I wanted to be on the ground floor of envisioning the theatrical experience, and therefore started to find my identity as a playwright. Thanks to one of my professors, Jamie Angell, I was exposed to such writers as Mac Wellman and Len Jenkin. I was also fortunate to work with wonderful teachers such as Leon Martell and Laural Meade, each of whom really encouraged me to lean into my theatrical instincts and questions about form. 

What sets your theatre apart from others in your region?  

I think that the combination of intellectual, research-based playmaking with highly stylized and precise movement is, while certainly not unheard of, not where most companies live. We develop our shows over one to three years per project with an ensemble. In addition, the fact that we offer a variety of activities in addition to our full productions is not usual—these include performance art events and “Illuminated Lectures,” presentations that combine scholarship-based talks with performance, often inspired by conversations with experts and that intersect with our interests. Finally, the bringing together of a specific cultural jumping-off point with a broader focus on questions of belonging, equity, and power in our world is relatively unique.

Tell us about your favorite theatre institution other than your own, and why you admire it. 

It is difficult to home in on a single institution, but I will say that there are a few whose audacity, clarity of vision, and singularity of approach have inspired me. There are, of course, those which came well before theatre dybbuk, such as SITI Company and the Wooster Group, each of which worked/work with artists over time and have created vocabularies that are specific to what they do (even if applicable elsewhere). I also appreciate the L.A.-based Critical Mass Performance Group, led by Nancy Keystone, which communicates in ways that trust in the intellectual and emotional capacities of the audience. Finally, I do want to give credit to Son of Semele Ensemble, the group with whom I was engaged for years and that gave me an early platform to experiment.

How do you pick the plays you produce?

We develop all of our full-length productions over one to three years per project. As such, we don’t really pick plays. Instead, we pick subject matter—points in history, source texts, etc.—that serves as the jumping-off point for the creation process. 

What’s your annual budget, and how many artists do you employ each season?

Our annual budget is just under $400,000 a year, and we employ between 20 and 30 artists per year, depending on where we are in show development and what is on offer. 

How is your theatre rising to meet the challenges of the moment, including but not limited to the continuing aftermath of Covid lockdowns, widespread demands for a fairer industry, and the current funding climate? 

Like so many organizations, we are being called on to think creatively about how to address all of the challenges and opportunities that are present. On a very practical level, we recognize that a reliable revenue stream can help us to weather the storms and to not rely solely on ticket sales and philanthropic support. As such, we have a whole wing of the organization dedicated to providing communication and collaboration training for a variety of organizations.

As for questions of how we can contribute to a fairer industry, we are dedicated to developing and presenting work that speaks to the structural and systemic issues in our society. And this work is not crafted in a vacuum—our ensemble and other collaborators come from a wide variety of backgrounds and cultural and socioeconomic entry points. The pieces are created with their input and their insights and are therefore reflective of their perspectives.

Finally, even though we only produce a new full-length work every few years, our commitment to presenting other events allows us to employ artists and engage with audience members somewhat regularly. 

What show are you working on now? Anything else in your season that you’re especially looking forward to?

Our most recent work, Dracula (Annotated) recently toured, with engagements in Tucson and Cincinnati and hopefully a few other cities to come. In addition, we are developing three new illuminated lectures that will be presented over the next year, and we will soon be solidifying the next full production, likely the third in our series of “Annotated” works. (The first was The Merchant of Venice (Annotated), or In Sooth I Know Not Why I Am So Sad). 

Strangest or funniest thing you’ve ever seen (or put) on your stage? 

I don’t know if it’s the strangest necessarily, but I am proud of some of the events we have offered that intersect with what might be more often called performance art and which transcended the boundaries of “standard” play production. For example, in 2023 and 2024, we presented a work called The Villainy You Teach, during which an actor repeated Shylock’s famous “Hath not a Jew eyes” speech from The Merchant of Venice for approximately two hours while a number of other actors read the entirety of the play. This was most often presented in settings where people could come and go and just bear witness as they saw fit. It was challenging for both performers and audience alike in ways that I found thrilling. 

What are you doing when you’re not doing theatre? 

Wait, there are other things to do? In all seriousness, I am often seeing other performance presentations, everything from contemporary dance to jazz to, of course, theatrical works. I also enjoy cooking and find that allows me to be creative, but without the pressure of public presentation!

What does theatre—not just your theatre, but the American or world theatre—look like in, say, 20 years?

My hope is that the American and world theatre will lean even more deeply into the idea that theatre is a form in which communication occurs in collaboration between audience and performers. In other words, theatre exists most fully in the place where the imaginative capabilities of the audience meet the space provided by the artists. As other forms (film, television, streaming, etc.) continue to have great influence and reach, I trust that theatre will embrace even more fully the singularity of the experience it offers. In doing so, it will also continue to be a place where audience members are not just entertained, but encouraged to lean forward and actively grapple with the challenges of our world.