The Shabbat Project - 2070 Edition

Event Details

• 📅 Wednesday, November 4, 2026

• 🕖 7:00–9:00 PM

• 📍 Nicholas Martin Hall, Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, MA

• 🎟️ Free, RSVP Required. Donations encouraged

• 🖼️ Exhibition on view in person October 27 – November 8, 2026 and online beginning October 27, 2026

Pull up a chair for The Shabbat Project – 2070 Edition, an immersive piece of community-generated documentary theatre exploring what Shabbat means to us today, and what it could become in the year 2070. Created by director Adira Rosen in collaboration with the Judeofuturism Project, the performance is presented as part of 70 Seeds, a group exhibition imagining vibrant, pluralistic Jewish life in the United States in the year 2070.

The Shabbat Project uses verbatim theatre, a form of documentary theatre built from the exact words of real people interviewed about a shared experience. For this edition, Adira interviewed members of the Boston-area Jewish community about their relationships to Shabbat now, and their hopes, questions, and dreams for the future(s) of Shabbat practice. Their anonymized interviews will be woven together into a collage of voices that highlights both the common threads and the rich differences within our community.

The piece will be performed by members of the community, not as actors playing characters, but as themselves, giving voice to the stories of their friends, neighbors, and fellow community members. We hope you'll join us around the table for an evening of story, community, ritual, and imagination.

If you're interested in being part of the interview process, you can sign up for a 20min interview between now and Oct 15. For more info and to sign up for an interview visit this link.

This event is free and open to the public; however, RSVPs are required due to capacity constraints. Donations to support the exhibition and future programming are welcome and appreciated.

Adira Rosen (she/her) is a Jewish theatre artist who loves to make Jewish spaces more theatrical and theatrical spaces more Jewish. She was born and raised in San Diego, CA but has found homes in Pittsburgh, Tel Aviv, New York City, Jerusalem, and now Somerville. Adira has loved theatre since she was a kid and went on to study drama at Carnegie Mellon University, where she earned her BFA in directing for live performance. She became rabbi curious as a participant at the Brandeis Camp Institute (BCI) in 2021 and followed that curiosity all the way to Pardes in Jerusalem. In May of 2023, Adira completed a year of study in the Pardes Experiential Educators Program, where she began developing a community-generated documentary theatre piece called The Shabbat Project. In addition to her theatrical projects, Adira works for Mem Global on their Immersive Learning team and spent the last three summers on staff at the BCI. In her free time, Adira loves to take dance classes, host Shabbat meals, and tie tzitzit to atypical garments. No matter the location or time of day, Adira can be found wearing sunglasses on her head, which a friend once lovingly called her California kippah.

The Judeofuturism Project is a multidisciplinary initiative supporting Jewish futures rooted in imagination, resilience, and collective thriving. We ask: What becomes possible beyond survival? How can communities think long-term? And what can Jewish wisdom offer a world in transformation? The Judeofuturism Project believes Jewish communities have always been futures-builders. Our mission is to recover, practice, and amplify that capacity, connecting the people, tools and ideas needed to strengthen our infrastructure of imagination for this moment and beyond