Inside ‘The Zionists’ and the voices shaping Miami New Drama’s bold premiere

At a moment when difficult conversations are often avoided, Miami New Drama’s latest premiere, “The Zionists: A Family Storm,” is leaning into one.

Three people at the center of the new play by S. Asher Gelman came to it from different perspectives. The playwright was driven to get his story out. The artistic director saw something urgent in bringing it to the stage. And the actor at its center found a role that feels unusually close to the moment.

Gelman believes that learning to tolerate discomfort is now a radical act. “Being able to learn how to be uncomfortable and sit in discomfort is a skill we’ve lost,” Gelman says.

“The Zionists” follows a well-to-do Jewish family who are on a reunion at a luxury Caribbean resort, but what’s brewing—both outside and inside—creates a potent mix for tensions to rise.

“This play forces its characters to be very uncomfortable and still stay in the room and still engage with each other. And I just want to bring us back to that. I want to bring us back to discourse,” Gelman says.

For Miami New Drama’s artistic director Michel Haussman, the play is in keeping with the company’s focus on developing new work while also taking on difficult material. Where, as he says, “most theaters stay away from the third rail,” Miami New Drama runs toward it. The company didn’t simply pick up the play once it was finished. Haussman says they stepped in “right after conception,” after general manager Evan Bernandin brought Gelman’s script to his attention while Haussman was developing another play, “Birthright.”

In March of 2025, Gelman’s company Midnight Theatricals, along with Bernandin’s production company, presented a private industry New York City presentation with Chloe Treat, who is directing the MiND production.

Hausmann says he read the script, loved it, and committed early to producing it, helping to shepherd its development over roughly a year and a half.

Hausmann compares it to the two intense television cable hits “White Lotus” and “Succession” mixed into one. But although the play is a satire-tinged, high-stakes family drama, he emphasizes that at its core, it’s about something deeper: how families stay together when their beliefs are worlds apart.

Actor Avi Hoffmann, who plays the patriarch, has spent a lifetime immersed in Jewish stories. He’s lived in Israel, performed on stages across the world, and devoted a career to giving voices to characters wrestling with faith, identity, and history. But even for him, “The Zionists” feels different.

“We are living in a world right now that is upside down. The United States is in the news every single day, all day, for everything that’s happening in the world, and here comes a play called ‘The Zionists,’ which actually isn’t afraid to open up a discussion about it all.”

The emotional engine of “The Zionists” is rooted in Gelman’s experience as an Israeli who grew up in Chevy Chase, Maryland, lived in Tel Aviv from 2006 to 2016, and was living in New York when the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023 occurred. That’s when Palestinian terrorist group Hamas launched a coordinated attack on Israel.

“As an Israeli who was living in New York, October 7 really shook me—not just the attack, but also the way the world received it,” Gelman says. “My peers, particularly my collaborators and even friendly partners in the arts, just almost rushed to contextualize and explain and excuse why this happened to my people. And it felt really lonely. I lost many friends.”

That sense of fracture extended into his family.

“There were also tensions that brewed within my own family. And then it became clear that I was like, ‘Oh, this is, this is—I need a home for all of this, this frustration and this pain,’ and I threw it into a play.”

For Gelman, who shifted to playwriting after a career as an actor and choreographer, playwriting is a way for him to put “different truths in the mouths of different characters.”

“Live theater truly becomes like the last bastion when it comes to being able to sit in a room and experience a thing, and not have the ability to press pause or go into your device or get distracted. The audience is there and present.”

Hoffmann believes that “The Zionists” does something rare in today’s polarized climate: it allows every side to see itself represented.

“The beauty of this show is that every side of this conversation is well and honestly and fairly represented… There are characters that will reinforce your thoughts on the subject, but you’re going to have to hear what the other side has to say.”

At the heart of the story, Hoffmann says, is the father trying to hold his family together.

“It’s basically the story of a very wealthy, incredibly wealthy Jewish family who has given millions, tens of millions of dollars to Israel and Zionist causes. There are three children, each having a massive trust fund, which they control,” Hoffmann says.

The rupture comes when one of the younger siblings quietly redirects funds to support the pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia University.

The patriarch attempts to repair the damage in dramatic fashion by renting a giant villa in Turks and Caicos.

“There’s a hurricane and we get to fight it out, physically, emotionally, spiritually. My job as the father is to desperately try to keep the family together even if we disagree. You can disagree with your brother or sister… but you can still be a family.”

For Gelman, the title itself carries an intentional irony. “I do think that the play is called ‘The Zionists’ because of the irony of it all,” he says. “The play itself asks us not to reduce people to a single position, but that is what is going on. So, the idea is, ‘Oh, these are actually fully fledged humans. They’re not just a single position.’”

“The Zionists” was born in a moment of crisis.

“Look, he basically wrote this in response to October 7,” Hoffmann says. Since then, the world has become even more charged. “It’s more relevant now than it was even two months ago.”

In Miami, Hausmann says part of his theater’s success with new plays is knowing and meeting his audience where they are.

“We know exactly who we are. We represent our community. We know who our audience is, and we are a fair representation of our community.”

That clarity is part of why he believes “The Zionists” will resonate so strongly in Miami and why it’s already gaining momentum beyond it.

Already, Barrington Stage Company in the Berkshires in Massachusetts is going to be producing the play.

“We are transferring our production, and they open it in June. It is built to travel, so hopefully it’ll find a space in New York.”

It is the second production of Miami New Drama’s Y6K Project, launched in partnership with Wasserman Projects to amplify Jewish narratives and address the rise in antisemitism.

In June, another play from Miami New Drama’s Y6K Project is premiering in New York. Jonathan Spector’s “Birthright” opens June 5 at MCC Theater off Broadway.

That is the radical promise of “The Zionists” for Hausmann—that it refuses to offer simple answers or handy slogans. Instead, it locks a family in a room while a hurricane batters the world outside.

“This is not a play that tries to change your mind,” Hausmann says. “I don’t think that this is a play that’s going to try to change your mind, but it’s a play about listening to one another and how families remain together when what certain members of the family believe might be in complete opposition to what others feel is completely sacred.”

If you go:

WHAT: “The Zionists: A Family Storm”

WHERE: Miami New Drama, The Colony Theatre, 1040 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach

WHEN: 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday; 3 p.m. Sunday. Through May 3.

COST: $40, $70, and $85 Thursday and Friday; $45, $75, and $90 Saturday and Sunday, including fees

INFORMATION: 305-674-1040 and miaminewdrama.org

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This story was originally published April 9, 2026 at 1:34 PM.