Dec. 22--Several Chicago-area artistic directors have signed an open letter protesting the firing of Ari Roth, the artistic director of Theater J in Washington, D.C. Although the stated cause of Roth's firing last week was insubordination, Roth has said in several interviews with the Washington-area media that his firing was due to his programming of work critical of the State of Israel at Theater J, one of the nation's leading Jewish theaters.
Signatories to the letter include Robert Falls, artistic director of the Goodman Theatre; Martha Lavey, artistic director of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company through the end of this season; Charles Newell, artistic director of the Court Theatre; BJ Jones, artistic director of Northlight Theatre; Jamil Khoury, artistic director of Silk Road Theatre Company; and Chay Yew, artistic director of Victory Gardens Theater.
The strongly-worded letter calls the firing of Roth "politically motivated censorship" and calls for his reinstatement. One of Roth's more controversial productions at Theater J was Israeli playwright Boaz Gaon's play "Return to Haifa," an adaptation of the novel by the Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani. A play based on that novel resulted in controversy at the Next Theatre in Evanston, a company that went out of business last month.
