An Evening with Tony Award Winner Ari’el Stachel

Event Description

This experience is an intimate version of his acclaimed solo show, which initially premiered at Berkeley Rep and made its New York debut Off-Broadway in the fall of 2025. Through humor, vulnerability, and masterful character work, Ari explores themes of identity, mental health, and belonging as an Arab-Jewish artist navigating multiple worlds.

Written and performed by Stachel, the show traces his lifelong struggle with OCD, the pressure to assimilate, and the identity fracture that began in the aftermath of 9/11. As a Middle Eastern Jewish teenager in America, Ari’el quickly learned that safety meant silence. He began hiding his father, denying his roots, and reshaping himself to fit a culture that viewed his heritage as suspect. What began as protection became performance—until it all broke.

Ari’el plays dozens of characters, including “Meredith,” the personified voice of his anxiety who guides, manipulates, and ultimately hijacks his pursuit of belonging. The play climaxes with a powerful post–October 7 sequence, added in 2024, that confronts the impossibility of holding Arab and Jewish identity in a world demanding division. What emerges is a deeply personal, politically charged, and darkly funny attempt to reclaim wholeness—onstage and off.