Oklahoma Samovar

About the Play

In 1887, two Latvian teenagers flee the Russian Army and become the only Jews in the Oklahoma Land Run. A hundred years later, twenty-year-old Emily tries to decipher her late mother’s mysterious request to have her ashes spread on a stranger’s farm, in a place she’s never heard of. Performed by a cast of six, Oklahoma Samovar examines the shifting identity, traditions, and culture clashes that shape five generations in a Jewish immigrant family.

The play wrestles with themes of immigration, assimilation, generational trauma and the transcendent power of mother-daughter love. It is a play about storytelling: stories that change with each reliable and unreliable narrator, joyful stories and family secrets filled with shame and despair. In Oklahoma Samovar, five generations put down roots and dig graves, embodying their own Jewish variations on the turbulent and mythologized American Dream. It is an utterly human and absolutely unique American story. 

Oklahoma Samovar is based on the playwright’s family history: Alice's ancestors were the only Jews in the 1889 Oklahoma Land Run. 

Creative Team

Alice Eve Cohen is a playwright and author, winner of the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award, National Jewish Playwriting Contest, Oprah magazine Best Books of Summer, and Elle Literary Grand Prix for Nonfiction. Her plays have been performed for over 200,000 people on 4 continents, at theatres including: the Kitchen Theatre, New Georges, New York Theatre Workshop, Here, Six Points Theatre, Cherry Lane Theatre, Berkshire Theatre Group, and at theatres and festivals in Scotland, Ireland, Norway, Israel, Trinidad, and Canada. Cohen’s critically acclaimed books are published by Penguin and Algonquin. She has received awards and fellowships from NYSCA, the NEA, the Orchard Project, Saltonstall Arts Foundation, and VCCA. Alice teaches playwriting at The New School, where she received the Distinguished Teaching Award.

Eric Nightengale, director, served as artistic director of 78th Street Theatre Lab from 1995 – 2008, spearheading developmental projects and producing over 200 full productions. New York directing credits include work with SoHo Rep, Penguin Rep, Theatre Breaking Through Barriers, Dixon Place, Minetta Lane, LaMama, The Acting Company, Circle Rep, The Flea, Cherry Lane, St Clements, Ensemble Studio Theatre, HERE, and Classic Stage Company. Chicago credits include work with Victory Gardens, Bailiwick, Steppenwolf, and Second City. His work at the Edinburgh Fringe has resulted in four adaptations for BBC radio, four off-Broadway productions and a London transfer. Upcoming projects include Brecht On Brecht at Bird Theatre in Tottori, Japan, and PACKRAT at the Oil Tank in Seoul, Korea.

Eliana Cohen-Orth, assistant director, is a playwright, director, and all-around theatre-maker born and raised in NYC. Her play Affecting Expression was presented by The Tank in 2024. She previously developed Affecting Expression with Princeton University’s Lewis Center for The Arts and Kitchen Sink Theatre Company. Favorite directing projects include Jen Silverman’s The Moors, Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice, Kate Hamill’s Pride and Prejudice and Dracula, and the first production of Emma Catherine Watkins’ Unbecoming. While studying English and Theater at Princeton University (’21), Eliana served as Artistic Director of Princeton Summer Theater and General Manager of Theatre Intime. She is the recipient of the Alan S. Downer Prize and the Francis LeMoyne Page Theater Award. When not making theatre, Eliana works as the Event Production Coordinator for The Center for Fiction in Brooklyn.

John Breen, producer, is best known as the writer/director of the hit play Alone it Stands. It is estimated that two hundred and sixty thousand people worldwide have seen the play. In New York he recently produced King of The Jews by Leslie Epstein directed by Alexandra Aron which was nominated for an Outer Critics Circle Award. He is the General Manager of Loose Change Productions and Magis Theatre and with Loose Change Productions he produced  Export Quality, By Dorotea Mendoza, Erica Miguel and Carolyn Antonio at HERE Arts, directed by Sonoko Kawahara and The Mulberry Tree at LaMaMa. His adaptation of  The Quiet Man by Maurice Walsh, will premiere at the Dublin Theatre Festival in October of this  year.

John Wyszniewski (press agent): Everyman Agency is a New York-based communications firm promoting complex ideas, mostly in the arts. We build awareness and provoke action for cultural organizations and individual artists by putting impactful storytelling, strategic thinking, and meaningful relationships at the heart of our work. We specialize in dance, theater, music, visual art and the compelling work in between.

La MaMa ETC: Founded in 1961 by theatre legend Ellen Stewart, La MaMa is the only original Off-Off-Broadway venue still in operation. Ellen established La MaMa as a haven for underrepresented artists to experiment with new work, without the pressures of commercial success. Today, we maintain an environment of uncensored creative freedom, where artists of all backgrounds and identities can develop work that pushes the boundaries of what is possible onstage.To date, La MaMa has supported more than 5,000 productions, featuring 150,000 artists from 70 nations. In 2018, The American Theatre Wing presented La MaMa with the Regional Theatre Tony Award, stating, “La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club is a staple of the New York theatre scene. It is an exciting space where artists can grow, create, and push boundaries, and we are thrilled to be able to honor them this year.” La MaMa has also been honored with more than 30 Obie Awards, and dozens of Drama Desk, Bessie, and Villager Awards.