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

About the Artists

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, Elle Literary Grand Prix for Nonfiction, 2025 NYFA Artist Fellowship, and a 2025 NYSCA Individual Artist Award. 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 in Scotland, Ireland, Norway, Israel, Trinidad, and Canada. Cohen’s critically acclaimed memoirs are published by Penguin and Algonquin. She has received fellowships and awards from NYSCA, the NEA, Yaddo, Orchard Project, Saltonstall, and VCCA. Alice teaches playwriting at The New School, where she received the Distinguished Teaching Award. www.AliceEveCohen.com

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, La MaMa, 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.

The cast for the Dec 2025 production of Oklahoma Samovar includes *Joyce Cohen as Sylvia, Nadia Diamond as Emily, *Sarah Chalfie as Hattie, Sahar Lev-Shomer as Jake, Seren Kaiser as Little Clara,

and *Alex J. Gould as Ben.

*Equity member appearing with permission of Actors’ Equity Association

The creative team for Oklahoma Samovar includes Anna Kiraly (set and puppet designer), Barbara Erin Delo (costume designer), Federico Restrepo (lighting designer), Eric Nightengale (sound designer), Eliana Cohen-Orth (assistant director and associate producer), Qingan Zhang (assistant scenic designer and props designer), Dan Hurlin (puppetry consultant), Tom Driscoll (stage manager), and John Breen (producer).

About the Cast

Sarah Chalfie – New York: FillFillFillFillFillFillFill (The Flea). Regional: Hamlet (St. Louis Shakespeare), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Hartford Stage), The Rose Tattoo (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Off the Main Road (Williamstown). Film: Take Pains. Education: Columbia University MFA Acting, class of 2024; productions include: Small Tragedy, Henry VI Parts 1, 2 and 3, Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven, Moscowx6. sarahchalfie.com

Joyce Cohen – Recent credits: World Premiere of The Reservoir at DCPA (Henry Award nominee) and Alliance Theatre Company. Broadway: Once A Catholic. Off-Broadway: Keen, Life Jacket, HERE, Mint, Playwrights Horizons, Westside Arts. Regional theaters across the country. TV/Film: High School Musical, Independence Day, Read It And Weep, A Picture Perfect Holiday, many Hallmark Christmas movies, “Touched By An Angel”, “Archie Bunker’s Place”. Sundance Institute Playwright’s and Film Labs, Festival of New Theatre (Geva), Colorado New Play Summit (DCPA), JPP, New Ground Theatre Festival (Cleveland Playhouse), Powerhouse Theatre. www.actressjoycecohen.com

Nadia Diamond is an actor based in New York City who cares about making socially conscious theater work in collaborative spaces. She received her MFA in acting from University of Houston, Class of 2025. A company member of Brave New World Repertory Theatre, her other NYC collaborations include Theater in Asylum, Blackberry Productions Theater Co., New Perspectives Theatre, Jewish Plays Project, and New Professional Theatre. Originally from San Francisco, Nadia is a happy Brooklyn transplant after having lived in St. Louis, Princeton, Cleveland, and Houston. www.nadiadiamond.com

Alex J. Gould is an actor, and fight/intimacy director. Off-Broadway credits include: Wake (59E59), The Woodsman (New World Stages, 59E59), Midsummer: A Banquet  (Third Rail Projects/Food of Love Productions), BALLS (59E59), Show Trial (The Tank), and The Radicalization of Rolfe (2016 NYC Fringe Fest Best Overall Play.) Other credits include: Student Body, The Mysteries, a cautionary tail, and Thomas Bradshaw’s  Job. Regional/International credits include: BALLS (Stages Repertory Theater), Mary's Wedding (Portland Center  Stage), Whaddabloodclot  by Katori Hall (Williamstown), Stockade (Local Theater Company), and Happily After Ever (Edinburgh Fringe 2015). He has participated in readings/workshops with New York Theater Workshop, New Dramatists, Chautauqua Theater Company, McCarter Theatre, Rattlestick Theater, and Jewish Plays Project. Gould is a member of Ensemble Studio Theater in NYC. https://www.alexjgould.com/

Seren Kaiser is a sixth grader whose credits include, among other roles, Horton in “Seussical, Jr.” and Mary Bennet in “Pride and Prejudice” (both with Ghostlight Theater Camp), Duffy in “Annie, Jr.” (Kidz Theater) and Pig Pen and Marcy in “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” (Atlantic Theater Company Acting School).

Sahar Lev-Shomer is a New York City based actor, singer and dancer. He was a member of the first cohort of Dot in the Box Theatre Company where he was mentored by Billy Bustamante. As part of the company he played Macbeth in “Macbeth” directed by Mark Nelson, and was a soloist in the new musical workshop of “buried” by Berkson & Malina. Sahar is a recent graduate from Circle in the Square Theatre School, winning the inaugural Alan Langdon Award for Excellence in Contemporary Theatre. www.saharlevshomer.com

About the Creative Team

Anna Kiraly (set and puppet designer) is a visual artist and set designer. She’s designed for the Pig Iron Theater Company (her set was nominated for a Barrymore '25), Talking Band, The Play Company, Peter Sellars, and universities such as Barnard/Columbia, Fordham, The New School, Montclair, Colgate, and created visuals for operas and concerts. She is a recipient of multiple NYSCA artist grants, the Arts Link Grant, the NEA/TCG Program for Designers, the TCG New Generations, and the Jim Henson Foundation’s grant. She’s taught set design at Barnard/Columbia and design for directors at SUNY/Purchase.www.annakiraly.com

Barbara Erin Delo (costume design) is a costume designer and artisan working in dance, theatre and opera. A New York native, she has previously designed costumes for Bay Street, Theatre at St Clements (The Bigot, Off Broadway premier), Judson Church (Beyond Babel, Off Broadway Premier), The Flea, HideAway Circus (Touring), York Theatre, Capital Repertory Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Company Castillo Theatre, Martha Graham Dance Company, Paul Taylor Dance Company, Parsons Dance Company, Megan Williams Dance Projects, Battery Dance Company, NYC Fringe Festival, Chain Theatre Company, Third Rail Productions as well as many other NY and regional theatres. She studied costume design at SUNY Binghamton and NYU Tisch. www.barbaraerin.com 

Federico Restrepo (lighting designer)  has designed lighting for theatre productions in New York as well as abroad since moving to New York in 1999. In addition he is the Artistic Director of Loco7 Dance Puppet Theatre, with his company he has created and performed a number of original pieces and toured internationally over the past thirty years. He is a resident puppet designer, choreographer, performer and director at La MaMa, as well as the Producing Director of La MaMa Puppet Festival, a bi-annual event. www.loco7.org  

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. https://www.elianacohenorth.com/

Qingan Zhang (Assistant Scenic Designer and Props Designer) is a New York and Boston based scenic and prop designer. Her work explores metaphorical narratives through physical materiality, geometrical motif and integrated spatial experience. Selected scenic design credits include Lizard Boy (SpeakEasy Stage), Silent Sky &The Chinese Lady (Central Square Theater), Destination Undefined (Theatre 154). Associate credits include Franklin’s Key (Pig Iron), Cymbeline (NAATCO), SUR (LA MAMA). Qingan’s co-devising puppetry pieces have been showcased at New Ohio Theatre Ice Factory, Rattlestick Theater GFTF, and HERE Arts Center. Qingan is the co-founder of the non-profit interdisciplinary production company Cellunova Productions. https://qinganz.com/ 

Dan Hurlin (puppetry consultant) has been creating original theater since 1980. His work has won multiple awards (two OBIEs, two Bessies and a UNIMA Citation of Excellence) and has been seen at a variety of alternative presenting spaces throughout the US and Europe. Until his retirement, Dan was the director of the Graduate Program in Theatre at Sarah Lawrence college, where he taught performance art, dance and puppetry. In addition to being a four-time fellow at MacDowell, Dan received a Guggenheim fellowship for choreography, a USA Artist Fellowship and the Alpert Award for theatre, and the 2013 Jesse Howard Jr. Rome Prize for visual art. https://www.danhurlin.com/

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.