Judah Skoff

FULL LENGTH: THE BIRTHDAY GAME is a romantic epic about a wayward generation of American Jews at the turn of the twenty-first century.

Aspiring novelist Henry Jacobson is exiled from his family, as his father, a doctor, defends a devastating malpractice lawsuit. Henry arranges to spend the summer in the beautiful Upper East Side penthouse apartment of family friends who are expected to be away for the season. At the last moment, however, daughter Chelsea Weiss decides to remain home, leading Henry and Chelsea, two young American Jews, to unexpectedly share the same apartment for the long, hot summer. Chelsea attempts to recover from the devastating end to her junior year of college, which involved an anxiety-inducing relationship with an ultra-conservative literature professor, a man long accused of anti-Semitism, but who still looms large in her mind. Henry works on his novel about an American serviceman after World War II, recovering in a hospital on the Amalfi coast of Italy, who learns to paint.

Drawn to each other, and trapped in an increasingly claustrophobic space, Henry and Chelsea navigate their growing attraction and fraught identities. Matters are complicated further when Henry meets Sylvia, a woman with roots in Libya's vanished Jewish community, challenging his understanding of Judaism and his relationship with Chelsea. As Chelsea's birthday approaches, she introduces Henry to a bizarre and terrifying family ritual, the birthday game…

Set during the summer of 2000, against the backdrop of the presidential race between Bush and Gore, at the dawn of reality television, when the Twin Towers stood proudly over Manhattan, and when there was real hope for Palestinian-Israeli peace, THE BIRTHDAY GAME is a love story about two people, and a nation, on the knife’s-edge of a new century.

FULL LENGTH: Set against the backdrop of the recent financial crises, Simon and Natalie’s marriage is disintegrating due to her increasing dependence on painkillers, and his failing career. One night, Simon receives a call from his cousin Isobel with sad news. Her husband, a semi-successful musician, has suddenly died.

Simon and Isobel decide to leave their difficult home lives by taking an extended vacation at an exotic seaside resort. The change of scenery provides a needed respite from the stresses and pressures of their regular routines. Isobel is anxious to imagine them as happy travelers with picture perfect lives but Simon is unable to fully withdraw from his troubled world, wondering if his marriage can be saved.

While vacationing they meet Holly, an intriguing but somewhat threatening young traveler. Holly tells Simon a bizarre story about her encounter with a painter she met in Paris the year before, and a violent confrontation with the painter’s wife. Simon is fascinated and scared by Holly, as he becomes increasingly drawn to her obsessive understanding of love.

THE SINLESS is now available from Next Stage Press.

FULL LENGTH: Told in a radically experimental style, THE SINLESS portrays the conflict between faith and desire. Annabelle and Tuvia are a married Orthodox Jewish couple living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Tuvia is a rabbinical student and a man of deep faith, whereas Annabelle got swept up in the religious life due to its readily available community, a balm for the loneliness of being young and single.

However, she is ambivalent about her marriage and the constricting religious world she finds herself in. When Tuvia leaves for the weekend to go to his brother's bachelor party in Atlantic City, Annabelle embarks on a rebellious journey of exploration to indulge her deepest, unspoken desires. When Tuvia unexpectedly returns early, they must both confront the uneasy state of their marriage and the fictions which bind their lives.

FULL LENGTH: Winner of the New Jersey Playwright's Contest. Adam, a professor of Bible who has rejected his Jewish roots, meets Claire, a mysterious woman with troubling dreams. Together, they embark on a perilous journey into the darkest parts of their desires. Meanwhile, Adam's best friend Deena, a struggling, single Jewish woman, has trouble in her relationship with Noah, a cultural snob, while seeking to find a happy Jewish life.