In Washington, DC, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company will give the world premiere of Hanukkah Spectacular, a new comedy by Max Posner, from November 14 to December 13, 2026. Peter Friedman, Frank Vernon on HBO's Succession, leads the company, and Tony winner David Cromer directs.
The play is set over a long weekend in a conference room at a Midtown talent agency, where four Jewish artists have been hired to come up with a Hanukkah show that can sell the way the season's other holiday hits do. Three days is not much time. The deadline drags old grievances to the surface, egos collide, and the line between who these people are and the parts they are playing starts to blur. What emerges, by Woolly's account, is a comedy about ambition, family, identity and the stories people tell about themselves.
Friedman has spent much of his stage career in new American writing, appearing in original productions of plays by Annie Baker, Amy Herzog, Wendy Wasserstein and Will Eno, in work by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, and in an earlier Posner play. His film credits include The Savages and Safe.
He is joined by Laura Heisler, Ben Edelman, Ben Beckley and Ethan J. Miller. Heisler returns to Woolly after David Adjmi's Stunning and Rocket to the Moon. Edelman created the role of Charlie in Joshua Harmon's Admissions at Lincoln Center Theater and later played it again in the West End. Beckley's Broadway credits include What the Constitution Means to Me, and Miller is making his Woolly Mammoth debut.
The production brings Cromer back to Washington for the first time since 2003, when he staged The Grapes of Wrath at Ford's Theatre. It is also his second project with Posner: he directed The Treasurer at the Sundance Theatre Lab and at Playwrights Horizons, where it was nominated for the Lucille Lortel Award for Best Play. Cromer won his Tony for The Band's Visit, was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2010, and also directed The Sound Inside on Broadway.
Woolly's artistic director, Reggie D. White, first encountered the play at a reading three years ago. "Seeing Max (Posner) and (David) Cromer collaborate feels like once-in-generation chemistry," he said. "Max's play is a hilarious and deeply recognizable story about a group of people trying to make something honest while figuring out what they actually believe." It is one of five world premieres in the company's 2026/27 season.
Performances are Thursdays and Fridays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m., with extra performances on Sunday, November 15 at 8 p.m., Monday, November 16 at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, November 24 at 7:30 p.m. and Wednesday, November 25 at 7:30 p.m. Press nights are Friday, November 20 and Saturday, November 21. A Pride Night performance on December 3 at 7:30 p.m. adds a lobby fair of local LGBTQIA+ organizations before the show and a talkback after it, and on November 22 at 2 p.m. a childcare matinee, run with the National Children's Theatre, offers workshops for children aged 3–5 and 6–12 while their guardians watch the play.
Single tickets start at $30 from woollymammoth.net, by phone at 202-393-3939 or by email at tickets@woollymammoth.net. Woolly's Pick Your Price seats start at $15 for previews and $20 for the regular run, 20 pay-what-you-will tickets are held for every performance (ten in advance, ten on the day), and patrons aged 30 and under can buy any seat for $25. Open-captioned, ASL-interpreted and audio-described performances are scheduled at select dates during the run.
