‘Crossing Delancey,’ a Play With Jewish Romance and Lots of Yiddish, Heads to Allens Lane Theater

By Stephen Silver

The 1988 film version of “Crossing Delancey,” which Joan Micklin Silver directed, was a very Jewish romantic comedy about the very New York courtship between a worldly young Jewish woman from the Upper West Side named Izzy (Amy Irving) and Sam the Pickle Man (Peter Riegert), the Lower East Side pickle salesman who becomes her unlikely suitor.

But before the film, “Crossing Delancey” was a play written by Susan Sandler, who adapted it for the film version in 1985.

That stage show is now headed to Philadelphia for a three-weekend engagement at the Allens Lane Theater in the Mt. Airy neighborhood. It’s likely the first time the play has been performed in Philadelphia since the early 1990s.

Joel Rosenwasser is the director of the show and it continues a run he’s recently had of Jewish-oriented plays. He was assistant director of a production of “Fiddler on the Roof” and later directed last year’s production of “The Diary of Anne Frank,” both at the Players Club of Swarthmore.

The production came about, he said, when he was approached by Paula Ann Kem, whom he described as the original producer and main sponsor of the show, and whom Rosenwasser called “very instrumental in starting the ball rolling on this production.”

“Paula Kem is a wonderful actor and had previously served on Allens Lane board of directors. She has performed on our stage on several occasions,” Vita Litvak, executive director of the Allens Lane Arts Center, said in an email. “In the spring of 2024, she approached us with the idea of putting on a production of Crossing Delancey, a story she was charmed by and had affection for the characters. Paula has generously provided sponsorship for the play, selecting Joel as our director and working closely with him to jump-start the project.”

And it’s a project that Rosenwasser is excited to put on

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“It’s a rom-com, straight-up comedy, which is really fun for me to do after doing ‘Diary of Anne Frank,’” he said. “We did wonderful with that, and we got a great turnout, and it was really well-received. But I was so drained from it that I’m so excited to do a comedy right now.”

“It’s kind of been a crazy time, because of being a Jewish director and doing Jewish shows post-Oct. 7, it’s been really tough,” he added.

In “Crossing Delancey,” Izzy is the protagonist, a modern Jewish woman in the 1980s who works in a bookstore and has literary expectations. Under pressure from her bubbe to marry, her two suitors are an older author and Sam the Pickle Man.

“In the ’80s, it was like, ‘Am I a Jewish American or an American Jew?,’ Rosenwasser said of the milieu of the play. “Izzy has this conflict as to whether or not she cares who she wants to get together with. I’m looking at this iconic author, or she gets fixed up with this shmendrick pickle man. … Until she learns what a good person he is.”

The play features five characters, while the movie features more, and the play features just three locations: Bubbie’s apartment, a bookstore and Central Park.

The cast is a mixture of performers Jewish and not, but it was essential to Rosenwasser to get the Yiddishkeit right.

“There’s a ton of Yiddish, especially with Bubbie,” he said. “She’s just throwing Yiddish stuff all over the place.”

The director, who has a family history in New York and lived there himself for a time in the ’80s, always appreciated the film’s depiction of that city, and especially the experience of Jewish people there.

“One of the things I think about, when I think about Bubbie’s apartment in the show, is I think about my aunt’s apartment” in New York, he said.

The director’s main profession is jewelry manufacturing — a sixth-generation jeweler, he vouches for the authenticity of the Adam Sandler movie “Uncut Gems” — although he has also done some work with Holocaust education. However, he’s been doing theater for around 40 years, acting, producing and directing.

The stage show, alas, does not include a version of the film’s most famous scene, in which Izzy stands in a Gray’s Papaya hot dog restaurant and a mysterious costumed diva enters and sings the Rodgers and Hammerstein song “Some Enchanted Evening.”

“In the show, they talk about going to Sammy’s Roumanian,” Rosenwasser said of the famed Lower East Side Romanian-Jewish restaurant, which reopened earlier this year. “It was my life — going there, going to the Russian Tea Room, going up and down Fifth Avenue … all of those things are actually in the show.”

“It’s Bubbie and her schtick,” he said. “It’s Jewish humor, Borscht Belt humor. Jewish humor, you can laugh at everything. So there’s like a lot of down parts in the show, there will be sad things … but we’re not talking about it in a sad way; we’re talking about it in a funny way.”

He also thinks audiences will enjoy the show’s romance.

“Pickle Man is not a hero; he’s just a pickle man. He took over his dad’s business and he’s just a nice guy, and it’s nice to see a nice guy,” he said. “It’s a nice story with a Jewish flair to it.”

“Crossing Delancey” will run on April 25, 26 and 27 and May 2, 3, 4, 9, 10 and 11 at the Allens Lane Theater (601 W. Allens Lane, Philadelphia, PA 19119). T

Stephen Silver is a Broomall-based freelance writer.