About me
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Atar Hadari arrived in England aged eight and trained as an actor before studying playwrighting with Derek Walcott at Boston University. His plays have won awards from the BBC, Arts Council of England, National Foundation of Jewish Culture (New York), European Association of Jewish Culture (Brussels) and the RSC, where he was Young Writer in Residence. Plays have been staged at Finborough Theatre, Wimbledon Studio Theatre, Chichester Festival Theatre, Mark Taper Forum and West Yorkshire Playhouse. His sit com script ‘Strictly Kosher’ won an Alfred Bradley award from the BBC. His first paid commission was an adaptation of Anski’s ‘The Dybbuk’ developed at Boston Playwrights Theatre. His last production was a radical adaptation of Sholem Asch’s ‘God of Vengeance’ commissioned by the Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester and staged at Up Theatre Manhattan as ‘Merciful Father’. He won a Pen Translates award and been short-listed for the American Literary Translators Association award for his translations of Hebrew poetry and drama and won the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute award in 2024 to translate the ‘On the White Road: Selected Poems of Haviva Pedaya’. He lives in Leeds and is acting rabbi of Shomrei Hadat synagogue.
My Plays
Love Me Tender
Synopsis:
Karen is trying to raise her bright 13 year old son Chaim alone and provide him with a bar-mitzvah now he’s obsessed with keeping all Jewish laws like the father he never met since Karen fled the ultra-Orthodox world. Unfortunately, they live in Yorkshire where no Jews can be found. She finds the oddest rabbi in the world, Rabbi Malcolm, who agrees to teach him weekly – but there’s a condition – she has to find 10 Jews to make up a quorum for the big day. She starts with the local deli, whose owner Martin tries hard to sell her a bacon sandwich but puts her on to a local garage where two brothers think she’s a tax inspector but finally offer to drop their overalls to prove they qualify to make up a quorum. That’s 3 Jews found. Rabbi Malcolm teaches Chaim a prayer you say for the dead, but only in the presence of ten men, and Chaim tries it out on bonfire night, dressed in his mother’s raincoat instead of a prayer shawl, as the fireworks light up the sky and exploding rockets punctuate his prayer amid ten mirrors instead of ten men. He finds that the photograph in his mother’s drawer which he thought was his father has come to life – but the man she said wasn’t Jewish is in fact Elvis, and he wants a Coke.
Number of Characters: 12
Minimum Number of Actors Required: 8
Length (in Pages): 75
Location: Yorkshire
Key Words: Jewish Young Adult Rite of Passage Elvis
Has the Play Been Produced? No
Are the Rights Available? Yes
Has the Play Been Published? No
Award nominations/wins: Workshop production Matchmaker Event West Yorkshire Playwright.
Reviews:
Love Me Tender
Synopsis:
Karen is trying to raise her bright 13 year old son Chaim alone and provide him with a bar-mitzvah now he’s obsessed with keeping all Jewish laws like the father he never met since Karen fled the ultra-Orthodox world. Unfortunately, they live in Yorkshire where no Jews can be found. She finds the oddest rabbi in the world, Rabbi Malcolm, who agrees to teach him weekly – but there’s a condition – she has to find 10 Jews to make up a quorum for the big day. She starts with the local deli, whose owner Martin tries hard to sell her a bacon sandwich but puts her on to a local garage where two brothers think she’s a tax inspector but finally offer to drop their overalls to prove they qualify to make up a quorum. That’s 3 Jews found. Rabbi Malcolm teaches Chaim a prayer you say for the dead, but only in the presence of ten men, and Chaim tries it out on bonfire night, dressed in his mother’s raincoat instead of a prayer shawl, as the fireworks light up the sky and exploding rockets punctuate his prayer amid ten mirrors instead of ten men. He finds that the photograph in his mother’s drawer which he thought was his father has come to life – but the man she said wasn’t Jewish is in fact Elvis, and he wants a Coke.
Number of Characters: 12
Minimum Number of Actors Required: 8
Length (in Pages): 75
Location: Yorkshire
Key Words: Jewish Young Adult Rite of Passage Elvis
Has the Play Been Produced? No
Are the Rights Available? Yes
Has the Play Been Published? No
Award nominations/wins: Rehearsal and Public Performance Matchmaker event West Yorkshire Playhouse
Reviews:
