Plays
Albert
A Different Truth
Meeting Fingerman
The Secret Muse
Searching for Karavasske
See more information on Mark’s plays at:
Albert
About
Albert is a short play that was first produced by the Left Coast Theatre Company in San Francisco as part of “QueerStory: Forgotten Figures from Queer History.” Albert Cashier was a true-life transgender trailblazer who lived in the nineteenth century and fought valiantly in the Civil War. He lived afterwards in a small village in Illinois. Though he worked odd jobs and was known as a quiet man, Albert was remarkable for his time, daring to live his truth in an unenlightened age. When our play begins, he is ushered into the afterlife by a mysterious Translator who asks him to recount his story so it will not be lost to history. As Albert reveals the facts of his life we learn of his bond with the men of his regiment and how they came to his rescue when a doctor exposed the sex he was assigned at birth to the press and the government’s pension bureau threatened to cut off his payments. This short play is meant to inspire all those who fight to live their truth, despite the obstacles that society puts in their way.
Reviews & Press
Videos
Click here to view Albert at Left Coast Theatre Co.’s production of “QueerStory.” The performance begins at 1:37:10.
Photo Credit: Alandra Hileman
Al Niotta as Albert Cashier in Albert.
A Different Truth
About
A young writer on a search for his family roots in Poland meets an unexpected figure who reveals truths about himself and the village that once was his home.
I wrote this play to honor all the Mendels who lived in shtetls and had their stories erased from history. As the great writer Arundhati Roy wrote, “There’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless.’ There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.”
I was pleased to receive the following endorsement: “The Jewish Plays Project recommends A Different Truth as a Semi-Finalist for our first Ten Minute Play Contest OOF: On One Foot, which searched nationally for plays from artists of all backgrounds responding to our prompt on healing & repair. A Different Truth made a strong impact on our community of readers for the Festival of New Jewish Theatre in 2024, who connected with its current relevance and how it theatrically expressed the contest theme of healing & repair.”
In June 2025 A Different Truth was presented as part of Congregation Bet Ha’am’s gala fundraiser, “A Staged Affair,” with a dream cast—Jesse Leighton as Nate and Nate Stephenson as Mendel. Both brought heart and humanity to their roles and they were directed by the talented Karen Ball, whose insights greatly enriched this staged reading.
Jesse Leighton as Nate Crane
Nate Stephenson as Mendel the wigmaker
Meeting Fingerman
About
Winner of the 2024 Honegger Prize for Best Short Play
Meeting Fingerman is about what happens when novice writer Nate Crane shows his new short story, set in a small Jewish village in Eastern Europe, to his idol, the literary lion of Yiddish fiction, Saul Fingerman, and things take an unexpected, disastrous turn.
The play was produced by the Barrington Stage Company in the Berkshires and the Firehouse Center for the Arts where it received the Honegger Prize for Best Short Play.
Reviews & Press
“A much more serious play, Mark Evan Chimsky’s Meeting Fingerman puts an elderly author into the clutches of a younger writer who has created a piece that hits too close to home for Fingerman’s comfort. [Robert] Zukerman is superb as the older immigrant, and [Ross] Griffin is perfect in his roles. It takes his second role, Mendel, to bring home the less-than-kosher bacon in this play.”
— J. Peter Bergman, The Berkshire Edge
“Mark Evan Chimsky’s Meeting Fingerman [is] a complex play which finds youthful author Nate (Ross Griffin) in the presence of his hero, Saul Fingerman (Robert Zukerman), a legendary Yiddish writer. Fingerman talks of Jewish shtetls in the “old country.” This short is both catchy and contemplative.”
— Fred Sokol, Talkin’ Broadway
“The evening also included more serious and sensitive moments, such as Mark Evan Chimsky’s Meeting Fingerman, about a young writer’s encounter with his mentor who is harboring a decades’ old secret.”
— Emily Edelman, Berkshire on Stage
“[In] Meeting Fingerman by Mark Evan Chimsky…Robert Zuckerman portrays an elderly Jewish man who recalls a shameful past when confronted by a younger writer, played by Ross Griffin. A note about this one—Zuckerman’s portrayal is so beautifully crafted; the price of admission is worth watching his master class in character interpretation.”
—Jarice Hanson, In the Spotlight.org
“[Robert] Zuckerman shines in Meeting Fingerman in which he plays a revered Jewish short story writer. He is forced to offer a wide range of emotions when he agrees to critique a short story written by a young man who idolizes him.
—Bob Goepfert, WAMC Northeast Public Radio
Firehouse Center for the Arts: An Evening of Shorts — 22nd Annual New Works Festival
The Secret Muse
About
The idea for The Secret Muse emerged years ago when I was intrigued by the fact that it was teenage boy actors who originated some of the most iconic female roles in dramatic literature. Who were they and why do we know so little about their lives?
The Secret Muse focuses on one such actor—William Shakespeare’s younger sibling “Ned” who likely came to London to join their brother’s theatre company.
In a series of monologues we hear from Ned, their brother Will, and the woman who changed both their lives. After more than 425 years, they set the record straight and as they recollect their shared past, new and unexpected truths emerge. It is a play about the elusive nature of the truth, a theme Shakespeare explored in many of his plays.
The Secret Muse was given a staged reading at the Pablo Arts Center with a wonderful cast that included Elijah Hernandez as Ned, Emma Massey as M, and John Gustafson as Will Shakespeare. It was directed by the brilliant Brandon Raghu who sensitively brought out every nuance of the play and our dramaturg was the invaluable Monica Cross, whose rich knowledge of Elizabethan history and dramatic structure informed our rehearsal process.
Perhaps the most gratifying feedback I received came from an usher named Will who identified as transgender and said, “Your play made me feel seen.”
Dr. Will Tosh, head of research at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre in London, asked to read my play. Shortly after I sent it, I was delighted to receive this message from him:
“[The Secret Muse is] a real treat. I loved the tri-monologue format, and I got such a strong sense of Ned’s character – a proper act of creative resuscitation. And it was refreshing to read a take on Shakespeare’s life that includes a mysterious woman who isn’t the sodding dark lady.”
My hope is that more festivals and theater companies will produce The Secret Muse. I’ll keep you updated on what happens next!
Photo credit: Megan Zabel Holmes
Elijah Hernandez as Ned Shakespeare in The Secret Muse
Photo credit: Megan Zabel Holmes
Emma Massey, Elijah Hernandez, John Gustafson in The Secret Muse
Responses to “The Secret Muse” at the Wisconsin Shakespeare Festival
“I had the honor of being the dramaturg on the staged reading of The Secret Muse at Wisconsin Shakespeare Festival in 2024.
“Mark Evan Chimsky has given us a moment in history to imagine the queer experiences we don’t have records of. Infused with so much historical detail that we do know, this monologue cycle feels very real and raw and immediate (even though the characters are speaking from the afterlife).
“The role of Ned is much needed part for AMAB trans actors.” – Monica Cross
“I had the remarkable privilege to see the premiere of this play at Wisconsin Shakespeare Festival during their 2024 season and I was blown away. As a non-binary Shakespeare actor/director, this piece spoke to me in many, many ways and I cannot wait to see it up on its feet in a fully staged production. This would be the perfect small cast show to be in rep for any theatre company doing Shakespeare.” – Chase D. Fowler
Searching for Karavasske
A full-length play by Mark Evan Chimsky
About
In Searching for Karavasske, a young queer writer searches for a little Jewish village from the past that he feels mysteriously connected to. As he does, he encounters untold truths about lives that history has erased.
As our society gains greater awareness of the intersectional marginalization of LGBTQ individuals in the past, I feel the time is right to explore how erasure occurred in the otherwise tightly knit world of the Eastern European shtetl. In “Searching for Karavasske,” Nate, a queer Jewish man in the 1970s and ‘80s seeks to understand his mysterious connection to a man like him in a small Jewish village in 1921 Poland.
One of the most exciting aspects for me about “Searching for Karavasske” is the possibility of reclaiming a history that has been unjustly erased–specifically, the vibrant lives whose stories regrettably still remain untold in our own day and age.
As a proud Jewish queer man, I want to celebrate the humanity of people like my play’s Mendel the wigmaker who was not ashamed of his love for another man and wanted to live as part of the fabric of the village he loved. His story and the stories of all the Mendels who once existed deserve to be told.