Trans Storytelling As An Act Of Love

Emil Weinstein is the playwright of Becoming Eve, which is based on Abby Stein’s 2019 memoir of the same name. It follows her journey from being a rabbi in an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community to an out transgender woman. Tommy Dorfman stars as Chava, the character inspired by Stein. The play opened in March and runs through April 27 at the Abrons Art Center in New York. Below, Weinstein discusses their collaboration, his passion for queer storytelling, and how this project coincided with his own transition.

When my agent sent me Abby Stein’s memoir Becoming Eve in 2020, I was like, I know that rabbi. She goes to synagogue with my mom in New York. I’ve watched her on YouTube. It felt like fate. But at the same time, we had so many other connections and we have so many people in common that it felt like the perfect match.

We first met on Zoom in April 2020 and have since discovered we’re like soulmates. That first meeting was Abby wanting to make sure she liked me and that the vibes were good. I felt really privileged to tell her story and wanted to do it right, so I read the 50 source sheets she sent. I did my homework. Then I started writing drafts of the play. I think after she read the first draft, she was like, “I made the right choice.”

From there, the relationship has gotten deeper and deeper. We had no idea we’d wind up clicking so well. It’s a gift and a challenge to make something for someone you love and admire, and have them react to it draft by draft.

I grew up in the theater, and both my grandpa and my mother were writers. When I first got the job, I’d directed four episodes of The L Word: Generation Q. Though I’d written a couple of musicals and a play on the side, I’d never been a professional playwright and didn’t really consider myself a writer, honestly. But over the course of working on this play, I came into myself as a writer. It was so cool and interesting and scary. Every time I work on something, I learn so much about being an artist, and I’m like, “How did I not know this?”

Writing and directing are such different skill sets and I really like how they complement each other.It’s been amazing to see the play staged and the actors are so good. They’re my heroes. It’s absolutely wild to watch Judy Kuhn, Brandon Uranowitz, and Richard Schiff (I’m obsessed with The West Wing; my dog was named Toby after him). And Tommy Dorfman just holds the show and makes it sing. She brings so much both complexity and truth to the character.

I am really passionate about telling stories in which queer people feel seen and represented accurately, because that’s what I want to watch. For the most part, queer people are the happiest people on earth, or have been until recently. That joy and love and fun and community is the center of what I love about being queer — as well as the hard stuff that we’re able to work through and the shadows we’re able to process.

I always want to celebrate both sides with a lot of heart and authenticity, because that’s the place that I come from as a human being, and I think it’s a place that most human beings come from. I’m always trying to create a space in my work where queer people feel loved and seen.

That said, Becoming Eve isn’t necessarily for a predominantly queer audience, though I think queer people feel held by it. It’s nice to invite [non-LGBTQ+ people] into this work. It feels like inviting our parents to the table. There are boomer folks who see the show and still mess up our lead character’s pronouns afterward, though, and that’s really annoying. But I really hope they can see us as people, and the next time someone says something transphobic around them, they can be like, “Well, actually, they are human beings.”

I would love for [cis] audiences to see a person on the street who’s very different from them, feel a deep sense of empathy, and imagine their interior life. I hope trans people can see what a brave, hard thing Chava does and acknowledge how f*cking tough we are.

The play was supposed to open in 2024 at the Connelly Theater in New York, which is owned by the Catholic Church. We got pushed out. [Editor’s note: Producers of multiple productions told The New York Times last year that the archdiocese said they could not stage their shows. In a statement to The NYT, a rep claimed that the standard approval process for events on church-owned property had not changed.] The world is so bad right now, and I feel like these conversations are really crucial. My concern is trans people right now, just because [transphobia is] so dire. It is being encouraged for political gain in a way that is so deeply evil.

The play makes me proud to be Jewish. I love being Jewish. I don’t love patriarchy, but I love the traditions. I think there’s hopefully room for pride that can be found for trans folks and for Jewish folks seeing the play.

It’s Passover right now — which, in terms of arguing with our families, is our Thanksgiving — and I know a lot of people who are avoiding conflict. Don’t be afraid of it. Anything that feels scary to talk about, anything that activates people, needs to be brought into the light. Usually there's a paradox at the center of it. Two opposite things are true at the same time. The play is about holding that paradox, that both-side-ed-ness. We've gotten really bad at that recently.

Jewish traditions brought Abby and me closer together. We met in person for the first time when she invited me and my now-wife, Alix, over to Seder in 2023. We had the same values, and we’re both obsessed with Jewish mysticism and spirituality. I just felt like I met a kindred spirit. She officiated our wedding last fall and made all the old people cry. I’ll vote for her for president one day.

Collaborating with Abby has been a really beautiful process, in part because we’ve been changing and growing so much over the last five years. It’s been really fun to come into ourselves as people as we’re telling a coming-of-age story. I transitioned in a couple of ways throughout the process: very literally by taking testosterone; breaking up with my father and his world (a major theme in the play); and reclaiming my sense of femininity, my sense of truth, my sense of justice.

I’ve let myself transition, which was a really hard decision for me, and one I put off for a very long time. I’ve shed a lot of the outdated patterns. I’ve also become a writer, and so much of writing is stripping away. So I started the stripping-away process, and now I’m like, Who am I? We’re figuring it out.

Interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.