By DORIS RUBENSTEIN
Tuesdays with Morrie is the true story of Detroit Free Press’ Jewish sportswriter Mitch Albom and his reunion — over 14 Tuesdays — with his favorite professor from his Brandeis University student days, Morrie Schwartz.
Neither of these people are especially observant Jews, but they are committed Jews who connected at one of America’s premier Jewish educational institutions. I suppose this makes for a “Jewish play.”
Albom published Tuesdays with Morrie as a book in 1997, and it was met with universal praise; it was on the New York Times bestseller list for four years. What was its great appeal, and why should it be made into a play?
The story hits a lot of us personally. Morrie is dying rapidly once he’s been diagnosed with ALS — the degenerative disease of the nervous system whose most famous victim was not Morrie Schwartz — it was baseball legend Lou Gehrig.
ALS touches us locally. I remember the battle waged by St. Paul’s Susan Margolis back in the ’80s and ’90s, as she tried to remain in her home with the disease. She testified before the Minnesota Legislature.
Tuesdays with Morrie is now a play coming to Chanhassen Dinner Theatres, written by the Twin Cities’ premier contemporary playwright, Jeffrey Hatcher. The play’s original producer made a shidduch (match) between Hatcher and Albom.
Hatcher said, “Mitch and I are vaguely the same age and have a lot of the same reference points. In terms of craft, we agreed on how to keep it close to the book. Mitch shared all his tape recordings; some things made it into the play that weren’t in the book or the movie. So, people who are familiar with the other media will find something new and surprising.”
The play has a steady back-and-forth between the two protagonists. But it’s not without some suspense.
Hatcher wanted to keep the audience wondering. He subtly asks the audience to wonder “how long will Morrie live? Will Mitch make it back in time and in his own life’s development before Morrie’s demise?”
Hatcher also wrote the Shoah story Korczak’s Children for the Children’s Theatre Company in 2003 (AJW, March 2003). After being approached for the project by CTC’s founding artistic director Peter Brosius, Hatcher remembered, “I had heard of Dr. Korczak but was not familiar with the whole story. He was trying to prepare the kids from the orphanage [in the Warsaw Ghetto] for their inevitable death. It was terribly important at that time. It was one of the more serious plays for CTC, mainly for older kids, preteens.”
Serena Brook is interpreting Mitch and Morrie’s story at Chanhassen; it’s her first venture in the world of directing. (Brook was last featured in the Jewish World in a 2022 story about the History Theatre’s A Servants’ Christmas.) A regular actor at CDT, Brook was surprised when artistic director Tamara Kangas Erickson approached her about directing this particular play. “She felt it important to have a Jewish director,” Brook remarked.
At first, Brook hesitated: “Am I ready to direct a play?” She’d worked with wonderful directors, both locally and across the country. “My faves have all been very collaborative: Falsettos at [Theater] Latté Da with Meredith McDonough; Carol Dunne, the [producing] artistic director at Northern Stage in White River Junction, Vermont; and, of course, Michael Brindisi at CDT, who gave me my start there.”
Once auditions happened, though, she knew she could do the job with some of her favorite actors: Ryan London Levin as Mitch, with whom she’s been performing in Guys and Dolls at CDT (he was most recently featured in the Jewish World in a 2025 article about CTC’s Treasure Island); and Gabriele Angieri as Morrie.
Angieri is already comfortable in this role, having performed in the play at the Minnesota JCC Sabes Center in 2018. He also was Marvin in Park Square Theatre’s The Last Seder and Menahem in Our Class at Six Points Theater.
Brook’s offstage work on Morrie will be over on opening night. But you can catch her on CDT’s Main Stage during the same time when she’ll be playing Miss Hannigan in Annie, Oct. 2-Feb. 27. It’s not a very Jewish role, but it’s certainly a show to which you can take the kinderlach.
Tuesdays with Morrie will be performed in Chanhassen Dinner Theatres’ intimate Playhouse Theatre from Oct. 28 through Nov. 29. And there are lots of matinees for audiences who are about Morrie’s age and don’t drive at night anymore.
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For tickets and information about Tuesdays with Morrie at Chanhassen Dinner Theatres, visit ChanhassenDT.com or call the CDT box office at 952-934-1525.
(American Jewish World, October 2026)
