Oren Safdie

Oren Safdie studied architecture at Columbia University, but eventually decided that he would rather craft plays and movies than design buildings.

As a playwright-in-residences at La MaMa ETC, New York’s mecca for experimental stage work, Safdie’s works include Fiddler Subterrain, an updated satire of Fiddler on the Roof, based in the Montreal neighbourhood of Cote St. Luc.

He also wrote Jews and Jesus, a play that The New York Times described as “terrifically loveable and original” and The New York Post called “ambitious with incredible insight.” He has also written a half-hour pilot called Fashion Avenue for Castle Rock and CBS, scripted the 1998 movie You Can Thank Me Later(starring Ellen Burstyn, Genevieve Bujold and Amanda Plummer), which played at numerous film festivals from Jerusalem to Montreal, and won the Grand Jury Prize at the Newport Film Festival.

Safdie was also founder and artistic director of the West End Gate Theatre, and served as producer and artistic director for Series Canada ’96, a fesitval of Canadian theatre in New York.

Other film work includes the English translation of Gibran, The Prophet, produced by Denis Heroux, and De Facto, a black comedy about contemporary Jewish/German relationships.