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Actor Danny Burstein dishes on his latest Jewish role on Broadway
(New York Jewish Week) – In “Pictures from Home,” a new Broadway play, a photographer takes on a nearly 10-year project to chronicle the lives of his aging parents. As the son snaps pictures and interrogates his parents in their Southern California home, the three offer very different versions of their shared past and spar about the very meaning of “truth.”
“Loads of emotions came up during the show,” said Broadway veteran Danny Burstein, who plays the son, Larry. “Larry’s desire and passion to know more and to not just look at others critically but himself critically as well is inspiring to me. It’s a beautiful story.”
Written by Sharr White and directed by Bartlett Sherr, the play is based on the 1992 photo-memoir by Larry Sultan, an acclaimed photographer who died in 2009. Nathan Lane plays the father, Irving, a Brooklyn-born Jew who struggled as a salesman but eventually became a vice president at Schick, the razor company. Acclaimed British actress Zoë Wanamaker plays the mom, a real estate agent who sometimes feels underappreciated as a breadwinner following Irving’s early (or was it forced?) retirement. Irving, raised in part in a Jewish orphanage, bitterly recalls the antisemitism he faced – and swallowed – on his way up the shaky ladder of success.
And father and son clash not only over the project, but Larry’s career. Irv can’t quite understand how his son actually makes a living as a photographer and asks: “Where’s the rigor?”
Throughout the play, real recordings, home videos and the blown-up photos of his parents that appeared in Sultan’s photo-memoir are projected on the set behind the actors.
Burstein, 58, was nominated for a Tony Award for his portrayal of Tevye in the most recent Broadway production of “Fiddler on the Roof.” A week after the opening of “Pictures,” he spoke to the New York Jewish Week about the Jewishness of the show and how it has impacted him so far.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Danny Burstein, who plays photographer Larry Sultan, won the 2020 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for his role at Harold Zilder in “Moulin Rouge!” (Courtesy)
New York Jewish Week: The concept of the show is a bit challenging to describe — it’s a play based on a memoir based on a series of photographs. How would you describe what the play is about?
Danny Burstein: It’s based on the beautiful book by the same title, which has incredible pictures in it but also contains the memoir of his time with his parents. It’s all a bit convoluted, but it comes together in a beautiful way. A play has not been told in this particular way before and it is quite unique. So it’s different, and you have to let people know that it is different from anything they’ve ever seen before, as far as the storytelling goes. It is a story of family and it’s also the story of the creation of art — sometimes it’s quiet, sometimes it’s passionate and volatile. Sometimes it’s extremely funny. It’s all those things when you’re making a piece of art.
You “feel all the feels” in other words. That’s the beautiful thing about the play. Larry winds up discovering things about himself and about his history and his parents.
Were you familiar with Larry’s work before the show or did playing him bring you closer to who he was?
I was not familiar with his work at all before the play, but at the same time now I feel very, very connected to the work and to who he was. One of the things that I’m very grateful for is that Larry’s [widow], Kelly, provided us with some of the actual tapes and recordings of conversations with his parents, so I got to listen to them actually talking. It was all of a sudden a very different kind of animal.
It’s dramatized for our show and there was sometimes volatility, but mostly it was a lot of the two of them just sitting down and loving one another and chatting and reminiscing and hearing their origin stories, like how the family got to California from Brooklyn. It’s really a beautiful story and there’s a lot of love in the family. I also love Larry’s artistic pursuits and his artistic sensibility in finding several different meanings in one picture, maybe hundreds of meanings. He believed each person subjectively finds their own meaning in a piece of art and I love that about him.
Nathan Lane (Irving Sultan) and Danny Burstein (Larry Sultan) in “Pictures From Home.” (Julieta Cervantes)
How do you think the family’s Jewishness impacted the way they interacted with the world and with each other?
It [their Jewishness] absolutely affects the way they exist in the world. I always think of [Larry’s] artistic journey as being very Talmudic — it seems to me that he’s constantly asking questions and trying to get to the heart of the matter. That’s fundamentally Jewish. That practice of always questioning, and bringing that questioning not just to religion but to everyday life and to art is also fundamentally Jewish. I don’t want to make it sound like only Jews are exceptional intellectually, but that that level of intellectual pursuit is part of the Jewish culture.
So Larry’s Jewishness certainly informed his intellectual and artistic pursuits. How do you think your Jewish background informed the way you approached this character and characters you’ve played in the past?
I was raised in a certain way: to question things. I can see a lot of my own relationship with my own father in the relationship between Larry and Irv. I’m sure I drove my father crazy. When I told my parents I wanted to be an actor, they were not dismissive of it. They didn’t say, “you’re wasting your life,” but they weren’t exactly supportive, either. They remained very neutral and said: “If this is what you want to do, then you’re going to have to work your ass off in order to make your dream come true.” So it wasn’t so much about the pursuit of financial success, the way Irv says, but it was about them worrying whether I could actually make a living at it and survive.
I guess it’s the same kind of fear that any parent would have. My younger son is a musician and my older son is a first [assistant director] on films. Those are not exactly the kinds of things you’re going to go into to make a lot of money. They’re pursuits of passion. I guess I felt the same way, I was worried for them. But knowing my own journey and knowing my father’s journey, who wanted to be a writer — he studied with Philip Roth at the University of Iowa — and then decided to leave all that to to pursue a career in ancient Greek philosophy. So I guess he understood, too, the way I did. I guess it all comes full circle. So, I did not run up against the kind of wall that Larry ran up against, where basically Irv would call him a loser, as he does in the show, because he was not more of a financial success.
Pictures from Home is currently playing at Studio 54 (254 W. 54th St.) through April 30, 2023. Tickets and informationh here.
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The post Actor Danny Burstein dishes on his latest Jewish role on Broadway appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Hanukkah Security Ramped Up Around the World After Bondi Shootings
Police officers gather at the scene of a shooting incident at Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia, December 14, 2025. REUTERS/Izhar Khan
Major cities including Berlin, London and New York stepped up security around Hanukkah events on Sunday following the attack on a Jewish holiday celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach.
Berlin police said they were ramping up measures around the German capital’s Brandenburg Gate, where a large electric menorah is being lit to mark the first night of Hanukkah.
“We have long planned comprehensive security for tonight’s Hanukkah event at the Brandenburg Gate – in light of the events in Sydney, we will further intensify our measures and maintain a strong police presence there,” a spokesperson said on X.
Meanwhile, New York Mayor Eric Adams said on X that extra protection was being deployed for Hanukkah celebrations and synagogues in New York City.
“We will continue to ensure the Jewish community can celebrate the holiday in safety — including at public Menorah lightings across the city. Let us pray for the injured and stand together against hatred,” Adams said.
In Warsaw’s main synagogue, armed security was doubled for its Sunday evening event.
Polish police also said they had decided to ramp up security.
“Due to the geopolitical situation and the attack in Sydney, we are strengthening preventive measures around diplomatic missions and places of worship,” a press officer for Poland’s National Police Headquarters told Reuters in a text message.
The officer specified this meant “intensified preventive measures in the area of diplomatic and consular missions, religious sites and other institutions related to Israel and Palestine.”
The event at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate will also include a prayer for the victims of Sydney’s Bondi Beach shooting, which left at least 11 people dead in what Australian officials described as a targeted antisemitic attack.
Germany has long followed a policy of special responsibility for Jews and for Israel, known as the Staatsraeson, due to the legacy of the Nazi Holocaust.
Security measures at synagogues and other Jewish institutions are the norm in Berlin, but a police spokesperson said these would be ramped up for the Hanukkah period.
London’s Metropolitan Police said it had also increased security, but did not want to give details.
“While there is no information to suggest any link between the attack in Sydney and the threat level in London, this morning we are stepping up our police presence, carrying out additional community patrols and engaging with the Jewish community to understand what more we can do in the coming hours and days,” it said in a statement.
France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nunez asked local authorities to reinforce security around Jewish places of worship during the December 14 to 22 period, a spokesperson for the minister said.
Nunez called for increased deployment of security forces, with particular vigilance around religious services and gatherings that draw large crowds, especially when they take place in public spaces, the spokesperson added.
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Australia Police Say Father-Son Duo Allegedly Behind Sydney Mass Shooting
Police officers stand guard following the attack on a Jewish holiday celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, in Sydney, Australia, December 15, 2025. REUTERS/Flavio Brancaleone
Australian police said on Monday that the alleged offenders behind the attack at Sydney’s Bondi beach were a father and son duo, and that they were not looking for a third offender.
Police said during a media briefing that investigations showed only two offenders were responsible for the attack at a Jewish holiday celebration that killed 16 people and injured 40.
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The call of this Hanukkah moment remains simple and urgent: Light candles everywhere. Even when we’re under attack.
The massacre in Sydney has left Jews around the world shaken and grieving. This act is far more than a heinous crime: It is a regression to darker times, when Jewish visibility itself carried mortal risk.
The commandment of Hanukkah is not simply to light candles, but to light them publicly – pirsumei nisa, the publicizing of the miracle. The point is not private consolation, but shared visibility. Jewish survival, the tradition teaches, is not meant to occur behind closed doors, but in full view.
Historically, however, it rarely did. In exile, Jews learned caution. The Talmud records how, in times of danger, the candles are to be moved indoors – lit discreetly, shielded from hostile eyes. This was not a theological revision but a concession to reality: When the public sphere is unsafe, Jewish life retreats into the private domain. For most of our history, this was our reality.
Modern democracies promised something different. Jews would no longer have to choose between safety and visibility. We could light openly again – on windowsills, in public squares, in front of city halls – because the surrounding society would protect us not merely by law, but by norm. Antisemitism would not just be illegal, it would be unthinkable.
The Sydney massacre, alongside countless incidents in societies Jews have long trusted, forces us to ask whether that promise is still being kept.
Jewish safety in the diaspora does not rest primarily on police presence or intelligence services – necessary though they are. It rests on something more fragile and more fundamental: a public culture in which Jews are not merely tolerated but embraced; in which antisemitism is not merely condemned after the fact but rejected instinctively and unequivocally as a violation of the moral order.
When Jews are attacked for being Jews, and the response is muted, conditional, or delayed, the message is unmistakable. Jews may still live here, but only quietly.
That is why the response to Sydney must not be withdrawal, but the exact opposite. We cannot and will not retreat into hiding our light. The call of this moment is simple and urgent: Light candles everywhere.
Jewish communities and organizations must orchestrate public Hanukkah candle lightings in the central squares of democratic cities across Europe, across the English-speaking world, wherever Jews live under the protection of free societies. Not hidden ceremonies. Not fenced-off gatherings on the margins. But civic events, hosted openly and proudly, with the participation of local and national leaders – and of fellow non-Jewish citizens.
This is not unprecedented. Every year, a Hanukkah menorah is lit at the White House. The symbolism is powerful precisely because it is mundane: Jewish light belongs at the heart of the civic space, not as an exception, not as an act of charity, but as a matter of course. That model should now be replicated widely.
Israeli diplomatic missions, together with local Jewish organizations, should work actively with municipalities and governments to make these public lightings happen – not merely as acts of Jewish resilience, but as declarations of democratic commitment. Because this is not only a Jewish question.
A society in which Jews feel compelled to hide their symbols is a society already retreating from its own values. Antisemitism is never a stand-alone phenomenon; it is the canary in the democratic coal mine. Where Jews are unsafe, pluralism is already fraying.
Lighting candles in public squares will not undo the horror of Sydney. But it will answer it – not with fear, and not with silence, but with a refusal to normalize xenophobia, antisemitism, and Jewish invisibility.
The ancient question of Hanukkah – where we light – has returned as a modern moral test of democratic societies and leaders worldwide. Where Jewish light is extinguished, democracy itself is cast into shadow. If it can still be lit openly, with the full backing of the societies Jews call home, then the promise of democratic life remains alive.
Our light must not hide. Not now. Never again.
The post The call of this Hanukkah moment remains simple and urgent: Light candles everywhere. Even when we’re under attack. appeared first on The Forward.