At a time when anti-semitism is running amok on social media and creeping into our politics, Phil Johnson’s play A Jewish Joke at Victory Gardens Theatre,  takes audiences back to the 1950s McCarthy era, when Jewish screenwriters were blacklisted on suspicions that they were Communists. 

Johnson plays Bernie Lutz, a screenwriter who finds himself under the thumb of the government and forced to choose between his career and his dignity as a human being. 

Morning Shift talks to actor and playwright Phil Johnson and director David Chack about why the play’s message resonates in today’s political climate. The play runs through the end of July.