Thora Birch and Barbara Hershey Lead Indie Family Dramedy 'The Last Seder,' Now Wrapped in LA
Thora Birch and Barbara Hershey lead the cast of The Last Seder, an indie family dramedy that has wrapped production in Los Angeles, according to Deadline.
The film adapts Jennifer Maisel's play of the same name, a project with a long history behind it. Rosalind Productions spent several years developing the screenplay with Maisel, and the same company previously mounted the play's Off-Broadway premiere at Theater Three in New York in 2012. The screenplay itself won Showtime's Tony Cox Award, an honour recognising standout unproduced screenplays — a sign of the script's reputation well before cameras rolled.
Arlene Nelson, known for the documentary Angel City, directs. The cast fills out with Jeff Perry, Alysia Reiner, Abigail Rose Solomon, and Morgan Saylor, plus Briana Venskus-Vazquez, Damon J. Gillespie, Griff Furst, Joseph Kamal, and Kristian Bruun in supporting roles. Casting was handled by Daryl Eisenberg.
The story centres on the Price daughters, who return to their Long Island childhood home for what their mother, Lily, secretly knows will be the family's last Passover Seder. Rosalind Productions describes the material as a "gentle, comic drama" — the kind of family-gathering premise that lives or dies on the warmth of its ensemble.
Abigail Rose Solomon, who also produces and stars as Julia, one of the sisters, confirmed on her social media that shooting had finished, corroborating the cast list reported by Deadline. Her post on 2 August named Hershey, Birch, Saylor, Reiner, and Perry among her fellow cast members.
Producing alongside Solomon are Jennifer Kranz, Julie R. Snyder, and Ryan Brown. The play has its own pedigree beyond the screen adaptation: it was a winner of the Kennedy Center's Fund for New American Plays, which backs new work for the American stage.
No release date or distributor has been announced. The film will now enter post-production, with a festival run or direct distribution deal the likely next steps for a project of this scale.
For a cast that spans an Academy Award nominee in Hershey and a career-revival turn from Birch — returning to a leading indie role — The Last Seder arrives with the kind of ensemble that can draw attention on the festival circuit. Whether it lands there or goes straight to a buyer, the next move belongs to the producers and whichever distributor picks it up.
