Performance: Dear Jessy, Dear Miriam

Dear Jessy, Dear Miriam is a funny, moving and deeply relatable theatrical journey into the lives of two Jewish girls growing up in Sydney and Melbourne in the 90s. After a chance meeting, the girls become pen pals, and through their letters explore crushes, friendship, periods, faith, family secrets, God and all the shenanigans in between.

Performed as a live dramatic reading, Dear Jessy, Dear Miriam imagines the friendship Jessica Chapnik Kahn and Miriam Hechtman might have shared had they met as teenagers, decades before encountering each other as adults. Blending humour, vulnerability and a healthy dose of teen angst, the show explores what it means to grow up Jewish in a complicated world.

About the creators:

Jessica Chapnik Kahn is an Argentinian-Australian writer, singer-songwriter and actor who trained at the Atlantic Theatre Company Acting School in New York. She has performed across stage, television, and film, released two albums under the moniker Appleonia, and earned an ARIA award nomination. As a writer, Jessica is the author of the poetry collection MADRE, the children’s book Lenny and the Ants, and co-author of A Repurposed Life, which was longlisted for an ABIA Award. In 2025, she was a featured speaker and performer at TEDxSydney, and her collaborative work The Fire Always Says Yes had its world premiere at the Sydney Opera House.

Miriam Hechtman is a writer, producer and arts curator. She is the founder and creative director of Poetica, a live poetry, music and arts initiative, and the editor of The Alphabet of Women (Ginninderra Press 2022). Miriam is well known in Sydney for her community gatherings, her clear and kind leadership and her ability to create inclusive and creative events. Throughout her working life, Miriam has partnered with artists and creatives to produce significant projects on screen, on the page and in real life.

Image: Jessica Chapnik Kahn and Miriam Hechtman, courtesy of the creators.