Alex Edelman’s Bittersweet Moment Winning an Emmy Award

Writer/comedian Alex Edelman felt a mix of happiness and sadness when he won the Emmy award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special for his Max performance, “Alex Edelman: Just for Us.”

“I made this with my great collaborator, Adam Brace, who passed away right before we started on Broadway,” he told attendees in his acceptance speech onstage.

Originally making its Off-Broadway debut in 2022, Edelman’s very funny “Just For Us” explores his Orthodox Jewish identity while retelling a real life experience when his personal experiences with antisemitic abuse online spurred him to secretly attend a white nationalists meeting in Queens, New York.

“I really miss Adam, but this is the end of a seven-year journey with the show, and I got to make something really funny with my friend. And so I thank you so much for this. I really appreciate it.” Brace was a prolific British director who collaborated with stand-up comedians and other performers. He died at the age of 43 from complications to a stroke.

Having his parents at the awards event was extra special for Edelman, who described the win as being “really, really beautiful.” In the Emmys pressroom, he elaborated on the surreal nature of winning and loss. “I’m a little sad because I have been living with this show since the end of 2017, in some ways. It’s been sorta like the aggregate of all my joy and tough spots for seven years. And so to be so definitively closing a chapter in my life, even though it’s a really beautiful way to close that chapter, it’s a little bit sad.”

While it “took a moment” in those early years, for his performance to find its feet and for people to find the show, “it has really been gratifying and spurred lots of really lovely conversation,” Edelman acknowledged.

Eventually, his one-man show so resonated with people, it went to Broadway in 2023, and Max released a taped version of the variety special, which was then Emmy nominated. Edelman received a Special Tony Award for his Broadway debut.

Alex Edelman holding his Tony

The hilarious comedian has often thought about why people like his show.

Talking to The Hollywood Reporter on the red carpet, he said: “The show is kind of about what happens when we sit down with people who are fundamentally opposed to us, and what we learn about ourselves. I think, given what’s going on in the country right now, given what’s going on in the world, I like the idea that people who are fundamentally opposed to one another, maybe even hate one another, can have productive conversations.”

Performing in a show that touches on modern-day antisemitism is more relevant than ever, given how much more Jewish hate has been seen around the world.

“Antisemitism has never not been in style,” he told Hey Alma in 2021. In 2018, everyone was like, ‘God, the show is prescient. There’s so much antisemitism around.’ And I’m just like, ‘it’s never going away. I could’ve been doing the same show in 1984 and people would’ve been like, on the heels of XYZ, this is so timely.’”

What was “really sobering” for Edelman was that he was in Pittsburgh in the aftermath of the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue where 11 Jews were murdered in the worst terrorist attack on Jews in the US.

“I went to visit my cousins and look in on them. And then there was a shooting in Poway. I was on a road trip that weekend, and I drove through Poway. Antisemitic incidents and the aftermath of antisemitism, it’s such a specific — like the two events share a DNA for me, if that makes sense.”

While Edelman’s one-man show is not solely focused on antisemitism, there are “little ground-up zests” of what he has seen or what he thinks people have experienced.

Photo by Will Bremridge

“In my personal experience, I’ve seen a lot of antisemitism over the last couple of years that has been really specific, right wing antisemitism and left wing antisemitism, and I think there’s a distinctive flavor to it. It’s been weird performing.”

When asked about the fact that the October 7th one-year anniversary of the massacre in Israel is fast approaching, Edelman said he feels “very small” whenever he tries to relate to it.

“My show is about assimilation, which is a first cousin or a close sibling to antisemitism. And yeah, there's definitely some antisemitism in the show," he told Aish.com. All good shows should ask the question, ‘what is our place in the world?’ That is always a question that I've had as someone who feels both religious and has a religious background, but lives in a secular world. And I think with October 7, that question has felt all the more pressing. So, that is why it feels complicated to deal with that subject.”