Act I
The dream and the door
The class walks out. The Martini twins walk back in. The Sharpies are born around a single sacred pact: at least two-thirds of the songs will be remixed into modern forms.
Treatment summary
A feature musical about inheritance under pressure.
At MASA, an elite Manhattan performing-arts school, an eleventh-grade class collides by accident with old Jewish songs in Yiddish and Hebrew. To honor their teacher, Joseph Shapiro, who has just found the handwritten songbook of his late mother, Rebecca, they reimagine her songs in their own modern arrangements. The conflict is not whether tradition survives. The conflict is who gets to sing it next.
FormatFeature musical in development
SettingMidtown Manhattan, present day
SchoolMASA, an elite Manhattan performing-arts school
MusicAn original contemporary Jewish soundtrack
StageTreatment, songbook, character one-sheets, and demos in progress
Story engine
The old songs are not fragile. They are combustible.
Joseph Shapiro arrives at MASA grieving for his late mother. The night before, she came to him in a dream and told him the songs are the soul of his people, and he must carry them. He asks his eleventh-grade class to learn the songs in Yiddish and Hebrew. They walk out. Two of them, Clara and Marta Martini, return through the door and offer to translate the songs into English for a memorial concert. Joseph weeps. The class names itself The Sharpies, after their teacher. Homage and blade. The film begins.
Act II
The remix and the cafe
The work moves across the street to the Jewish Snack Cafe, where The Sharpies turn klezmer into hip-hop, a wedding tune into pop, a Yiddish folk song into a stage anthem. Joseph holds the line. The students bend it.
Act III
Times Square, live
The Sharpies enter the National Student Musical Competition. The finale broadcasts live from Times Square. Joseph rises to stop a song he has never approved, freezes, and sits. Guardian becomes Witness. The crowd joins the closing chorus.
Proof of concept
A ten-minute, AI-assisted proof-of-concept.
Before the feature, JEWISH proves itself with a ten-minute, AI-assisted proof-of-concept: a concept film that brings the world, the songs, and the key situations of JEWISH to the screen. It is built from the film's own songs and their reborn arrangements, and it is the tool we take to producers and financiers to raise full production funding.
The proof-of-concept shows the heart of the film in miniature: an eleventh-grade class at MASA meeting old Jewish songs in Yiddish and Hebrew, then reworking them, on their own terms, into modern arrangements they would actually listen to. Klezmer becomes hip-hop, a wedding tune becomes pop, a Yiddish folk song becomes a stage anthem.
AI-assisted production lets a small team realize the look, the staging, and the musical numbers at a fraction of full production cost, so financiers can see and hear exactly what the feature will be before they commit to it. The finished English-language recordings of the songs are produced alongside it.
The proof-of-concept can serve more than one role at once: proof vehicle for the feature, a standalone concept film with its own artistic identity, and, if Reboot prefers a smaller first step, the first contained production unit. Walter can serve as creator and creative-framework holder while a producing team executes under his materials and approvals.
The crossing
Two rooms. One street. A choice every character has to make.
The Crossing is the film's central metaphor: the moment inherited culture leaves the protected room and becomes public, risky, shared, and alive. Two rooms hold two mothers. Rebecca Shapiro feeds with songs. Kate Miller feeds with food. The Crossing is the daily street the film walks between them.
East side
MASA
The institutional room: discipline, preservation, fear of getting it wrong. Joseph begins here because he believes the songs need protection.
West side
The Jewish Snack Cafe
The public room: open mic, argument, joy, noise. The students move here because music needs listeners.
Tone
Remix, not just remember.
Premium, musical, funny, emotionally direct. Grief and comedy at the same table. Reverence and rebellion in the same chorus. Old melody and young bodies in motion. Humor is welcome and never weaponized. Music is treated as responsibility, not decoration.
Built as a premium feature musical, JEWISH can extend into soundtrack, education materials, live performance, and community events without losing the story at its center.
The Sharpies
An eleventh-grade class. Many ways to be Jewish, Jew-ish, adjacent, or searching.
The students name themselves The Sharpies, after their teacher Joseph Shapiro. Homage and blade. Below is the locked twelve-student ensemble plus the supporting circle that surrounds them.
The Rebel
Yuki Tanaka
Japanese, granddaughter of a Hiroshima survivor. Sings Freedom Tango, written in Auschwitz by a twelve-year-old. Two children, two genocides, one melody.
The Soul
Oksana Shevchenko
Odessa refugee whose violin turns memory into motion before she ever needs to explain herself.
The Rocker
Ethan Miller
Guy and Kate's nephew. Cynical, brilliant, useful whenever the room needs a clarinet, a beat, or a refusal.
The Beatmaker
Tyron Carter
Hip-hop arranger. The room's rhythm engineer. Klezmer becomes hip-hop on his desk first.
The Twin
Clara Martini
Italian-American, Catholic Sunday School choir trained. With her sister, the inciting incident: the student who walks back through the classroom door.
The Other Twin
Marta Martini
The second voice that walks back in. Translates Rebecca's songs into English for the memorial concert that becomes the score.
The Astrologer
Noah Harrison
Bookish, observational, reads Alexander the Great on lunch break. The student who pulls historical depth into the room.
The Firecracker
Paloma Rodriguez
Sephardic, Latina heritage. Flamenco fire meets klezmer phrasing, making the diaspora sound like cousins arguing in rhythm.
The Fusion
Marco Brita
Sephardic. Bridges traditions: voice, presence, and emotional intelligence turn the class project into something larger than an assignment.
The Cantor's Daughter
Aviva
Observant lineage. The student whose first instinct is reverence and whose second instinct is to ask why nobody is listening anymore.
The Mayflower
Hadley
Jew-ish, Mayflower-descended American. Quiet emotional clarity and American openness help the room hear the old songs with new ears.
The Light
Simon
Sephardic and Mizrahi descent. The student who connects the school world, the music, and the new generation discovering it.
The room
The teacher and the circle around him.
The Maestro
Joseph Shapiro
Music professor. Son of Rebecca Shapiro. Inherits her songbook and learns that preservation without transmission is another kind of silence.
The Operative
Guy Miller
Cafe co-owner, ex-CIA, runs the floor like a public performance. Calls his wife only "Katya". Quietly the most musical man in the room.
The Anchor
Kate Miller
Irish-Catholic co-owner of the cafe. Hears music in people before they hear it themselves. The film's other mother.
The Benefactor
Bunny Montgomery
Billionaire MASA program benefactor. Trusts Kate's judgment above all others. The Broadway transfer is her decision.
The Adversary
Mrs. Elaine Vanderbilt
School administration and external pressure. The institutional voice the students learn to argue with.
Chief of Staff
Leo
Bunny Montgomery's chief of staff. The door between the benefactor and everyone else.
The Silent Guardian
Mikhail Petrenko
Veteran. The watchful presence at the edge of the cafe and at the edge of the score.
The Star
The Star
Cultural reference and cameo. The pop world the students measure themselves against, in on the joke.