Jared J Stein

Funeral services will be held graveside at 9:00am Friday, June 7th at the Palm Northwest Mortuary & Cemetery.

Jared was born in Passaic, New Jersey to Sima and Jerry Stein on October 5th, 1973. Jared was a sensitive, kind, focused and creative spirit. He spent a large amount of his adult life in academia, where he taught hundreds of university students not what to think, but how to think. Jared was a man of many contradictions. He held degrees from Carnegie-Mellon University and UCLA, where he also worked for several years.

Despite, or perhaps in spite of, his brilliance, Jared was like a nihilist Mary Poppins; he would always seek out (or they would find him) ridiculous adventures to go on. Many stories about Jared from his college days usually start with “So Jared and I were getting really messed up…” and usually ended with the “… and then we almost got arrested.” It should probably be noted that without Jared’s sharp wit and quick mind, most of those stories would be missing the “almost” part. He was a talker, G-d bless him.

Jared was a lifelong creative, starting out as an actor (who can forget his Slim Jim commercial?!), director, educator, and perhaps most importantly for him, a writer. His work has been seen in theaters in New York, Los Angeles, Austin, South America and Eastern Europe. His writing is known for great and incisive wit, love of spare language, reveling in the insanity of daily life, and constantly testing the boundaries of storytelling structure. One of his plays, The Last of the Jews, told the story of a suburban New Jersey family intent on selling its Chinese restaurant located in New York, so they can move to California and “be happy.” Unbeknownst to them, the prophet Elijah has taken up residence in the family’s freezer, and has befriended the clan’s paternal grandfather, a devoted anarchist. The play culminates in the two old men blowing up the house to teach the family a lesson that they only seem able to comprehend. This is just one example of how Jared explored the absurd in a sacred way.

The Last of the Jews had been translated into Bulgarian for the Rhodopi Dramatichen Theatre, the first host of the RITL (see below). There, the play had been performed like a tragedy, but Jared insisted it was a comedy – somehow both were true. It says something about his work that based on a play he wrote in school, Jared was invited to be the RDT's resident playwright.

Perhaps one of Jared’s greatest accomplishments was co-founding and leading the Leon Katz Rhodopi International Theatre Laboratory, based in Smolyan, Bulgaria, for almost a decade. The program, named after Jared's long-time mentor, centered on international collaboration, by exploring one myth each year, and approaching it from different cultural perspectives, while primarily using movement as a universal language. It was a truly brilliant and unique concept in theater pedagogy. An origin story of sorts for the RITL can be found on Wikipedia. Though anonymously authored, the style is familiar: action by action, event by event, the world was a little better at the end of the RITL than when it began.

Jared had a long association with the UCLA Center for Research in Engineering, Media, and Performance (REMAP) and its predecessor, the Hypermedia Studio, dating back to 2001. Over the years, he wrote and co-wrote, mentored, created, taught, and collaborated within numerous research and production projects that explored the intersections of technology and creativity, involving social media, sensing, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and many varieties of digital media. Jared brought the ability to hold ancient and modern together in his mind at the same time, and a dedication to bringing craft and research together. His most personal works with REMAP explored the absurdities of our techno-reality, but Jared lent his talents to many pursuits–including plenty he claimed to be skeptical of–with his typical combination of irreverence and utter commitment. He was a beloved guide for collaborations and had a lasting impact on many students, faculty, and other researchers.

While Jared had many esoteric pursuits, he was still very much interested in the physical world around him. He was lifelong news addict and could debate on any number of current event topics, and when he relayed the stories of the day, he did so with a delicious and dark cynicism. Jared was also a lifelong Yankees fan. By the time he was fifteen every bleacher bum in the stadium knew Jared by sight, if not by name. He would make up some of the most outrageous cheers— chants so perverse that even the adults hesitated to shout them. But eventually they did, because they were so hilarious. When the hated Mets won their World Series in 1986, Jared would tell anyone who would listen that it was all a conspiracy because the founders of baseball, the Doubledays, had once owned the team.

Jared had no sense of direction, at least when he was driving so in the pre-GPS days Mom got him a compass, which didn’t seem to help. But when it came to his craft, there was no lack of direction. All Jared wanted to do was work on and share his art in peace. If Jared was born fifty years earlier, he would've gotten the Nobel Prize for Literature, or at least a Pulitzer. It's one of those beautiful contradictions - Jared was very much a being of his own time, but he also in some ways, was an anachronism.

Jared’s father Jerry, owned the Cinco de Mayo restaurant in New York City. It was highly lauded and was one of the first restaurants in that city that served authentic Mexican cuisine. This awakened a love of food and especially cooking that stayed with Jared for the rest of his life, and that he shared readily with his friends and family. But even food was an adventure with Jared; there were so many meals and drinks in so many places - often off the beaten path where he had quickly developed relationships with the staff and patrons, often without knowing much of the language. Through Jared we learned that food and life and a sense of place and belonging were intertwined.

Family gatherings were always centered around the dining room table and heated discussions (aka arguments) could span the gamut of world events, politics, or just about who was going to get the last serving…

Jared could now be debating forever over the Yankees or some conspiracy theory with his Dad who passed away in 2007. Or helping him with NYT crossword puzzles. His sister Monica will miss the stories of their childhood; while both siblings had very different versions of the events, there were always moments for love and laughter. She hoped to someday partner with Jared on a family screenplay entitled “It all started at the Alamo…”

Jared was most recently working with Google on “top secret” AI initiatives. His flexible schedule allowed him to spend time with his family where he was a dedicated son and stepson, always managing to bring humor, love and life to everyone around him in Vegas.

The family had just spent time together in celebration of Stepfather Ruben’s 90th birthday. It was quite a celebration, and Aunts and Uncles couldn’t wait to see Jared after years as they flew out from New Jersey and Florida. He was warm and contradictory, but always in a polite manner. He had everyone laughing from the moment he said hello, even when they had no idea what he was talking about – they were in stitches. They didn’t get to see him often and it was always hard to pinpoint exactly what Jared was working on and where he was living, but regardless, there are large holes in their hearts. You only get to have one Jared in your lifetime.

Jared is survived by his Mom, Sister, Stepfather, Stepbrother and Stepniece, Aunts, Cousins and Family; the extended f’ramily (friends & family) and hundreds, if not thousands, of his students and his audience members that all love and miss him.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.palmnorthwest.com for the family.

Contributions in Jared’s memory can be given to the Jared J. Stein Playwriting Scholarship with UCLA.

Jared J. Stein Playwriting Scholarship

UCLA Department of Theater

The scholarship is intended to support exceptional MFA playwriting students at the discretion of the playwriting faculty.

Checks (made out to UCLA Foundation) may be sent to:

Aaron Cervantes

Attention: Jared J. Stein memorial scholarship

UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television

Office of Development and Alumni Affairs

102 East Melnitz Hall – Box 951622

Los Angeles, CA 90095-1622