Writer and producer Lauren Schaffel shares the deeply personal and funny story behind her award-winning short musical comedy Catalogue of Noses—inspired by her experience growing up Jewish in Hollywood and getting a nose job at sixteen. Reboot partnered on educational materials for the film, which uses humor and heart to spark conversation about identity, beauty, and belonging. Get the guide here.

You could say my nose knows a good story. I’m the writer and producer of Catalogue of Noses, an award-winning short musical comedy inspired by my own life—growing up as a Jewish child actor in LA and getting a nose job at sixteen.

As a kid, I acted in many primetime comedies like Will and Grace, Still Standing, and several Peanuts films and series as the voice of Lucy. Most of the roles I auditioned for were things like “Freak Girl Number 2” and “Nerdy Little Rascal.” Exactly what every little girl dreams of being, right? My big Jewish nose was holding me back.

In my family, there’s a tradition where the women fix their deviated septums. I couldn’t wait to join them and scheduled mine the summer I turned sixteen.  After surgery, everything seemed to fall into place — I got my first boyfriend, made more friends, and started landing bigger TV roles. It felt like the best decision I’d ever made… or so I thought.

Flash forward to 2023: I watched as Bradley Cooper and Helen Mirren — both non-Jewish actors — donned oversized prosthetic noses to play Jewish icons Leonard Bernstein and Golda Meir. Rachel Brosnahan, also not Jewish, adopted a “Yiddishy” cadence to bring Mrs. Maisel to life. Kathryn Hahn, another non-Jewish actor, was announced to portray Joan Rivers.  On her podcast, Sarah Silverman coined a term for this trend: Jewface — the casting of non-Jewish performers in Jewish roles, resulting in portrayals that often feel caricatured and inauthentic. These depictions aren’t harmless; they perpetuate stereotypes rooted in centuries of antisemitism that linger in Hollywood today.

Why did I feel so much pressure to change my nose when blockbuster productions now featured “Jewish noses” so prominently? And why was I not being cast to play Jewish roles- did I not look Jewish enough with my new nose?

These questions led me to create Catalogue of Noses. From the start, I knew it would be a musical —specifically including Fiddler on the Roof parody songs. Through those songs, I could satirize and shed light on the generations of Jews who’ve changed pieces of themselves — sometimes literally — to fit in, find acceptance, and, at times, simply survive.

While this is a Jewish woman’s story, it’s not unique to Jews. Sharing the film has revealed how universal these pressures are—I’ve heard stories of eyelid and nose surgeries in South Korea, skin bleaching and hair relaxers among Black Americans, Brazilian butt lifts in South America, and more. My goal is to illuminate how striving for impossible beauty standards becomes a means of survival and acceptance—and to bring these often unspoken experiences into the open.

The script for Catalogue of Noses was originally commissioned and workshopped as a play for the LA-based theater company JewFace under ShPIeL Performing Identity and was part of their inaugural Short Play Development Lab in Fall 2023. Fueled by the positive reception from the JewFace public reading, Schaffel began adapting the script into a short film to share the story with a wider audience.

The conversation guide was developed in partnership with Reboot’s education team to accompany your viewing of Catalogue of Noses and to facilitate discussion and deeper understanding of the themes addressed in the film. Download the guide.

Lauren Schaffel is an actor, writer, and producer. Television/film credits include The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Will and Grace, and the voice of Lucy in A Charlie Brown Valentine’s Day. She’s worked at numerous theaters including the Road in LA, Geva in Rochester, the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, Playwrights Horizons, and The Barrow Group. As a filmmaker, she wrote, produced, and starred in the short, musical comedy film Catalogue of Noses and is currently writing and developing a feature film script.