32 | OCTOBER 12 • 2023 J
N
OUR COMMUNITY
F
rom mortgage broker to
Broadway producer, Bloomfield
Hills resident Nicole Eisenberg
has lived a life she never could have
planned. “It’s absolutely, totally and
completely not what I envisioned,”
she told Sam Dubin and Beverly Liss,
co-hosts of the FedRadio Detroit
podcast on its latest episode, done in
partnership with the Jewish News.
Eisenberg is a Broadway producer,
co-producer and investor. Her credits
include Just for Us and Into the Woods.
She was named one of the Detroiters
of the Year by Hour Magazine. She’s
married to Steven and has two sons,
Noah and Evan.
As a girl, she had dreams of moving
to New York, becoming a writer and
creating the next great novel. She
attended Northwestern University,
where “in my first day I found out that I
was not going to be a writer. Absolutely
not. I did not have a story to tell,” she
said.
Encouraged by her father — and her
own desire not to work at a low-paying
job — Eisenberg pursued a career as a
mortgage broker at Rock Financial. Her
career went international and during
that time, she met and married her
husband, Steven, and lived in Chicago,
where she had her son Noah and began
her nine-year struggle with infertility.
“My life was totally different again.
Steven did not want me to go back
to working mortgages because it was
evenings and weekends and all the
things that would take me away from
him and our home life,” she said.
After a year-long process of “being
put through the ringer,” she joined the
board at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
“That was a defining moment in my
life, and it made me feel like I had a
purpose,” she said. She also learned she
was really good at development and
raising money for the DIA.
Her son, Noah, fell in love with
theater as he grew up. Eventually,
Eisenberg began investing in theater,
which led to her producing career on
Broadway. She’s been Tony-nominated
twice (and lost both times).
“I think I’ve just sort of gone along
with what’s in front of my face and
opened my mind and my ears and my
networking skills and my development
skills, and I found my place,” she said.
JEWISH VALUES IN ACTION
“Tikkun olam is what I feel is the most
important thing in life. You have to give
back. You have to do it in a meaningful
way,” she said. “I find that even on my
charitable endeavors, my Broadway
producing, co-producing, investing —
anything that I do — I feel in my heart
is good for other people.”
Something that’s very important
to her is the LGBTQ community and
achieving equal rights. And things are
moving in the right direction, said
Eisenberg, a member of Congregation
Shaarey Zedek. “Conservative rabbis
who once said they would never marry
an LGBTQ couple have now done so.
I know my (gay) son will be able to be
married in my own congregation where
I had my bat mitzvah.”
Eisenberg is a board member of
GLAD, which advocates for the LGBTQ
community and works to increase
representation of gay people in the arts
and media. “Everyone should be allowed
to see themselves represented,” she said.
During the podcast, Eisenberg also
shares her long heartbreaking journey
through infertility that ended with the
birth of her second son, Evan, through
surrogacy. “We call him Evan from
Heaven,” she said.
Eisenberg, who suffers from anxiety,
is also an advocate for mental health.
“The older and, hopefully, the wiser I
get, I am being a little bit more open
with my life,” she said. “Until recently,
nobody really knew of all of the
different things that I was doing. Not
everybody knows about my story with
Evan. Not everybody knows that I was a
caretaker for my dad and made a lot of
decisions that I didn’t think I’d have to
make over 12 years. I’m putting this out
there because we do have the EIsenberg
Depression Center and mental health is
one of my biggest platforms.”
Hear more about Eisenberg’s Broadway career,
her advocacy work and her infertility journey on
the podcast available at myjewishdetroit.org. The
episode also features an interview with Katie
Schulman from the Fiber Club, who was recently
highlighted in the Jewish News.
Broadway producer speaks to FedRadio Detroit about
her career, her advocacy for the LGBTQ+ community
and her journey through infertility.
Meet Nicole Eisenberg
JACKIE HEADAPOHL EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
Nicole
Eisenberg