In 1999, director Rick St. Peter burst onto the local theater scene with a series of bold productions that instantly had people taking notice. His staging of shows like “subUrbia” and “Stop Kiss” pulled actors and designers from a core group of artists who were all friends.

This led preeminent local critic at the time, Roy Proctor, to dub them RVA’s “Brat Pack,” a reference to the cohort of young actors storming Hollywood at the time.

Just a few years later, the pack had largely dispersed. In 2003, St. Peter took a job as artistic director at the Actors Guild of Lexington (Kentucky), tapping his friend and lighting designer Steven Koehler to act as his managing director.

Some compatriots, like Zachary Knighton, a star of shows like the comedy series “Happy Endings,” found Hollywood-level success. Others, like Scott Wichmann and Sara Heifetz, built sturdy local and regional careers.

More than 25 years after their heyday, a production of “Broken Glass” at the Weinstein JCC has prompted a partial reunion.

“When I got back home, working with these guys became a priority for me,” says St. Peter, who returned to Virginia in 2021 and is now an assistant professor at Virginia Union University. “It’s making me feel kind of reborn, you know? I just love being in the room with them.”

Koehler now serves as managing director for Swift Creek Mill Theatre in Colonial Heights and is designing the lighting for “Glass.” He landed his job at the Mill thanks to Heifetz, who stars in the production.

“I ran a community theater in Indiana for 11-and-a-half years. I was just beginning to look around when Sara told me the Mill was looking for a managing director,” Koehler says.

Heifetz, most recently seen in “Conversations with My Mother” at Richmond Triangle Players last fall, is thrilled to be working with her old friends again. “It’s wonderful,” she says. “There’s a shorthand when you’re working with people that really know you and who aren’t afraid to challenge you. It’s just a great way of creating.”

The show that brings this crew together is a lesser-known entry in the Arthur Miller canon that puts a specific burden on Heifetz. She stars as Sylvia Gellburg, a housewife in the late 1930s whose legs suddenly stop working after she reads accounts of Kristallnacht, the violent pogrom against Jews in Germany.

Heifetz spends much of the play in a wheelchair.

“As an actor, I try to use my entire body,” she says. “So making sure that I am isolating my movement to just the top half of my body is super challenging.”

With a major production currently running in London, “Broken Glass” has emerged behind the shadow of Miller’s more famous works like “Death of a Salesman.” “I think it may be the play where he most overtly wrestles with his conflicts of faith and about what it means for him to be a Jewish man,” says St. Peter.

As the play progresses, Miller draws parallels between Sylvia’s paralysis, problems in her relationship with her husband, Phillip (played by Jeff Clevenger), and the general sense of powerlessness Jews in America felt as Nazism took hold.

St. Peter says the similarities to contemporary politics are inescapable. “The same thing is happening in this country right now: We are sleepwalking our way into fascism,” he says.

“And some of us are paralyzed by current events,” Heifetz adds.

In creating an element of the show’s design, Koehler looks forward to going beyond delivering appropriate splashes of light. “When I’m working with Rick, I can  really delve into how my lighting can not only support the actors but be a part of telling the story,” he says.

The play has brought up uncomfortable aspects of his personal history for St. Peter, which has made working with some of his oldest friends an extra godsend.

“Working a scene the other day, I was sort of confessing my sins but not wanting to let the room know,” he says. “On a break, I asked Sara about it and she was like, ‘I know exactly what you’re talking about; I know your skeletons.’ And it was just great.”

“Broken Glass” runs at the Weinstein JCC, 5403 Monument Ave. from March 19-29. Tickets and more information available here.