New Jersey Stage logo
New Jersey Stage Menu



 

Difficult Questions "Linger" at Premiere Stages


By Brent Johnson, JerseyArts.com

originally published: 07/17/2018


There are two key questions at the heart of Craig Garcia’s play “Linger”: How well do parents actually know their children? And what things — even terrible things — are they capable of?

“We want to have control, and we feel we know our kids,” says Garcia, an Essex County resident and father of two children. “We want to believe we’ve raised them the right way. But at the end of the day, they are individuals in this world.”

“Linger” — which is making its world debut through July 29 at Premiere Stages at Kean University in Union — focuses on a married couple living in south Jersey whose teenage son is accused of violently assaulting another teen.

The son maintains his innocence. The father stands by the boy at all costs, doggedly believing he didn’t do it. The mother has her doubts.

“The question of a parent is: ‘My kid could never do that. It’s not who they are. It goes against everything I raised them to be,’” Garcia, 52, explains about the play, which is being performed at the school’s Bauer Boucher Theatre Center. “And that’s the sort of thing that causes the division in the marriage.”




New Jersey Stage provides affordable advertising for the arts, click here for info



On top of that, the allegations against the son explode on social media — something Garcia says makes parenting even more taxing these days.

“We want to raise our kids in a world that is safe — that they’re protected,” Garcia says. “But that world isn’t really the world they live in. The world now is very, very difficult to navigate. You add technology and social media and this sort of underlying ripple of violence that exists in the news and things we hear about, and it’s very challenging to do that.”

If it all sounds like something that could play out in any school — and any family — in America today, John J. Wooten agrees.

Wooten, Premiere Stages’ artistic director and the director of this show, says what attracted him most to Garcia’s play was that the family is faced not just with the pressure of accusations themselves, but also with the entanglements of sites like Twitter and Facebook

“The son is being judged by the community before he even gets a chance to plead his case in court,” Wooten says. “News used to be something that was not at your fingertips anytime. Now there’s no delay. And if a story gets out, it can spread like wildfire.

Garcia is a Jersey transplant who grew up with a love for another medium. He was raised in the San Francisco Bay area, graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, and initially forged a career in film, as a screenwriter.

“There wasn’t a lot of theatre available,” Garcia says of San Francisco. “There’s some, but it’s not anything like New York.”




New Jersey Stage provides affordable advertising for the arts, click here for info



He moved to New York to work in film, doctoring others’ screenplays and writing his own. Soon, though, he fell into theatre.

“I was pitching to producers to get my own film projects up and running,” Garcia recalls. “And with a friend, we said: With all this time and effort and energy to get a film project going, you can get a theater project going immediately with just our own money, a small investment. Literally, it was like: Let’s put on a show.”

He and his friend — a theatre director — secured the rights to produce the play “Never Swim Alone” by Daniel MacIvor. It won the New York Fringe Festival and enjoyed an off-Broadway run.

“That was it,” Garcia remembers. “I was hooked.”

Garcia first worked as a theatre producer but soon transitioned into playwriting. Though he took time off to raise a family, he has been writing theatre — almost exclusively — ever since.

He’s also fallen in love with the Garden State, where he’s lived for the last 14 years with his wife and kids — first in Bloomfield and now in Glen Ridge.

“Every play I’ve written has been, in my mind as I wrote it, set in New Jersey,” Garcia says. “It’s been such an important part of my life. It’s where I started my family and have been raising them. It’s had a deep impact on the way I think about the projects I’ve worked on and the projects I tell.”

“Linger” found a home at Premiere Stages, the professional theatre in residence at Kean. Wooten says 90 percent of what the program does is develop brand-new plays. All three of the plays it’s producing this season are debuts.

Garcia’s play beat 572 other scripts in this year’s Premiere Stages Festival. The author says he’s been blessed with an “outstanding” cast — including Will Ehren, Michael Frederic, Robby Haitiwanger, Jonathan C. Kaplan, Sarah Kathryn Makl and Danielle Skraastad.




New Jersey Stage provides affordable advertising for the arts, click here for info



He says the goal now is to secure more productions of “Linger.” But Garcia also just started writing his first screenplay in 12 years.

“I don’t know what will come of it at this point, but I’ve started to dip back into it,” he says.

And then there’s another play he just finished. It’s called “Verona, New Jersey.”

“It’s about a longtime family from that part of New Jersey,” says Garcia.

Stay tuned to see what questions they face.





About the author: Brent Johnson is a pop-culture-obsessed writer from East Brunswick, N.J. He's currently a reporter for The Star-Ledger of Newark. Before that, he was a longtime entertainment and music columnist for The Trenton Times. His work has also been published by Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated On Campus and Night & Day Magazine. His favorite musical artists: Elvis Costello, Billy Joel, The Smiths, Roxy Music, Dave Matthews Band, The Beatles, Blur, Squeeze, The Kinks. When he's not writing, Brent is the lead singer in alt-rock band The Clydes

Content provided by Discover Jersey Arts, a project of the ArtPride New Jersey Foundation and New Jersey State Council on the Arts.





FEATURED EVENTS

ART | COMEDY | DANCE | FILM | MUSIC | THEATRE | COMMUNITY

To narrow results by date range, categories,
or region of New Jersey
click here for our advanced search.


Vivid

Vivid Summer Solos: Where is Everybody?

Wednesday, July 09, 2025 @ 6:30pm
Visual Arts Center of New Jersey
68 Elm Street, Summit, NJ 07901
category: theatre

Click here for full event listing

 

A

A Broadway Tour of America

Thursday, July 10, 2025 @ 7:30pm
Grunin Center - Black Box Theater
1 College Drive, Toms River, NJ 08754
category: theatre

Click here for full event listing

 

The

The MAC players at the Middletown Arts Center present "Hairspray"

Friday, July 11, 2025 @ 7:00pm
Middletown Arts Center
36 Church Street, Middletown, NJ 07748
category: theatre

Click here for full event listing

 

A

A Broadway Tour of America

Friday, July 11, 2025 @ 7:30pm
Grunin Center - Black Box Theater
1 College Drive, Toms River, NJ 08754
category: theatre

Click here for full event listing

 

The

The Wizard of Oz

Saturday, July 12, 2025 @ 2:00pm
Algonquin Arts Theatre
60 Abe Voorhees, Manasquan, NJ 08736
category: theatre

Click here for full event listing

 

More events

Event Listings are available for $10 and included with our banner ad packages




 

EVENT PREVIEWS

Asbury

Asbury Park to Host 1st Annual ACT OUT, DIVA! New Play Festival

(ASBURY PARK, NJ) -- Bailey Dumlao and Matthew Yee have announced the first annual ACT OUT, DIVA! New Play Festival featuring five new plays presented as readings from July 17-20, 2025. Matthew Yee is one of the featured playwrights and Bailey Dumlao directs all five pieces.



Cape

Cape May Stage presents "Sexy Laundry"

(CAPE MAY, NJ) -- Cape May Stage presents Sexy Laundry by Michele Riml from July 16 through August 24, 2025. The relatable storyline follows Alice and Henry, a long-married couple, attempting to reignite the spark in their relationship by escaping to a trendy hotel with a copy of the book Sex for Dummies in hand.



The

The Ritz Theatre Company presents "The Wizard of Oz"

(HADDON TOWNSHIP, NJ) -- The Ritz Theatre Company presents The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum weekends from July 11-27, 2025. Based upon the Classic Motion Picture, it was adapted by John Kane for the Royal Shakespeare Company and features Music & Lyrics by Harold Arlen & E.Y. Harburg.



PHOTOS

PHOTOS from "Hairspray" at Middletown Arts Center

(MIDDLETOWN, NJ) -- The MAC Players at the Middletown Arts Center present the unstoppably joyous musical, Hairspray, over two weekends, July 11–20, 2025. Directed by Victoria Keiser, with musical direction by Lauryn Boyle and choreography by Samantha Amaral, the award-winning Broadway musical promises a fun-filled evening of laughter, energy and unforgettable dance numbers. Fawn Nocera Photography was on hand to take photos.



Renowned

Renowned West End Actor, Rohan Tickell, to Star in "Every Brilliant Thing" at East Lynne Theater Company

(CAPE MAY, NJ) -- Acclaimed London-based actor Rohan Tickell is bringing his extraordinary talent to Cape May's award-winning, Equity professional East Lynne Theater Company, to star in Duncan Macmillan's globally celebrated play Every Brilliant Thing, running July 31 to August 30, 2025 at the new Clemans Theater for the Arts.