(HACKETTSTOWN, NJ) -- Centenary Stage Company’s rescheduled 2020 Women Playwrights Series launches on Wednesday, November 4 at 7:30pm with Drive by Deborah Yarchun.  The presentation will be held in the Kutz Theatre of the Lackland Performing Arts Center.  Admission is by donation and advance reservations require a $5.00 minimum donation.  Due to COVID-19 restrictions and social distancing guidelines required by the State of New Jersey, seating is limited and advance reservation is strongly recommended.   

Drive follows a community of truckers in a small town in Iowa as they are forced to shift gears when they lose their jobs to self-driving vehicles.  When Gloria becomes the only trucker in town still employed, resentments begin to surface.  Tensions escalate as they grapple with a mystery:  Haygen, a driver with close ties to all of them, has disappeared.  Set in a future not far down the road, Drive explores our collective fears surrounding the next stage of automation and what happens when individuals in a country where we’re so defined by our work are forced to reevaluate what drives them.

Deborah Yarchun is a NYC-based playwright.  Her plays have been developed with the Civilians, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The New Harmony Project, Jewish Plays Project’s OPEN Festival, The Great Plains Theater Conference, Jewish Ensemble Theater, Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse, The Playwrights’ Center, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, TheatreSquared’s Arkansas New Play Festival, the William Inge Center for the Arts, WordBRIDGE, and Workhouse Theater Company, and produced at Amphibian Stage Productions, Fusion Theatre, Theater Master’s National MFA Playwrights Festival, EstroGenius Festival, the Minnesota Fringe, the Philadelphia Fringe, The Samuel French Off Off Broadway Festival, Playwrights Horizons’ Peter Jay Sharp Theater by Young Playwrights Inc.,  Williams Street Repertory Theatre, and at theaters and universities across the United States and in Canada.

Deborah’s honors include two Jerome Fellowships at The Playwrights’ Center, a Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellowship, an EST/Sloan Commission, Dartmouth’s 2020 Neukom Literary Arts Award for Playwrighting, The Kennedy Center’s Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award, the Kernodle New Play Award, the Richard Maibaum Playwriting Award, and Women in the Arts & Media Coalition’s 2019 Collaboration Award.  Her play GREAT WHITE was an Honorable Mention for the Relentless Award.  She was recently a playwright-in-residence at the William Inge Center for the Arts and a member of the Civilians’ R&D Group.  Deborah earned her M.F.A. from the University of Iowa where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow.

Led by program director Catherine Rust and now in its 20th season, the Women Playwrights Series provides a working platform for the under-served voices of women writing for the theatre, CSC’s Women Playwrights Series (WPS) has now featured and developed the new work of over 60 playwrights from around the country, and produced fifteen world premiere productions from works developed in the series.  Plays selected for the WPS receive rehearsal with a professional cast and director, providing an opportunity for the playwright to collaborate with other industry professionals during the development process.  They are presented script-in-hand in staged readings for audiences, which affords the playwright further opportunity to develop the work.  Plays presented in the WPS program are finalists in the Susan Glaspell Award Competition, and are under consideration for full production in the subsequent season at the Centenary Stage Company.

Drive by Deborah Yarchun will be presented on Wednesday, November 4 at 7:30 PM in the Kutz Theatre of the Lackland Performing Arts Center at 715 Grand Ave. Hackettstown, NJ.  Admission is by donation and advance reservation requires a $5.00 minimum donation.  Due to COVID-19 restrictions and social distancing guidelines issued by the State of New Jersey, seating is limited and advance reservation strongly encouraged.  Reservations may be made by calling the Centenary Stage Company box office at (908) 979 – 0900 or by visiting Centenary Stage Company on-line at centenarystageco.org

The Women Playwrights Series continues, Wednesday November 11 at 7:30pm in the Kutz Theatre of the Lackland Performing Arts Series with Badlands by Nora Leahy.  Three library employees in the heart of “The Badlands” become first responders to the opioid crisis and witnesses to a changing neighborhood.

For more information, call the Centenary Stage Company box office at (908) 979 – 0900 or visit CSC on-line at centenarystageco.org.  The Centenary Stage Company box office is located in the Lackland Performing Arts Center on the campus of Centenary University at 715 Grand Ave. Hackettstown, NJ.  The box office is open Monday through Friday from 1:00pm – 5:00pm and two hours prior to every performance.  Centenary Stage Company can also be found across social media platforms; Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  Like and follow to receive the latest in CSC news and special offers.

Centenary Stage Company remains committed to the health and safety of our community and adheres to all requirements and guidelines mandated by the State of New Jersey including, but not limited to; observing social distancing, limiting total capacity, and requiring masks or facial coverings.  For more information regarding CSC COVID-19 policies visit, centenarystageco.org/faq.

The 2020-2021 season of performing arts events at the Centenary Stage Company is made possible through the generous support of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the NJ State Council on the Arts, the Shubert Foundation, the Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, the Sandra Kupperman Foundation, and CSC corporate sponsors, including Premiere Season Sponsor The House of the Good Shepherd, Silver Sponsors Hackettstown Medical Center Atlantic Health System, Home Instead Senior Care (Washington), and Fulton Bank, and Centenary Stage Company members and supporters.