(LONG BRANCH, NJ) -- New Jersey Repertory Company (NJ Rep) will continue its 27th season with the World Premiere of The Other American by D.W. Gregory (Radium Girls) , directed by James Glossman. Inspired by a true story, the play is set in Paris in 1952. The production runs from September 5-29, 2024.
After tangling over politics with an American tourist, a promising art student spirals into a mental breakdown that derails his life. Thirty years later, he discovers why: The tourist was a CIA operative, and the student was an unwitting participant in one of the darkest chapters of the Cold War.
The cast includes Amie Bermowitz (Off-Broadway: Goldstein, Ruthless!), Christopher Daftsios (Regional: The Jag, Swimming at the Ritz), Eli Ganias (Regional: Talley’s Folly), John Lescault (Off-Broadway: Handbagged. International: Defiant Requiem), and Naja Selby-Morton (Regional: Pirara).
"We are thrilled to present the 158th world premiere at NJ Rep with D.W. Gregory's The Other American. Gregory, known for her powerful storytelling plays such as Radium Girls, brings a gripping tale that explores the unexpected intersections of art, politics, and espionage during one of the Cold War's most shadowy chapters. This play promises to captivate and challenge audiences as we continue our 27th season," said SuzAnne Barabas, Artistic Director of NJ Rep.
The creative team includes set design by Jessica Parks, lighting design by Jill Nagle, technical direction by Brian Snyder, costume design by Patricia E. Doherty, sound design by Nick Simone, the production stage manager is Kristin Pfeifer, and assistant stage manager is Rachael Malloy.
Tickets are NOW on sale at NJRep.org or by calling 732-229-3166. The Other American will begin promptly at 7:30pm on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, with additional matinees on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays at 2:00pm. NJ Rep is located at 179 Broadway in Long Branch, New Jersey.
Who’s Who
D.W. GREGORY (Playwright) D.W. Gregory’s plays frequently explore political issues through a personal lens and with a comedic twist. The New York Times called her “a playwright with a talent to enlighten and provoke” for her most-produced work, Radium Girls, about the famous case of industrial poisoning. Other plays include Memoirs of a Forgotten Man, a National New Play Network rolling world premiere (Contemporary American Theater Festival, Shadowland Stages, New Jersey Repertory Company); Molumby’s Million (Iron Age Theatre), nominated for a Barrymore Award by Theatre Philadelphia; A Thing of Beauty, winner of the Southeastern Theatre Conference’s 2023 Charles M. Getchell New Play Award; The Good Daughter and October 1962 (New Jersey Repertory Company); and a new musical comedy, The Yellow Stocking Play, with composer Steven M. Alper and lyricist Sarah Knapp. Her plays have been developed through the support of AATE, the National New Play Network (NNPN), the Playwrights’ Center, the Maryland State Arts Council, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the HBMG Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. A member of the Dramatists Guild, Gregory is an affiliated writer with the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis and an affiliated artist with NNPN. Gregory also writes for youth theatre (Salvation Road and Penny Candy) and makes occasional appearances as a teaching artist. Dramatics magazine named Radium Girls among the 10 Most-Produced Plays in American High-School Theatre for five years in a row.
JAMES GLOSSMAN (Director) For NJ Rep, many productions and staged readings over the past two decades, among them A Tailor Near Me, Circumference of a Squirrel, Tour De Farce, and most recently DW Gregory’s Memoirs of a Forgotten Man. This spring, he directed the world premiere of Dan Lauria’s Just Another Day at Shadowland Stages (NY), where he is an Associate Artist, and in the past several years, he directed the US premiere of John Cleese’s new farce Bang Bang! (w/Sean Astin & Scott Shepherd) and the East Coast premiere of Jeff Daniels’ Flint. Co-wrote and directed the music-theatre piece Shostakovich and the Black Monk, in collaboration with the multiple-Grammy-winning Emerson String Quartet, which has been performed around the world from the Tanglewood, Wolf Trap, and Ravinia Festivals in the US to the Lotte Concert Hall in Seoul, South Korea, with a rotating cast including David Strathairn, Sean Astin, Jay O. Sanders, Richard Thomas, Evie Colbert, Jeff DeMunn, and Len Cariou. His adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s Trouble Is My Business had its world premiere at Portland Stage. In three decades of collaboration with writer and journalist Jim Lehrer, Glossman adapted & directed Lehrer’s novels Kick the Can, The Special Prisoner (w/William Schallert), directed his play The Will and Bart Show; and is currently developing Lehrer’s final play, Glock. During lockdown, Glossman directed for NJ Rep world premieres of video productions written for Zoom: Lia Romeo’s Sitting and Talking (w/Wendie Malick & Dan Lauria), Ken Weitzman’s Fire in the Garden (w/Sean Astin), and Nicky Glossman’s Portrait of a Woman in Repose (w/Paula Prentiss & Tony Shalhoub). Last summer, at Shadowland, he directed the world premiere of the time-traveling adventure Safe Home, which he has co-written with Tom Hanks.
New Jersey Repertory Company (NJ Rep) was founded in 1997 by SuzAnne and Gabor Barabas. Its current central headquarters is the Lumia Theater, located on lower Broadway in Long Branch. The theater's mission is to develop and produce new plays and to make a lasting contribution to the American Stage. Over two decades, NJ Rep has produced 151 plays, of which 127 have been world premieres. The theater has the additional distinction of having had many of its plays produced by other theaters around the country, totaling over 200 subsequent productions in the US and overseas. In 2012 and 2018, NJ Rep was the recipient of a National Theater Company Grant from the American Theater Wing that sponsors the annual Tony Awards for Broadway in recognition of its contribution to the repertoire of the American Stage. Only seven theaters have had this distinction. In addition, the theater has presented over 400 developmental readings as well as introduced 136 new works through its Theatre Brut Short-Play Festivals that focus on visionary and avant-garde works.
NJRep acquired a new property, a 28,000 square foot school situated on 2 ½ acres and located just five minutes from its Main Stage Lumia Theater and two blocks from the Jersey Shore. The theater plans on gradually transforming the school in stages into a cultural center that will house additional performance spaces, an art cinema, an art museum, a rooftop café, an arts education wing, and residences for out-of-town actors and playwrights. When completed, the center will present a wide array of programs in acting, playwriting, art, sculpture, poetry, music, and photography and will serve as a catalyst for economic development and as the foundation for the cultural renaissance of the community.
NJ Rep thanks the following for their support: The Shubert Foundation, MacMillan Family Foundation, New Jersey State Council on the Arts, The New Jersey Cultural Trust, The Stone Foundation of New Jersey, The Horizon Foundation for New Jersey, OceanFirst Foundation, Manasquan Bank Philanthropic Fund, Investors Bank Foundation, Community Foundation of New Jersey, Jewish Communal Fund, Darien Family Fund, Citizens Philanthropic Foundation, The Smart Family Foundation, NJEDA.
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