(HACKETTSTOWN, NJ) -- Centenary Stage Company has cast their World Premiere production of Whippoorwill by Ruth Kirschner, and tickets are on-sale now. Performances will take place in-person March 31 through April 10 in the Sitnik Theatre of the Lackland Performing Arts Center at 715 Grand Avenue, Hackettstown, NJ on the campus of Centenary University. A performance of Whippoorwill will be also be live streamed on Saturday, April 9 at 8:00pm with tickets available for $10.
Originally submitted for the 2019 Women Playwrights Series, Whippoorwill tells the story of 9-year-old Bibi and her mother in suburban Ohio. They have made a good life for themselves, but Bibi is determined to get to the bottom of what really happened with her missing father, about whom her mother tells a different story each time she asks.
Ruth Kirschner has been a finalist in the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, CulturalDC’s Source Festival, and the Humana Short Play Festival. Her one-act play Fifteen Notes was produced at the Ensemble Studio Theatre, directed by Curt Dempster. Other one-acts have been produced at L.A.’s West Coast Ensemble; the Actor’s Theatre of Santa Rosa; San Francisco’s Cutting Ball Theatre; The San Francisco Fringe Festival (2 Best Play Awards); SF’s Phoenix Theater; The Marin Fringe Festival (2 Best Play Awards). Her full-length play Remember Me was part of Centenary Stage Company’s 2004 Women Playwrights Series, and her play Whippoorwill, also in the WPS in 2019, is now being produced by Centenary Stage Co., opening March 31, 2022.
Directing this World Premiere production is Margo Whittcomb. Margo is now a theatre artist, administrator and educator living in Vermont. Some of her previous credits include the American premiere of David Harrower’s Mary Stuart (Vermont Shakespeare), directing and developing Of the Better Kind (Theatre Kavanagh), and Love Alone and The Kid Thing (VT Pride Festival). Whitcomb teaches Shakespeare and acting at CCV Montpelier and has taught at NVU, Marymount Manhattan College, American Conservatory Theatre, SF College of Art and Design, Vassar College, University of California Riverside and Santa Barbara, University of Washington, and City University of NY. She holds a BFA in Acting (University of Minnesota), MA in Theatre History/Literature (UCSB) and an MFA in Theatre Directing (University of Washington, Seattle).
The cast will include Laura Ekstrand, Eddie Aldridge, and Becky Engborg from the original staged reading, and joining them will be Clark Scott Carmichael and Leilah St. Clair Marshall, as well as Centenary University students James Brandes and Jamir Freeman. Laura Ekstrand is the co-founder of Vivid Stage (formerly Dreamcatcher Repertory) and currently serves as the Producing Artistic Director. She has been seen in many productions on stage as well as on-screen, and some of her credits include Be Here Now, The Lucky Ones, What Stays; Sister Play; Rapture, Blister Burn; Motherhood Out Loud, and Shakespeare in Vegas, among many others. Clark Scott Carmichael is also a member of Vivid Stage and was most recently seen in the workshop production of Twirl. Carmichael has worked with many different theatres along the East Coast including New York Fringe Festival, Shakespeare Theatre in Washington DC, and the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey. Eddie Aldridge’s credits include Blues for an Alabama Sky (Portland Stage,) A Raisin in the Sun (GeorgeStreet Playhouse and Ford’s Theatre,) The Piano Lesson (Virginia Stage Company,) and The Boys Next Door (The Palace Theatre.) Becky Engborg most recently appeared in The Humans at Civic Theatre of Allentown, where other credits include Noises Off, On Golden Pond, Other Desert Cities, August: Osage County, 33 Variations, The Glass Menagerie, School for Scandal, and The Imaginary Invalid. At Centenary Stage Company she has performed in A Laughing Matter, Quartermaine’s Terms, and Sister Week, as well as a number of WPS staged readings.
Performance dates and times for Ruth Kirschner’s Whippoorwill are Thursdays, March 31 and April 7 at 7:30pm; Fridays, April 1 and 8 at 8:00pm; Saturdays, March 2 and 9 at 8:00pm; and Sundays, April 3 and 10 at 2:00pm. Tickets range from $25.00 to $27.50 for adults with discounts available for seniors, students, and children 12 and younger, and Thursday evening performances. For those who are unable to attend in-person, a performance of Whippoorwill will be live streamed on Saturday, April 9 at 8:00pm. Live stream links are available for purchase for $10.00 each.
For more information, or to purchase tickets visit centenarystageco.org. The Centenary Stage Company box office at (908) 979 – 0900. The Centenary Stage Company box office is open Monday through Friday from 1:00pm – 5:00pm and two hours prior to all performances. The box office is located in the Lackland Performing Arts Center on the campus of Centenary University at 715 Grand Ave. Hackettstown, New Jersey.
Centenary Stage Company remains committed to the health and safety of our community and adheres to all requirements set forth by the State of New Jersey. For more information regarding CSC COVID-19 policies and policy updates, visit centenarystageco.org/faq.
The 2021-22 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, the John and Margaret Post Foundation, and CSC corporate sponsors, including Platinum Season Sponsor The House of the Good Shepherd, Silver Sponsors Hackettstown Medical Center Atlantic Health System, Home Instead Senior Care (Washington), and Fulton Bank, Visions Federal Credit Union and Centenary Stage Company members and supporters.
