(LONG BRANCH, NJ) -- The New Jersey Repertory Company will present the world premiere of Michael Tucker's comedy A Tailor Near Me, directed by James Glossman. Starring Tony Nominee Richard Kind and James Pickens, Jr., this limited run will begin on July 27 in advance of its July 29 opening night and will run through September 3, 2023. In the play, a man goes to a tailor to have his suit pants let out because he's gained some weight since he last wore them. The tailor convinces him that what he really needs is a new suit, which leads to a negotiation, which leads to the making of a bespoke suit, which leads to alterations in both of their lives.
"We are absolutely thrilled to welcome Michael Tucker back to NJRep as we present the world premiere of his delightful comedy, 'A Tailor Near Me.' It is an absolute joy to witness the birth of this hilarious masterpiece and share it with our audience. The wit, charm, and brilliant storytelling woven into this play make it a true gem in our season. I couldn't be happier to bring this extraordinary work to life on our stage with such an amazing cast." SuzAnne Barabas, Artistic Director of NJREP
The creative team includes set design by Jessica Parks, lighting design by Jill Nagle, sound design by Nick Simone, costume design by Patricia E. Doherty, technical director, Brian Snyder, and Production stage manager is Rose Riccardi.
Tickets are NOW on sale for NJ Rep subscribers and will be available for General Public beginning June 28, 2023. They can be purchased by visiting may be purchased online at njrep.org/plays or by phone at 732-229-3166. NJ Rep is located at 179 Broadway in Long Branch, New Jersey. A Tailor Near Me will play Thursdays and Fridays at 8:00pm, Saturdays at 3:00pm & 8:00pm, and Sundays at 2:00pm. There are special added matinees on Friday, August 11, 18, and 25 at 3:00pm.
RICHARD KIND - Broadway: The Big Knife (Drama Desk Award Winner for Best Supporting Actor and nominated for a Tony for Best Featured Actor in a Play), The Producers, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Sly Fox, The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife. Regional: Sondheim’s Bounce! (Goodman Theatre and Kennedy Center); Candide (New York City Opera at Lincoln Center); The Lady in Question and Rough Crossing (Bay Street Theatre); Once in a Lifetime (Guthrie Theatre); Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead, The Front Page (Williamstown Theatre Festival); Power Failure (Actor’s Studio Free Theatre Co.); The Seagull (Matrix Theatre); The Second City in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles; Working, All in the Timing, Things You Shouldn’t Say Past Midnight, 12 Angry Men, Enemy of the People, and Synergy (LA Theatre Works). Film: Argo, Inside Out, Hereafter, Beau is Afraid, Bombshell, Tick, Tick…Boom, Suburbicon, A Serious Man, The Visitor, Cars, The Station Agent, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, A Bug’s Life, Mr. Saturday Night, Clifford, and Stargate. Television (series regular): East New York, The Watcher, Red Oaks, Luck, Spin City, Mad About You, Head Cases, Big Mouth, and Carol Burnett & Co. Television (recurring): Young Sheldon, History of the World: Part II, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Goldbergs, I’m Dying Up Here, Brockmire, The Other Two and more.
JAMES PICKENS, JR. is best known for his starring role as ‘Dr. Richard Webber’ these past 19 Seasons on ABC’s hit television series Grey’s Anatomy. His 40 year career in film, theater, and television include countless memorable performances. A partial list of his films include 42, Ghosts of Mississippi, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Traffic, Sleepers, Bulworth, Just Wright, Liberty Heights, Nixon, Homeroom, and Gridlock’d. His other notable television performances include Station 19, Roseanne, The Conners, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The X-Files, The West Wing, and NYPD Blue, just to name a few. His theater career began at Cleveland’s legendary Karamu House, the oldest African American theater in the United States. New York theatre includes the original Negro Ensemble Company production of A Soldier’s Play with Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson. As a member of the Circle Repertory Theater he performed in Balm in Gilead with Laurie Metcalf in co-production with Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater. He played ‘Walter Lee’ in the 25th Anniversary production of A Raisin In The Sun at the Roundabout Theater and he played ‘Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King’ for the Crossroads Theater in Roads To The Mountaintop. In Los Angeles, he performed with Brad Pitt and George Clooney for Director Rob Reiner in 8, based on the Prop 8 Marriage Equality case. He has recently turned his attention to producing and numbers among his projects Twin Territories (aka Untitled Bass Reeves Project) in development at Amazon.
JAMES GLOSSMAN (Director) For NJ Rep, many productions and staged readings over the past two decades, among them Circumference of a Squirrel, Tour De Farce, and most recently DW Gregory’s Memoirs of a Forgotten Man. This spring directed the world premiere of Dan Lauria’s Just Another Day at Shadowland Stages (NY), where he is Associate Artist, and in the past several years 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 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.
MICHAEL TUCKER (Playwright) is an actor, author and playwright. His first play, The M Spot debuted at NJRep as did his second play, Fern Hill. He is pleased to present the world premiere of his third play, A Tailor Near Me, at NJRep as well. His short plays, Pittsburgh and Zazú have been presented as part of The West End Festival of The Arts. He has also written three memoirs and a novel, After Annie. He has acted over the last fifty years in theater, TV and film, most notably in the TV Series, L.A. Law.
The New Jersey Repertory Company (NJREP) 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 150 plays of which 125 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 U.S. 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. In May 2016, NJ Rep 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.
NJRep thanks the following for their support: The Shubert Foundation, The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, New Jersey State Council on the Arts, SBA Shuttered Venues Program, The Stone Foundation of New Jersey, New Jersey CRF, NJEDA, JENNJOE Fund, The Horizon Foundation for New Jersey, OceanFirst Foundation, Princeton Area Community Foundation, Manasquan Bank, Community Foundation of New Jersey, Monmouth County CARES, Investors Bank Foundation, Jewish Communal Fund, Darien Family Fund, Vasi Laurence, Caroline Huber, Caryl Sills and Linda Mitchell.
