(MORRISTOWN, NJ) -- Pioneer Productions is bringing Neil Simon’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning comedy, Lost in Yonkers to the stage at Fellowship Hall in the Morristown Methodist Church in downtown Morristown, NJ. The show will have six performances between October 27 and November 5, 2023. Pioneer co-founder Daniel Peter Vissers of Sparta directs this beautifully crafted coming-of-age story set in 1942 in Yonkers, New York.
Lost in Yonkers is Simon’s Masterpiece. The New York Times said Yonkers is "the best play Simon ever wrote...America's greatest comic playwright gives us a rich memory play full of insight, laughter and tears." The play won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Tony Award for Best Play, and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play.
The play centers around two brothers, Arty and Jay Kurnitz, who live with their callous grandmother and their Aunt Bella while their father travels, desperately trying to scrape together enough money to pay off his debts to a loan shark. The boys are left to contend with Grandma’s “tough love”, Bella and her secret romance, and Uncle Louie, a small-time hoodlum, all in a strange new world called Yonkers.
Pioneer Production’s Kurnitz family includes a wealth of local New Jersey talent, including Josiah Irwin (Basking Ridge) as Jay Kurnitz, Noah Shidlovsky (Short Hills) as Arty Kurnitz, Jon Beeler (Morristown) as Eddie Kurnitz, Miriam Salerno (Millburn) as Bella Kurnitz, Hedi Molnar (Florham Park) as Grandma Kurnitz, Bill Barry as Louie Kurnitz, Lauren Proda (Mahwah) as Gertrude Kurnitz. Stage manager for the production is Tracey Lynn Haskell.
Tickets are available for purchase online. Performances take place October 27-28 and November 3-4 at 8:00pm; and October 29 and November 5 at 3:00pm. The Morristown United Methodist Church is located at 50 South Park Place in Morristown, New Jersey.
Funding for this show has been made possible in part by funds from Morris Arts through the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. Pioneer Productions was incorporated in 2003 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit theatre company by founding members Dan Vissers, Shanna Levine-Phelps and Jon Mantes. The Company’s mission is to share our collective human story through live theatrical performance by producing shows that are relevant to our time and inspire audiences to attend live theater. For more information about Pioneer Productions visit www.pioneerproductions.com
