Ella Dershowitz (Hannah), photo by Valerie Terranova
(NEW YORK, NY) -- Congrats to Luna Stage! Due to critical acclaim and an incredible run of sold out performances at 59E59 Theaters, Luna Stage's New York premiere of Jenny Lyn Bader's Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library, directed by Ari Laura Kreith, is extending and moving to Off-Broadway's WP Theater for a limited five-week engagement, December 10, 2024 – January 12, 2025.
Berlin, 1933. With martial law in effect, political activism has become a capital crime. A young Gestapo officer arrests a graduate student suspected of illegal research. This interrogation promises to be most challenging as he faces the iconic 20th-century thinker Hannah Arendt. Is she an innocent woman? Or an enemy of the state? Inspired by real events, this fantastical drama delves into the life and mind of one of history’s most profound thinkers.
The cast features Ella Dershowitz, Drew Hirshfield and Brett Temple.
Ella Dershowitz (Hannah) and Brett Temple (Karl), photo by Valerie Terranova
The design team includes Lortel and Obie Award winner Lauren Helpern (Set), Cameron Filepas (Lights), Megan Culley (Sound) and Deborah Caney (Costumes). Production Stage Manager is Ingrid Pierson and Assistant Stage Manager is Lisa R. Stafford. Barbara Freitag is Associate Producer and Perry Street Theatricals are General Managers.
Performances are Tuesdays - Thursdays at 7:00pm, Fridays at 7:30pm, Saturdays at 3:00pm & 7:30pm, and Sundays at 3:00pm. Additional shows on Monday, December 23 at 7:00pm, Thursday, December 26 at 3:00pm, and Thursday, January 2 at 3:00pm. No performances on December 24, 25 and 31. Run time is 90 minutes. Tickets are $39, $69, $99 and $129. For more info and to purchase tickets visit https://www.mrssterntheplay.com. Opening night is December 17. WP Theater is located at 2162 Broadway between 76 and 77 Streets in New York City.
Post-show talkbacks will take place on Tuesday, December 10 and Friday, December 13 with Roger Berkowitz. Professor Berkowitz is the Founder and Academic Director of the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and the Humanities at Bard College and the winner of the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought. Additional post-show talkbacks will be announced and added throughout the run.
A fan favorite, the show is currently rated 95% on Show-Score. Praise for Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library includes “A powerful and timely tour de force!” — Voice of America. “For 90 minutes, you may very well be on the edge of your seat!... this is well worth seeing, and I hope it moves!” — Broadway Radio. “An evocative exploration of resilience, identity, and the pursuit of freedom!”— Times Square Chronicles. “An intellectually stimulating and profoundly moving historical drama!” — Off Off Online. “An outstanding drama… beautifully directed by Ari Laura Kreith.” — This Week In New York. “A stimulating and suspenseful 90-minute play.” — Theater Scene
Drew Hirshfield (Erich) and Ella Dershowitz (Hannah), photo by Valerie Terranova
ARTIST BIOS
JENNY LYN BADER is the author of plays including In Flight (Workshop Theatre), Equally Divine (14th St. Y), None of the Above (New Georges), and the audio piece Tree Confessions (TINATC, with Kathleen Chalfant). Online productions include Guru of Touch (EdFringe) and Communal Table (Broadway Podcast Network). Her work has been published by DPS, Next Stage Press, Smith & Kraus, Applause, Vintage, Lincoln Center Theatre Review, and Plays International & Europe. Jenny Lyn is a Princess Grace Award finalist and the recipient of a Lark Playwriting Fellowship. She is an alumna of Harvard.
ARI LAURA KREITH is Artistic Director of Luna Stage, where she directed World Premieres of RIFT (Venturous Award), Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library, Heartland (Star-Ledger Top 10), and The Voting Writes Project. NYC: Theatre 167’s Jackson Heights Trilogy (3 full-length plays collaboratively written by 18 playwrights featuring 37 actors in 93 roles in 14 languages), Pirira (NYIT Award: Best Production), Mourning Sun (West End Theatre/Kampala, Uganda). Immersive commissions: Queens Museum, NY Transit Museum. Site-specific: Ground On Which We Stand (Giles R. Wright Award). She is an alumna of Yale.
ELLA DERSHOWITZ Off-Broadway: Can You Forgive Her? (Vineyard Theatre), Intimacy (New Group), Card and Gift (Clubbed Thumb), Connected (59E59), On the Verge (Attic), A Splintered Soul (Rosalind Productions). Regional: The Two Hander (NJ Rep), Joy and Pandemic (Huntington), Hudson Stage, MV Playhouse, Marin Theatre Company, Aurora, Cap Stage, City Lights. TV/Film: Phil Spector (HBO), The Affair (Showtime), Lie to Me (Fox), Knife Fight, Two-Bit Waltz, Addiction: A 60’s Love Story, Pitching Tents. Training: Yale, LAMDA.
DREW HIRSHFIELD is lucky enough to have worked on plays by Bertolt Brecht, Francis Beaumont, Sandy Rustin, Arthur Miller, Kate Hamill, Robert Askins, Jordan Seavey, Lucas Hnath, Anton Chekhov, Steve Martin, Peter Shaffer, Lanford Wilson, Sam Shepard, Oliver Goldsmith, Tom Stoppard, Neil Simon, Steven Sater, Shakespeare, and many others, at theaters large and small across the county. He’s long served on the acting faculty at New York Film Academy. He earned an MFA from American Conservatory Theater.
BRETT TEMPLE originated the role of Officer Karl Frick in Jenny Lyn Bader’s Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library at Luna Stage and is excited to return to it at 59E59. Stage: The Valley of the Shadow (WP Theatre); Henry IV Part One (Shakespeare's Globe). Screen: Mrs. Fletcher; Bull; and the upcoming film When The Moon Was Twice as Big. A New Jersey native and graduate of Rutgers, Mason Gross.
Photo by Valerie Terranova
Luna Stage develops and produces vibrant plays about local and global experiences, and brings communities together for artistic events that spark conversations, create understanding, and inspire change. Founded in Montclair NJ in 1993, Luna Stage moved to West Orange in 2010 to become an arts anchor of the underserved Valley neighborhood. As producer, innovator, and educator, Luna is dedicated to eliminating barriers to participation, and nurturing the next generation of audiences and artists.
Luna Stage World Premieres include Tony winner Matthew Lopez’s breakout play The Whipping Man, which went on to have its New York premiere at Manhattan Theatre Club and subsequently became one of the most widely-produced plays in the United States from 2012-2016, and three World Premieres by Obie winner Nikkole Salter: Lines In The Dust (Luna commission), Indian Head (Luna co-commission) and Carnaval. Luna received the NJ Arts People’s Choice Award for Favorite Small Theatre in New Jersey, the Giles R. Wright Designation for Excellence in African American History, and has contributed to the development of over 100 new works for the stage.
WP Theater, now in its 47th Season, is the nation’s oldest and largest theater company dedicated to developing, producing and promoting the work of Women+ at every stage in their careers. For almost five decades they have served as leaders at the forefront of a global movement towards gender parity, and the example they set and the artists they have fostered have grown into a robust and thriving community of artists in theater and beyond. WP Theater received a 2018 Lucille Lortel Award, a 2019 Obie Award, and a 2020 Drama Desk Award, all for Outstanding Body of Work, recognizing WP’s unique place and vital work in the theatrical landscape.
