Photo by Valerie Terrnova
(WEST ORANGE, NJ) -- Luna Stage's commissioned World Premiere play RIFT is headed to the Edinburgh Fringe for a four-week run at Traverse Theatre this August. On July 18-19, 2025 at 8:00pm each night, the powerful and timely new play returns to Luna for two benefit performances to support the company's travel to Scotland.
Inspired by the relationship between playwright Gabriel Jason Dean and his brother, an incarcerated high-level member of the alt-right, RIFT began at Luna in 2020 as a play-over-text-message delivered to audience members’ phones during the pandemic. In 2024, the fully-staged production debuted at Luna, directed by Ari Laura Kreith and starring Matt Monaco and Blake Stadnik. The play was subsequently produced at Interact Theatre in Philadelphia and Amphibian Stage in Texas, before returning to Luna for international production.
RIFT tells the story of two brothers - one a progressive novelist, the other a convicted murderer and high-ranking member of a white supremacist prison gang. The two men share a traumatic childhood and now, as adults, must navigate the edges of their brotherly bond. Is it possible to love someone whose beliefs you hate?
Tickets are $100, and are available for purchase online. Luna Stage is located at 555 Valley Road in West Orange, New Jersey.
New Jersey Stage published a feature on the play in 2021, speaking to Gabriel Jason Dean and Ari Laura Keith. That feature article can be found here.
Out In Jersey proclaimed RIFT “a searing drama…a tough, honest work that challenges audience perceptions throughout…a wonderfully powerful examination of familial conflict” and NJ Arts Maven extolled it as “a nuanced look at the current situation hounding American society and psyche…a taut, funny, and ferocious exploration of brotherly love…a parable for our time.”
Luna’s production was praised by Q On Stage as “[a] must-see…masterwork…heady and compelling…burns the heart and excites the senses…” while NJ Arts described it as “[a] tense, powerful…verbal dance.”
“It is an honor to continue Luna’s tradition of developing and premiering powerful new plays that speak to the most urgent issues of our time,” said director Kreith, who is also Luna’s Artistic Director, “and it has been a joy to collaborate on this play from its inception to its debut on the international stage. We are so grateful to be able to share this play with a global audience.”
Luna’s history of developing and premiering new work includes Tony Award winning playwright Matthew Lopez’s first play The Whipping Man, which had its World Premiere at Luna and become one of the most widely-produced plays in America between 2012 and 2016, three World Premieres by Obie winner and Pulitzer nominee Nikkole Salter, and this season’s sold out Off-Broadway transfer of Jenny Lyn Bader’s Mrs Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library.
The Traverse Theatre is Scotland’s premiere new writing theatre. Luna is thrilled to be making their UK theater debut at the Traverse as part of the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe in a collaboration with Olivier, Tony, Emmy, and Scotsman Fringe First Award-winning producer Richard Jordan.
The two stateside performances July 18 and 19 at Luna Stage will raise funds to support the cast and crew traveling to Edinburgh for four weeks of performances.
Donations to support the production are also gratefully accepted at www.lunastage.org/rift
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 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 received the Jersey Arts People’s Choice Award for Favorite Small Theatre in New Jersey, the 2024 Giles R. Wright Designation for Excellence in African American History, and has contributed to the development of over 100 new works for the stage. This season, Luna's production of Lonely Planet was recognized on two 2024 Best New Jersey Production lists, while Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library was honored on two lists of 2024 Best Plays in New York.
Luna world premieres include Tony Award-winner Matthew Lopez’s breakout play The Whipping Man, which became one of the most widely-produced plays in the United States; three World Premieres by Obie-winner Nikkole Salter; and Jenny Lyn Bader’s Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library, which recently completed two extended runs Off-Broadway and anticipates its first regional transfer this fall.
