(WEST ORANGE, NJ) -- Two award-winning plays that began at Luna Stage return "home" his fall to the theatre that launched them. Direct from its sold out Edinburgh run, the Luna-commissioned RIFT will play at Luna for two nights only September 19 and 20 at 8:00pm. Next, Luna's two-time Off-Broadway hit Mrs. Stern Wanders The Prussian State Library comes to Luna for five weeks starting October 3, 2025.

RIFT’s August 2025 Traverse Theatre production received the prestigious The Scotsman Fringe First Award recognizing “outstanding new writing premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe.” Written by Gabriel Jason Dean, RIFT was commissioned by Luna Stage and premiered in 2024. The Luna creative team partnered with UK-based Richard Jordan Productions and the Traverse Theatre to bring the RIFT to Edinburgh.

“Dean's writing never flags in its utterly gripping sharpness and intensity,” reads The Scotsman’s review. “In Ari Laura Kreith’s fiercely-paced production, Matt Monaco and Blake Stadnik deliver two simply breathtaking performances.”

Inspired by the relationship between playwright 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. 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?

Launching Luna’s 2025-2026 with a five-week run, the two-time Off-Broadway hit Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library returns to Luna starting October 3. Jenny Lyn Bader’s play, praised by John McWhorter in the New York Times as "a lesson on perceiving humanity and even dignity in all people under even the toughest of conditions," was called one of the Best Dramas of the Year by This Week in New York, chosen as one of Cititour’s Hot 5 Off-Broadway Shows, and named to Theaterscene’s 2024 10 Best List. Theater Masters named Jenny Lyn Bader “a 2025 Visionary Playwright” and Broadway Radio’s Peter Filichia raved, “The characterizations are so good, so terrific, so galvanizing. For 90 minutes, you may very well be on the edge of your seat!”

Directed by Ari Laura Kreith, the play sold out and extended at 59E59 Theaters last fall, then transferred to the WP Theatre for a second Off-Broadway run. It is currently running at Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse in advance of its return to Luna starring the complete New York cast: Ella Dershowitz, Drew Hirshfield and Brett Temple.

The play takes place in 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 innocent? 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.

Luna Stage’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 became 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 last season’s sold out Off-Broadway transfer of Jenny Lyn Bader’sMrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library.

Tickets and more information on both events are available at www.lunastage.org. The theater is located at 555 Valley Road in West Orange, New Jersey.

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 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.