(WEST ORANGE, NJ) -- Launching Luna Stage's 2025-2026 season with a five-week run, the two-time Off-Broadway hit Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library returns to Luna from October 3rd to November 9, 2025. 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 of the Best Dramas of the Year by This Week in New York, selected as one of Cititour's Hot 5 Off-Broadway Shows, and named to Theaterscene's 2024 10 Best List.
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.
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. 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!"
The production then moved to Martha's Vineyard Playhouse this September in advance of its return to Luna starring the complete New York cast: Ella Dershowitz, Drew Hirshfield and Brett Temple.
Performances are Thursdays at 7:30pm, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00pm, and Sundays at 3:00pm, with a special older adult matinee on Thursday October 9 at 1:00pm. There are no performances the weekend of October 15-19. As part of Luna's commitment to equity and access, all tickets are pay-what-you-choose. For tickets and more info, visit www.lunastage.org
JENNY LYN BADER is thrilled to be returning to Luna Stage where she has previously worked on several collaborative projects, and taught, and where Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library got its start. Her other plays include In Flight (Workshop Theatre), 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 in Plays International & Europe, Lincoln Center Theatre Review, and The New York Times, where she was a frequent contributor to the "Week in Review." She has received the Best Documentary One Woman Show Award (United Solo), Athena Playwriting Fellowship, Lark Playwriting Fellowship (nomination by Wendy Wasserstein), and Edith Oliver Award (O'Neill Center). She is an alumna of Harvard.
ARI LAURA KREITH is Artistic Director of Luna Stage, where she directed World Premieres of RIFT (Venturous Award), just honored with a "Fringe First" at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe; 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). Training: Yale, UC Davis, NYU.
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 and is excited to return to it at Luna. 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.
LUNA STAGE develops and produces vibrant plays about local and global experiences. This summer, Luna's commissioned world premiere RIFT by Gabriel Jason Dean made its international debut at Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre where it was honored with the Scotsman Fringe First Award. Other 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 premieres by Obie-winner Nikkole Salter; Jenny Lyn Bader's Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library, which transferred for two extended runs Off-Broadway in the 2024-2025 season; and the Luna-commissioned The Ground On Which We Stand, which received the 2024 Giles R. Wright Designation for Excellence in African American History.
The company celebrates 15 years as an arts anchor of New Jersey's Valley Arts neighborhood, a traditionally-underserved region bridging the townships of Orange and West Orange. Luna received the JerseyArts People's Choice Award for Favorite Small Theatre in New Jersey, and is dedicated to eliminating barriers to participation and nurturing the next generation of audiences and artists.
