(TRENTON, NJ) -- A free staged reading of Blue Skies Yonder, a new dark comedy by Peter Fenton, will take place at Artworks in downtown Trenton on Sunday, October 19, 2025 at 2:00pm. This event will be the play's first public presentation. The reading is directed by Trenton actress, writer, and acting coach Monah Yancy and stars Fenton himself in the role of Harrison Fowler. Both Fenton and Yancy are members of the administrative staff of Passage Theatre, the only professional theater company in Trenton.
Blue Skies Yonder is a contemporary Agatha Christie-inspired locked room murder mystery in the shadow of late-stage capitalism. At his lavish book launch party (complete with a looming ice sculpture of a bird of prey), promising young author Harrison Fowler spirals under the weight of his mismanaged manuscript and the deadly ambitions of his colleagues and loved ones. In company with big money and bigger ambition, someone threatens to get away with murder, and in the cutthroat world of publishing, the real killer might be whoever tells the best story. This play is a dark comedy about queer survival, creative ownership, and the stories we tell to stay relevant—even if it kills us.
Joining Fenton in the cast are his father Jim Fenton, Samuel Cheng, Avery Kellington, Dave Garrett Sarrafian, Brittaney Delsarté Chatman, Minh-Chau Scott, and Hayley Jo Pellis. The ensemble brings together actors from Philadelphia, New York, and New Jersey, forming a diverse, intergenerational cast.
"The pressure to keep up the perfect story—with a perfect Instagram feed, perfect career, perfect interracial gay love story—it will kill us all," Fenton shares with a laugh. "I've had a lifelong love of Agatha Christie and Clue, and I realized this was a ripe genre to explore and personify that pressure... I didn't want to just write a witty dark comedy, I wanted to explore how unchecked ambition and perfect aesthetics consume us and take our professional and personal relationships to ugly places."
This event is open to the public with free admission and parking. The reading will start promptly at 2:00pm and is expected to end by 4:30pm. Due to mature themes, some coarse language, and multiple murders, this play is appropriate for audiences age 14+. RSVPs can be made online here. Artworks is located at 19 Everett Alley in Trenton, New Jersey.
"This is a whodunnit filled with greed, lust, sabotage, and all the addictions that come with wanting something immediately—at any cost—without caring about who gets hurt along the way," adds director Monah Yancy. "We live in a society where people want everything to happen for them instantaneously. But what happens when it isn't for you but you want it anyway... and what price are you willing to pay for it?"
Peter Fenton is a writer and director creating stories for stage and screen that make audiences laugh, think, and occasionally squirm. His Off-Broadway debut, dark comedy Abandon All Hope, premiered at Theatre Row in 2023, and I Think We're Lost, his young adult retelling of Peter Pan, will premiere in Philadelphia in 2026. Based in New Hope, PA, Fenton works in marketing for Passage Theatre Company and freelances with McCarter Theatre Center, Bucks County Playhouse, and other regional arts organizations.
Monah Yancy is a Liberian-American actress, writer, and acting coach born and raised in Trenton. She recently understudied in Arden Theatre Company's production of King Hedley II and played Tinker Bell in the 2024 reading of Fenton's I Think We're Lost. She currently works full-time as Passage Theatre's Director of Advancement and has freelanced with McCarter Theatre Center, Bucks County Playhouse, and with other companies across the Philadelphia and New York theater scenes.
