(LONG BRANCH, NJ) -- New Jersey Repertory Company's Salon Reading Series presents Shake Rag Hollow by Arlene Hutton on Monday, February 23, 2026 at 7:00pm. The staged reading is directed by Eric Nightengale.
After serving eighteen years for her uncle’s murder, Denise returns home to face her daughter Laurel, who blames her for the tragedy, and her mother Pauline, who cannot forgive her. As memories resurface, secrets are revealed — forcing three generations of women to confront the past and try to heal from their deep trauma.
This is a new play by the author of Blood Of The Lamb, which received a 2025 Drama Desk Award Nomination for Outstanding Play and won the Critics Circle Award at the 2024 Adelaide Fringe Festival
Tickets are $20 ($15 for members) and are available for purchase online. It takes place in NJ Rep's Studio Theatre at 179 Broadway in Long Branch, New Jersey. Doors open at 6:30pm for general seating.
Arlene Hutton is an alumna of New Dramatists, member of Ensemble Studio Theatre and recipient of a NYFA Fellowship. Her Nibroc Trilogy includes the first FringeNYC production to transfer Off-Broadway, Last Train to Nibroc (NY Drama League Best Play nomination), along with See Rock City (In the Spirit of America Award) and Gulf View Drive (LA Weekly and Ovation Award nominations, 2018 Ovation Award for Best Production at Rubicon Theatre).
Hutton has received an EST/Sloan Foundation commission, a fellowship from the South Carolina Arts Commission and commissions from B Street Theatre, AD Players and the Big Bridge Theatre Consortium. in NY her plays have received development at The Lark, Ensemble Studio Theatre, New Dramatists, The Barrow Group, FAB Women, 78th Street Theatre Lab, Project Y and Access Theatre, where she was a resident artist.
The New Jersey Repertory Company was founded in 1997 by SuzAnne and Gabor Barabas. Its current central headquarters is the Lumia Theater located on lower Broadway in Long Branch.
Over two decades NJRep has produced 140 plays of which 125 have been world premieres. The theater has the additional distinction of having had many of its plays produced by other theaters around the country totaling over 200 subsequent productions in the U.S. and overseas.
In 2012 and 2018 NJRep was the recipient of a National Theater Company Grant from the American Theater Wing that sponsors the annual Tony Awards for Broadway in recognition of its contribution to the repertoire of the American Stage. Only seven theaters have had this distinction.
