(HACKETTSTOWN, NJ) -- Centenary Stage Company presents The Niceties by Eleanore Burgess, running April 9-19, 2026 in the Kutz Blackbox Theatre of the Centenary University campus. The play follows an accomplished Ivy League professor holds routine office hours with an ambitious young student to discuss her thesis: if history is written by the victors, who tells the story of the oppressed?
Before long quibbles over vocabulary and Wikipedia citations turn into a dangerous discourse as both women passionately defend their perspective and their personal world view- until one of them puts everything on the line to make her case.
Centenary Stage Company audiences will remember Eleanore Burgess's play Start Down as part of the WPS developmental program in 2015 and received its NJ premiere production in 2016. Ms. Burgess's plays include Wife of a Salesman, Chill, Sparks Fly Upward, and Galilee, 34. Her work has been produced at theaters across the United States, including Manhattan Theatre Club, South Coast Rep, Geffen Playhouse, McCarter Theatre Center, Huntington Theatre Company, Writers Theatre, Milwaukee Rep, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Geva Theatre Center, InterAct Theatre, Portland Stage, the Alliance Theatre and the Contemporary American Theatre Festival, as well as the Finborough Theatre in London.
Tickets: Thursday performances are $27.50 for all seats with a Buy One / Get One Rush Special; Friday evening performances are $27.50; Saturday performances are $29.50; and matinee performances are $25.00. Student and child tickets (under 12) are $15.00 for all applicable performances.
For more information, visit centenarystageco.org or call the Centenary Stage Company box office at (908) 979-0900. The Centenary Stage Company box office is open Monday through Friday from 1:00–5:00 pm and two hours prior to performances. The box office is located in the Lackland Performing Arts Center on the campus of Centenary University at 715 Grand Avenue in Hackettstown, New Jersey
Eleanore Burgess has developed work at Playwrights Horizons, the New Group, and The Ensemble Studio Theatre, and been a member of the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages, Page 73's writers' group Interstate 73, The Civilians' R&D Group, and New York Theatre Workshop's 2050 Fellowship. She has also written for film and television, including work on Perry Mason for HBO, WeCrashed for Apple TV+, and Interview With The Vampire for AMC, and screenplays for Bad Robot, Amblin, and Anonymous Content. Originally from Massachusetts, she studied history at Yale College and Dramatic Writing at NYU/Tisch.
The 2025-26 Season of Performing Arts events at the Centenary Stage Company is made possible through the generous support of the NJ State Council on the Arts, the Shubert Foundation, the Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, the Sandra Kupperman Foundation, the John and Margaret Post Foundation, The New Jersey Theatre Alliance, the CSC corporate sponsors, including Heath Village, Visions Federal Credit Union, Explore Warren, and Centenary Stage Company members and supporters.
The 25' - 26' Professional Theatre Series is sponsored by Heath Village Retirement Community.
