(LONG BRANCH, NJ) -- New Jersey Repertory Company (NJ Rep) presents the world premiere of A Change of Position, by Jeffrey Sweet, based on characters created by Michael Kosarowich, and directed by James Glossman. The production runs from July 30 through August 23, 2026. Set in a Pennsylvania trailer park, A Change of Position follows a teenage girl whose difficult home life becomes even more complicated when one of her mother's regular "clients" presents an unexpected proposition.
Filled with Jeffrey Sweet's signature wit, compassion, and keen observations of human nature, this moving new play explores family, resilience, and the choices that can alter the course of a life.The production features Ephraim Birney (Irish Rep's Chester Bailey, Outer Critics nom: TV: “Gotham”), Èilis Cahill (Regional: Safe Home. Film: Mindset), Todd Cerveris (Broadway: South Pacific; National Tour: War Horse), and Sandy Clancy (NJ Rep’s The Vienna Lessons).
"Presenting world premieres has always been at the heart of New Jersey Repertory Company's mission," said SuzAnne Barabas, Co-Founder and Artistic Director of New Jersey Repertory Company. "A Change of Position is a remarkable addition to that legacy. Jeffrey Sweet has created a story filled with wit, compassion, and surprising emotional depth, and under James Glossman's direction, we know audiences will discover characters they'll never forget."
The creative team includes: James Glossman (Director), Jeffrey Sweet (Playwright), Jessica Parks (Production Manager/Resident Set Designer), Jill Nagle (Resident Lighting Designer), Isabella Rossi (Costume Designer), Rose Riccardi (Production Stage Manager), and Ian Duhart (Assistant Stage Manager).
Performances take place Thursdays at 7:00pm; Fridays & Saturdays at 2:00pm & 7:00pm; and Sundays at 2:00pm. Tickets are available for purchase online or by calling 732-229-3166. The theater is located at 179 Broadway in Long Branch, New Jersey.
JEFFREY SWEET (Playwright) is a founding member of the playwrights' ensemble at the Tony Award-winning Victory Gardens Theater, where 13 of his plays were produced. A number of his other works premiered in Chicago before going on to productions in New York, at regional theaters, and internationally. New Jersey audiences may remember The Value of Names, starring Jack Klugman and Dan Lauria, directed by James Glossman at George Street Playhouse. His other plays include Flyovers (starring Richard Kind and Michele Pawk), Court-Martial at Fort Devens (New Federal Theatre, New York; Audelco Award), The Action Against Sol Schumann and American Enterprise (both winners of American Theatre Critics Association Awards), Bluff (starring John Astin), and Kunstler, which was produced in both New York and London.
His musical theater credits include I Sent a Letter to My Love (co-written with Melissa Manchester) and What About Luv? (co-written with Howard Marren and Susan Birkenhead), which starred Nathan Lane and Judy Kaye. In addition to his work for the stage, Sweet has written extensively for television and is the author of several books about The Second City and the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. He currently serves on the Council of the Dramatists Guild.
JAMES GLOSSMAN (Director) For NJ Rep, many productions and staged readings over the past two decades, most recently last season’s world premiere of A Tailor Near Me with Richard Kind and James Pickens, Jr., along with Circumference of a Squirrel, Tour De Farce, Two Jews Walk Into a War, and DW Gregory’s Memoirs of a Forgotten Man. At LA’s Odyssey Theatre, he directed the long-overdue Los Angeles premiere of Noel Coward’s final play, A Song at Twilight (w/Orson Bean), which he later remounted with Bean and Alley Mills at Shadowland Stages (NY), where he is an Associate Artist — and has over the past several years directed the US premiere of John Cleese’s new farce Bang Bang! (w/Sean Astin & Scott Shepherd), the East Coast premiere of Jeff Daniels’ Flint, and Arthur Miller’s The Price (w/Orson Bean, Reathel Bean, & Stephanie Zimbalist).
Co-wrote and directed the music-theatre piece Shostakovich and the Black Monk, in collaboration with the multiple-Grammy-winning Emerson String Quartet, which has been performed around the world from the Tanglewood, Wolf Trap, and Ravinia Festivals in the US to the Lotte Concert Hall in Seoul, South Korea, with a rotating cast including David Strathairn, Sean Astin, Jay O. Sanders, Richard Thomas, Evie Colbert, Jeff DeMunn, and Len Cariou. His adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s Trouble Is My Business had its world premiere at Portland Stage.
In three decades of collaboration with writer and journalist Jim Lehrer, Glossman adapted & directed Lehrer’s novels Kick the Can, The Special Prisoner (w/William Schallert), directed his play The Will and Bart Show; and is currently developing Lehrer’s final play, Glock. During lockdown, Glossman directed for NJ Rep world premieres of video productions written for Zoom: Lia Romeo’s Sitting and Talking (w/Wendie Malick & Dan Lauria), Ken Weitzman’s Fire in the Garden (w/Sean Astin), and Nicky Glossman’s Portrait of a Woman in Repose (w/Paula Prentiss & Tony Shalhoub). In 2022, at Shadowland, he directed the world premiere of the time-traveling adventure Safe Home, which he co-wrote with Tom Hanks. Their latest collaboration, See You Tomorrow, was workshopped in June 2024 at Portland Stage’s Little Festival of the Unexpected. Later this fall, he will direct the world premiere of Nicky Glossman’s ensemble western The Road to Jerusalem.
When MIKE KOSAROWICH retired from his 39-year information technology career, he began writing full time. He had several short stories published before discovering his passion for writing as a playwright, becoming an enthusiastic and productive member of the Playwrights Alliance of PA (PAPA), and joining the Dramatists Guild of America. Each summer since 2018, he has had the joy of watching one of his short plays read on stage at The Original Cicada Festival in Mount Gretna, PA. The Confession, his one-act play, was chosen for the 2021 Pittsburgh New Works Festival where he was a finalist for the Outstanding Playwright award. During the pandemic, he found a creative home in the zoom workshops led by Jeffrey Sweet (The Negotiating Stage) and Kristine Niven (ANDTheatre Company).
Mike passed away suddenly in July of 2022. In recognition of his boundless enthusiasm, joyful humor, gentle kindness, and thoughtful insights, ANDTheatre established The Michael Kosarowich Open Windows Fund to encourage those who, like Mike, closed the door on a professional career and opened a window to pursue their passion. Mike was both proud and humbled by Jeff Sweet’s enthusiastic embrace of his characters, and Mike’s family is thrilled and grateful that Jeff has kept them alive in A Change of Position.
NEW JERSEY REPERTORY COMPANY (NJRep) was founded in 1997 by SuzAnne and Gabor Barabas. Its current central headquarters is the Lumia Theater, located on lower Broadway in Long Branch. The theater's mission is to develop and produce new plays and to make a lasting contribution to the American Stage. Over two decades, NJ Rep has produced 152 plays, of which 128 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 US and overseas. In 2012 and 2018, NJ Rep received 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. In addition, the theater has presented over 400 developmental readings as well as introduced 136 new works through its Theatre Brut Short-Play Festivals that focus on visionary and avant-garde works.
NJRep acquired a new property, a 28,000 square foot school situated on 2 ½ acres and located just five minutes from its Main Stage Lumia Theater and two blocks from the Jersey Shore. The theater plans on gradually transforming the school in stages into a cultural center that will house additional performance spaces, an art cinema, an art museum, a rooftop café, an arts education wing, and residences for out-of-town actors and playwrights. When completed, the center will present a wide array of programs in acting, playwriting, art, sculpture, poetry, music, and photography and will serve as a catalyst for economic development and as the foundation for the cultural renaissance of the community.
NJ Rep thanks the following for their support: Shubert Foundation, Stone Foundation of New Jersey, Community Foundation of New Jersey and New Jersey State Council in the Arts.
