| NY Premiere: JOHANNA DAY and NANCY McKEON to star in MICHAEL GRIFFO’s PEN PALS - Beginning December 5 | |
| Last Edit: Official_Press_Release 12:32 pm EDT 10/23/24 | |
| Posted by: Official_Press_Release 12:31 pm EDT 10/23/24 | |
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| JOHANNA DAY and NANCY McKEON To Star in MICHAEL GRIFFO's PEN PALS Directed by SUZANNE BARBARA With a Special Partnership with Susan G. Komen® It Will Begin Performances on December 5, 2024 Opening night will be December 11, 2024 At St. Clement's Theatre (New York, NY) – In recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the producers of Pen Pals, the poignant and captivating new play by Michael Griffo, are excited to announce its New York City debut at The Theatre at St. Clement's. After its overwhelmingly positive response from its sold-out run at New Jersey Repertory Company, this presentation will feature Two-Time Tony Nominee Johanna Day (How I Learned to Drive, Sweat) and Nancy McKeon ("Facts of Life"); Pen Pals tells the extraordinary story of two women who forge an unbreakable bond over five decades—entirely through letters. Directed by SuzAnne Barabas, the production will begin performances on December 5, 2024, with its official opening night on December 11, 2024, and will run through December 22, 2024. Inspired by a true story, Pen Pals, follows Bernie, played by Nancy McKeon ("Facts of Life"), and Mags (two-time Tony Award-nominee Johanna Day) live in two different countries, they've never met, and yet they're best friends. Because they've been pen pals for over fifty years. Since they were teenagers, they've shared every aspect of their lives with each other. The trivial bits, the most intimate details, all the happiness, all the heartache. They've told each other things they wouldn't dare tell another soul. Even though Bernie lives in New Jersey and Mags is from England, the women are closer to each other than anyone else in the world. After a sold-out run at NJ Rep, critics have called Pen Pals "Utterly absorbing, packing an emotional punch . So intense you feel like you're watching a story unfold in real time." "I cannot more strongly encourage you to see the story of two Pen Pals." Out in NJ. The play's universal themes of connection, resilience, and friendship resonate deeply with audiences of all backgrounds. "It is an honor to be producing PEN PALS, a show that celebrates the extraordinary in the everyday lives of women by demonstrating the strength of friendship and female empowerment. We are thrilled for audiences to experience this beautiful show and see a piece of their own humanity in the story of Bernie and Mags." - Lead Producer, Lisa Dozier Shacket. Pen Pals is proud to partner with Susan G. Komen® for the Off-Broadway production and will donate 5% of the total ticket sales and 100% of all customer donations collected to Susan G. Komen®, whose mission is to save lives by meeting the most critical needs in our communities and investing in breakthrough research to prevent and cure breast cancer. For more information, please contact Susan G. Komen® at 13770 Noel Road, Suite 801889, Dallas, Texas 75380 or visit www.komen.org . The creative team includes Jessica Parks (set designer), David C. Woolard (costume designer), Jill Nagle (lighting designer), and Nick Simone (sound designer), with Rose Riccardi as the production stage manager. Pen Pals is general managed by LDK Productions/ Michael Shannon. Produced by Lisa Dozier Shacket with Anthony Hazzard and Scott Stolzenberg in association with NJ Repertory Company. Logan DeWitt is associate producer. Pen Pals begins performances on December 5 at 7 PM (special first preview curtain time) and will open on December 11, running through December 22, 2024. The show plays Monday at 7 PM, Thursday at 5 PM & 8 PM, Friday at 7 PM, Saturday at 2 PM & 8 PM, and Sunday at 3 PM (ADDED SHOW Wednesday, Dec 18 at 7 PM) at St. Clement's Theatre, located at 423 West 46th St, New York, NY. Tickets are $35 - $125 and can be purchased by visiting www.PenPalsPlay.com Bios JOHANNA DAY Broadway: How I Learned to Drive , The Nap , Sweat (Tony Nomination), You Can't Take It With You , August: Osage County , Lombardi , Proof (Tony Nomination). Theatre: Scene Partners (Vineyard), Floyd's (Guthrie), Peace for Mary Francis (New Group), Peter and Jerry (Second Stage – Drama Desk Nomination), Appropriate (Signature – Obie Award, The Lilly Award), Poor Behavior (Mark Taper), Realistic Joneses (Yale), Choice (Huntington), The Rainmaker (Arena Stage – Helen Hayes Award), How I Learned to Drive (Vineyard). Television: "Bull," "The Good Fight," "Madam Secretary" (5 Years Recurring), "For Life," "New Amsterdam," "The Blacklist," "Escape at Dannemora," "The Knick," "The Americans," and "Masters of Sex." Film: Worth , The Post , Great Gilley Hopkins , How Far She Went , and The Breatharian . NANCY McKEON is an actress, director, and producer best known for playing Jo Polniaczek on the beloved long-running 1980s sitcom The Facts of Life . She starred in and produced the sitcom Can't Hurry Love and starred alongside Jean Smart in Style & Substance . McKeon portrayed Inspector Jinny Exstead on the Lifetime police drama The Division from 2001 to 2004, directing two episodes. She starred in numerous made-for-TV movies in the 1980s and 1990s, including A Cry for Help: The Tracey Thurman Story (as Tracey Thurman), Firefighter (portraying the first female firefighter in Los Angeles County), Strange Voices (as a woman with schizophrenia), and Love, Honor and Obey: The Last Mafia Marriage (a mini-series with Eric Roberts). She produced many of these movies through her film company, Forest Hills Entertainment. In 1999, McKeon wrote and directed her short film, A Wakening, which won two film festival awards. MICHAEL GRIFFO (Playwright ) has written over 20 plays, including 9th Street Water, The Date, Klaxson '77, and No More Sundays – winner of the New Jersey Perry Award for Best Original Play. Can Dina Even Spell Afghanistan? was a finalist for the Reva Shiner Comedy Award, and Cloudy and 5G/10B were both published in Smith & Kraus's 2005: The Best 10-Minute Plays for Two Actors. His high school plays – Material Girls and Promapocalypse! – are licensed by Theatrical Rights Worldwide. He has published 15 novels with Kensington Books, including Between Boyfriends, The Archangel Academy Trilogy, The Darkborn Legacy Series, and The Ferrara Family Mystery Series. His new mystery series launched in September 2023 with the publication of Murder in an Italian Village , followed by Murder in an Italian Café, published in September 2024. His screenplays include The Silver Reindeer, The Christmas Swap, and Holiday High School Reunion. For more information, visit www.michaelgriffo.com. SUZANNE BARABAS (Director) is teh Artistic Director of New Jersey Rep. For NJ Rep, SuzAnne directed Two-Hander (premiere), Find Me a Voice, North Fork (premiere), Immortal Interlude (premiere), Octet (premiere), Till Morning Comes (premiere), Maggie Rose, Getting in Touch With My Inner B*tch (starring Christine Lavin, premiere), The Adjustment, 10% of Molly Snyder, Romulus Linney's Klonsky & Schwartz, Apostasy (premiere), Women Who Steal, Apple, The Housewives of Mannheim (premiere), Evie's Waltz, Dead Ringer (premiere), Steven Dietz's Yankee Tavern, Puma (premiere), Night Train (premiere), Just In Time: The Judy Holliday Story, Bakersfield Mist, Annapurna, Happy, Broomstick (premiere), Lucky Me (premiere), Swimming at the Ritz (US premiere), and The Realization of Emily Linder (premiere). SuzAnne directed productions of The Housewives of Mannheim at 59E59 Theater (NYC), Ensemble Theater of Santa Barbara (CA), and Phoenix Theater (Indianapolis). In addition, she directed regional productions of Ibsen's A Doll's House, The Fantasticks, The Roar of the Greasepaint the Smell of the Crowd, Cabaret, Shaw's Heartbreak House, A.R. Gurney's The Perfect Party, Marsha Norman's 'Night Mother, Philip Barry's The Philadelphia Story, Christopher Durang's Beyond Therapy, Mark Dunn's Belles, Lee Blessing's Down the Road among others. She is a member of Actors Equity Association, BMI, the Dramatists Guild, SDC, and LPTW. LISA DOZIER SHACKET (Producer) founded LDK Productions, a NYC-based theatrical management and producing firm, in 2007. Select recent credits: Mama, I'm A Big Girl Now!, The Life and Slimes of Marc Summers, Anthony Rapp's Without You (US and Japan) , Tennessee Williams's The Night of the Iguana , White Rose the Musical, Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground, Little Girl Blue, Katsura Sunshine's Rakugo, Be More Chill (Off-Broadway, Broadway, West End), the immersive theatrical adaptation of the film Sideways, A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur, A Letter to Harvey Milk (NY and UK). Lisa was the founding producing director of the regional theatre Miami New Drama and was the general manager of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre's Festival of New Musicals for eleven years. LDKProductions.com . NEW JERSEY REPERTORY COMPANY (NJ Rep) 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 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. 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. |
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