MAKE BELIEVE
A World Premiere by JOHN BIGUENET
Directed by SUZANNE BARABAS
WHEN: February 13 to March 9, 2025, and will celebrate its opening on February 15, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:00 PM, with additional matinees on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays at 2 PM.
WHERE: New Jersey Repertory Company, 179 Broadway, Long Branch, NJ
For tickets and more information: Visit njrep.org or contact the NJRep Box Office at (732) 229-3166.
Marking the start of another extraordinary season dedicated to new voices and compelling stories, New Jersey Repertory Company (NJRep) proudly launches its 28th season of groundbreaking world premieres with Make Believe by acclaimed playwright John Biguenet, directed by NJ Rep’s Artistic Director SuzAnne Barabas. T
Make Believe is a nostalgic, haunting look back at the world of 1930's
Hollywood, where larger-than-life movie stars went to great lengths to keep
their secrets from coming to light. Starring Quentin Chisholm
(NJRep’s The Bookstore. Film: BORN2LOSE, West) and Éilis
Cahill (The Road to Jerusalem. British indie film Mind-set)
as Eleanor and Bailey as two lost souls who are thrown together to create a
fantastical scenario that could only be dreamed up in Hollywood, the land of
dreams.
The creative team includes set design by Jessica Parks, lighting design
by Jill Nagle, technical direction by Brian Snyder, costume
design by Patricia E. Doherty, and sound design by Nick Simone.
John Biguenet, author of Broomstick,
Rising Water, and numerous other works, brings his unique storytelling
to NJ Rep once again. His accolades include the O. Henry Award, Harper’s
Magazine Writing Award, and recognition in The Best American Short Stories.
Biguenet’s works have been celebrated across the U.S. and internationally,
solidifying his reputation as a master playwright and storyteller.
The production is helmed
by SuzAnne Barabas, whose extensive directing credits at NJ Rep include The
Housewives of Mannheim, Broomstick, The Adjustment, and more.
A dedicated advocate for new works, Barabas brings her visionary direction to Make
Believe, ensuring a season opener that audiences won’t forget.
Join us as NJ Rep continues its tradition of championing original works and cultivating new theatrical voices.
JOHN BIGUENET (Playwright) John Biguenet has published ten books, including Oyster:
A Novel, The Torturer’s Apprentice: Stories, and Silence, a
nonfiction study on the nature of silence, as well as Foreign Fictions,
two volumes on literary translation, and Strange Harbors, an
anthology of international literature in translation, and other books.
Biguenet’s radio play Wundmale, which premiered on Westdeutscher
Rundfunk, Germany’s largest radio network, was rebroadcast by Österreichischer
Rundfunk, the Austrian national radio and television network. Two of his
stories have been featured in Selected Shorts at Symphony
Space on Broadway. The Vulgar Soul won the 2004 Southern New
Plays Festival and was a featured production in 2005 at Southern Rep Theatre;
he and the play were profiled in American Theatre magazine. Named
its first guest columnist by The New York Times, Biguenet
chronicled in both columns and videos his return to New Orleans after its
catastrophic flooding in 2005 and the efforts to rebuild the city. Rising
Water, set in an attic on the first night of the flood, was the winner
of the 2006 National New Play Network Commission Award, a 2006 National
Showcase of New Plays selection, and a 2007 recipient of an Access to Artistic
Excellence development and production grant from the National Endowment for the
Arts as well as the 2008 Big Easy Theatre Award for Best Original Play; it has
had numerous productions in the U.S. and abroad. Shotgun, the
second play in his Rising Water cycle, premiered in 2009 at
Southern Rep Theatre; it won a 2009 National New Play Network Continued Life of
New Plays Fund Award and was a 2009 recipient of an Access to Artistic
Excellence development and production grant from the National Endowment for the
Arts. As part of the play’s NNPN Rolling World Premiere, productions were
mounted in 2010 at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater and Florida Studio Theatre. His books and plays have been
translated into a dozen languages.
SUZANNE BARABAS (Director) Most recently, SuzAnne directed the world premiere of Pen Pals
in NYC and NJ with a rotating cast that includes Catherine Curtin, Sharon
Lawrence, Nia Vardalos, Mary Beth Peil, Kate Burton, Pauletta Washington, Nancy
McKeon and Johanna Day. Also in NYC at 59E59 Theaters the NY premiere of What
Doesn't Kill You by James Hindman. For NJ Rep, SuzAnne directed the world
premiere of The Two Hander (with Jill Eikenberry and Ella
Dershowitz), Find Me a Voice (premiere), 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,(U.S. premiere),The Housewives of Mannheim (premiere), Evie’s
Waltz, Dead Ringer (premiere), Steven Dietz’s Yankee Tavern,
Puma (premiere), Night Train (premiere), Hummingbirds, Just
In Time: The Judy Holliday Story, Bakersfield Mist, Annapurna, Happy,
Broomstick (premiere), Lucky Me (premiere), Swimming
at the Ritz (U.S. premiere), and The Realization of Emily
Linder (premiere). She is a member of Actors Equity Association, BMI, the Dramatists
Guild, and SDC.
QUENTIN
CHISHOLM (he/him).
Select acting credits include: Theatre – The Bookstore (NJ Rep); Almost, Maine
(HB Playwrights Theatre); Bulrusher (Dartmouth College), Faith, Hope and
Charity (Dartmouth College); TV/Film – BORN2LOSE (dir. Carlos Cardona); West
(dir. Micah Stuart); The Sound the Sea Makes (dir. Maria Paula Quesada);
Keepsake (dir. Rachel Patrice). Quentin has studied acting at Terry
Knickerbocker Studio, HB Studio, Stella Adler Studio of Acting, and Atlantic
Acting School. He received his B.A. from Dartmouth College, where he was also a
Division-1 soccer player.
ÉILIS CAHILL appeared in the world premiere of The Road to
Jerusalem by Nicky Glossman and originated the role of Carmen in Safe
Home at Shadowland Stages. She stars in the British indie film Mind-set
directed by Mikey Murray, and an upcoming short film called Albert's Flower,
directed by James Glossman.
COMING SOON to NJ REP
Can't Run, Can't Dance
A World Premiere Comedy by Gregg Henry
Directed by Lisa James
July 17 - August 10, 2025
Four small-time grifters meet at an isolated cabin in Washington State to pull off a heist that has all the earmarks of a disaster-in-the-making.
How My Grandparents Fell in Love
A World Premiere Musical
by Neil Berg and Cary Gitter
Directed by SuzAnne Barabas
September 11 - October 5, 2025
In
1933 Charlie, a Polish-born Jew who emigrated to America a decade earlier,
returns to his hometown of Rovno in search of a bride. There Charlie meets
Chava, and is immediately smitten with her. However, the reluctant bride-to-be
is a modern woman who is more interested in education and becoming a scholar
than in becoming a housewife.
The Drop-Off
A World Premiere Comic-Drama
by James Anthony Tyler
October 30 - November 23, 2025
Allain
has the painful responsibility of dropping off her stubborn, elderly mother,
Delphina, at the Deer Lakes Assisted Living Facility in Las Vegas. When
Delphina refuses to stay, mother and daughter must grapple with the issues that
led them both to Deer Lakes in the first place.
Plays and dates subject to change
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.
NJ Rep thanks the following for their support: The Community Foundation of New Jersey, New Jersey State Council on the Arts, The Shubert Foundation and The Stone Foundation of New Jersey.
