Luna Stage Present Benefit Reading of EXPECTATIONS by Susan Barsky

Sometimes what you're looking for is right next door. Expectations is a heartwarming comedy about motherhood, widowhood and neighborhood. The reading is directed by Luna Stage founder and former Artistic Director Jane Mandel and also features Cynthia Fernandez who returns to Luna after her critically acclaimed starring role in the company's 2014 revival of Marisol by Jose Rivera.

Olympia Dukakis is a star of Broadway and Off-Broadway. She is an Academy Award winner for her performance in Moonstruck, a role that also earned her a Golden Globe Award, American Comedy Award, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress. She has appeared in more than 60 feature and short films, and performed in over 130 productions On and Off-Broadway and at regional theatres across the country. She is a founding member and was Producing Artistic Director of the Whole Theatre in Montclair, NJ for 19 years. She continues to teach acting at NYU and teach master classes for professional theatre companies, colleges, and universities across the country. She has received Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Greek America Foundation and the Elliot Norton Awards, was bestowed the National Arts Club Medal of Honor and her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was placed in 2013.

Kim Zimmer is best known for her portrayal of Reva Shayne on Guiding Light where she received four Lead Actress Emmy Awards along with eleven nominations. Kim recently wrapped up her record-breaking tour with the First National Company of Wicked. Other television credits include Seinfeld, Designing Women, Models, Inc., MacGyver, One Life To Live, The Doctors and Santa Barbara. Film credits include 23 Blast, Body Heat, Freshmen Father, Keeping Secrets and Trench Coat In Paradise. Zimmer's experience in Daytime T.V. spans 32 years and is chronicled in her best selling memoir "I'm Just Saying!"

Playwright Susan Barsky's work has been produced at Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival, Queens Theatre in the Park, Stamford Center for the Arts, Helen Hayes Performing Arts Theatre, the Cape Playhouse, Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Chatham Playhouse, The Theater Project, and others. She received a 2005 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts for her play Owed to My First Love which was produced at the Stamford Fringe Festival and Premiere Stages Play Festival. Her play CRAP was the first-prize winner of Perishable Theatre's One-Act Playwriting Festival and was a finalist at Love Creek's One-Act Festival. Susan studied with playwriting master, Milan Stitt, and is a member of The Dramatists Guild.

Luna Stage is a small but mighty professional theatre company located in Essex County, NJ, just under 15 miles from New York City. Throughout the past 24 years, the company has earned a national reputation for developing and producing outstanding new plays and timely revivals and for taking on challenging and provocative subject matters in their work.

A proud member of Valley Arts, Luna Stage is located at 555 Valley Road, West Orange, NJ 07052. The theatre is handicapped accessible and offers assistive listening devices.

Monday December 5th, at 7:30 pm. Luna Stage 555 Valley Road West Orange, NJ.
All Tickets $50. All proceed go to support Luna Stage, a professional theatre dedicated to developing new works for the stage. Tickets at lunastage.org or 973-395-5551.

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