Luna Stage to Stage East Coast Premiere of THE TALL GIRLS

Luna Stage presents the East Coast premiere of The Tall Girls by Meg Miroshnik. The Tall Girls opens to previews on Thursday October 8th, 2015 and runs Thursdays through Sundays through November 1st. Opening night is Saturday October 10th, 2015. Select performances are followed by Talkbacks with the Creative Team. Tickets range from $27-$37 dollars. Group sales available. $10 Student Rush tickets available one half-hour before curtain. Individual tickets can be purchased at lunastage.org, or at the box office Tues.-Fri. 10am-3pm (973-395-5551).

The tiny hamlet of Poor Prairie doesn't see a lot of folks coming into town - least of all men - so when one gets off the train, everybody talks, especially since he has the only inflated basketball in town. Set in the historic 1930s Dust Bowl in the rural Midwest, The Tall Girls explores class, gender, and the history of women in sports, and asks just who can afford the luxury of play.

The Tall Girls received its world premiere in 2014 at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, and was revived at the Washington Ensemble Theatre in Seattle in May of 2015. The Luna Stage production will be the East Coast Premiere of the play.

The Luna Stage production features a cast of six, including three NJ high school students. The cast includes: Vanessa Cardenas, Daisy Chase, Brigie Coughlin, Mike Mihm, Lucy Schmidt and Emily Verla. The production is directed by Luna Stage founder Jane Mandel.

Los Angeles based playwright Meg Miroshnik is the recipient of a 2012 Whiting Award, the 2011-2012 Alliance/Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Award, and was a finalist for the 2012 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Her work has been developed or produced by the La Jolla Playhouse, O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, Center Theatre Group, South Coast Rep, the McCarter Theatre Center, among others. She holds an MFA in Playwriting from the Yale School of Drama.

Director Jane Mandel founded Luna Stage and served as artistic director of the company for 20 years. She holds an MFA from New York University and has had a career in the theatre as actress, director and teacher.

Four young actresses from New Jersey are making their professional debuts in The Tall Girls: Montclair State University Junior Vanessa Cardenas, West Windsor Plainsboro High School South junior Daisy Chase, Montclair High School Junior Brigie Coughlin, and Maplewood's Columbia High School Senior Lucy Schmidt.
Rounding out the cast are Mike Mihm who has worked with the Flux Theatre Ensemble, The Lark, New Dramatists, the PTTW Festival and the Cincinnati Playhouse; and Emily Verla, a company member with Theatre East who has performed at the New York Classical Theatre, Theatre for the Heart and The Writer's Room.

Emily Verla previously appeared at Luna Stage in the 2015 world premiere of Tar Beach by Tammy Ryan. Mr. Mihm makes his Luna Stage debut with The Tall Girls.

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

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