Premiere Stages' Season Continues In September With DIVERSION

Premiere Stages at Kean University will present the New Jersey Premiere of Scott Organ's Diversion September 5-22 in Kean University's Bauer Boucher Theatre Center (Vaughn Eames Hall, 1000 Morris Avenue, Union, N.J.). Selected as the winner of the 2023 Premiere Play Festival, Diversion will feature actors Michelle Liu Coughlin, Jeaniene Green, Lucas Iverson, DeAnna Lenhart, Edie Salas Miller and Dani Nelson. John J. Wooten, producing artistic director of Premiere Stages, directs.

In Diversion, a group of devoted and hard working nurses in an ICU unit see their world turned upside down when it is discovered that someone is diverting (stealing) medicine on the unit. The nurses grow even more unsettled when a consultant shows up to investigate the diversion, effectively placing them all under a microscope. When it's finally revealed who the culprit is, the nurses must fight to save themselves and the integrity of the unit itself.

Scott Organ's plays have been performed and workshopped throughout the United States, Europe, and South America and have been commissioned by The Atlantic Theater Company and developed by theaters including The Barrow Group, The New Group, Page 73, South Coast Rep, and the Gulfshore Playhouse. His most recent play 17 Minutes was extended in its Off-Broadway run at The Barrow Group Theater and had its European premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. His play Phoenix premiered at the Humana Festival of New American Plays and was subsequently produced at The Barrow Group and through Rattlestick at Cherry Lane Theater. Scott is an alum of Page 73's Interstate 73 writer's group and a member of the Dramatists Guild.

Director John J. Wooten has been nominated as Best Director multiple times by the Newark Star-Ledger and has staged numerous productions that have been honored by the American Theatre Critics Association.  As a playwright, John's widely published work has been produced commercially in New York, internationally and in regional theatres across America. He was awarded the New Jersey Theatre Alliance Star Award in 2023 and his second fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts in 2021.

The accomplished professional cast includes Michelle Liu Coughlin, whose theatre credits include The King & I (Lincoln Center Theatre) and From Here to Eternity (Skylight Music Theatre); Jeaniene Green, whose television credits include Law & Order: SVU and New Amsterdam; Lucas Iverson, whose theatre credits include Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Yale Repertory Theatre) and Romeo & Juliet (Shakespeare Theatre of NJ); DeAnna Lenhart, whose theatre credits include 17 Minutes and The Thing with Feathers (The Barrow Group Theater); Edie Salas Miller, whose television credits include Law & Order: SVU and Dani Nelson, whose theatre credits include Heroes of the Fourth Turning (Second Thought Theatre) and Oleanna (Riverside Theatre). Understudies for the production are Kean University Theatre Conservatory alumni Riv Dabul, Brandon Luckenbaugh and Melody Stubbs.  

Diversion runs September 5-September 22 in the Bauer Boucher Theatre Center on the Kean University main campus in Union, N.J. The performance schedule is Thursdays at 7:30pm, Fridays at 8pm, Saturdays, September 7 and 14  at 3pm & 8pm, Saturday, September 21 at 3pm and Sundays at 3pm. Newly added to the schedule is a 2pm performance on Friday, September 20.

Tickets are $35 standard, $25 for senior citizens and Kean alumni and staff, $20 for patrons with disabilities and $15 for students. Tickets for the Opening Night performance on Friday, September 6 are $50 and include a post-performance dessert reception. Significant discounts for groups of ten or more apply. To purchase tickets, please call the box office at 908-737-7469 or visit Premiere Stages at premierestagesatkean.com

All Premiere Stages facilities are fully accessible spaces, and companion seating is available for patrons with disabilities. Assistive listening devices and large print programs are available at all times; publications in alternate formats are available with advance notice. Sign-interpreted and audio described performances are available by request, at least two weeks in advance. Please call 908-737-4077 or email premiere@kean.edu to request these services. For more information, please visit Premiere Stages online at premierestagesatkean.com

Premiere Stages is made possible in part through funding from W. John Bauer and Nancy Boucher, The New Jersey State Council on the Arts, The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, Carole Shaffer-Koros and Robert Koros and ExxonMobil Foundation, The Dubose and Dorothy Heyward Foundation, Blue Foundry Charitable Foundation, The Northfield Bank Foundation, The Hyde and Watson Foundation, The Union Foundation, E.J. Grassmann Trust, The New Jersey Theatre Alliance, The Union County HEART Grant and through the generous support of individual patrons and local organizations. Discover Jersey Arts is our marketing partner. Visit JerseyArts.com for more information about other arts programming happening around the Garden State.

Premiere Stages is committed to producing topical plays and interactive programs that reflect people of all ethnic and racial backgrounds, national origins, nationalities, ancestry, religious groups, gender expression or identities, sexual orientation, political beliefs, ages, abilities and disabilities.

ABOUT PREMIERE STAGES

Created in 2004, Premiere Stages is the professional Equity theatre in residence at Kean University. Through its unique partnership with Kean, Premiere's play development programs, educational initiatives, and professional development opportunities actively embrace the university's academic curriculum while expanding the scope, accessibility, and prestige of the professional programming on campus. For more information, please visit Premiere Stages online at premierestagesatkean.com

ABOUT KEAN UNIVERSITY

Kean University, New Jersey's urban research university, is a national institution of higher education recognized for its diversity, innovation and the social mobility of its graduates. Founded in 1855 as a teachers college, Kean has evolved into a thriving research university that supports students as they persist to graduation, give back to their communities and launch successful careers. Kean's six colleges offer more than 50 undergraduate programs, six doctoral degree programs and more than 70 options leading to master's degrees, professional diplomas or certifications, across a full range of academic subjects. With campuses in Union, Toms River and Manahawkin, New Jersey, and Wenzhou, China, as well as Kean Online, the University provides students of all backgrounds an affordable and accessible world-class education. Learn more at kean.edu.

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