Photo Flash: First Look at QUEENS At La Jolla Playhouse

By: A.A. Cristi Jul. 09, 2018

La Jolla Playhouse announces the cast and creative team for its west coast premiere production of QUEENS, by Martyna Majok, winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Cost of Living. Directed by Carey Perloff(Playhouse's The Orphan of Zhao), the show runs July 3 - 29 in the Playhouse's Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre.

The cast features Jolly Abraham (Off-Broadway's Cost of Living) as "Aamani/Yara," Leslie Fray (TV's Elementary) as "Pelagiya/Dragana," Rae Gray(TV'sFear the Walking Dead) as "Inna/Tanya," Brenda Meaney (Off-Broadway's Party Face) as "Renia," Melissa Miller (Roundabout Theatre's Tartuffe) as "Agata" and Xochitl Romero (Playhouse's Kill Local) as "Isabela/Glenys."

The creative team includes David Israel Reynoso (Playhouse's Healing Wars, Waking La Llorona), Scenic Designer; Denitsa Bliznakova (Playhouse'sThe Cake), Costume Designer; Lap Chi Chu (Playhouse's At the Old Place, Ruined), Lighting Designer; Mark Bennett(Playhouse's Junk, An Iliad), Sound Designer/Composer; Shirley Fishman, Dramaturg; and Katrina Herrmann, Stage Manager.

"We are deeply honored to host this exquisite new play by Martyna Majok, fresh off winning the Pulitzer Prize," said Playhouse Artistic DirectorChristopher Ashley. "Searing, powerful and compassionate, QUEENS explores the contemporary immigrant experience and the cost of leaving behind a life in one country for the tenuous promise of something better in another."

In 2017, a young immigrant arrives at a tenement in Queens, New York. She is met by her new landlord, who stood on the same doorstep 16 years earlier. As they get to know one another, the old brownstone reverberates with the voices of the fierce and proud women who preceded them. Hailed by The New York Times as "thrilling...delivering emotion and surprise with empathy and wit," this timely piece is a moving study of the things we run from and toward, and the people who shepherd us along the way.

Photo Credit: Jim Carmody.