Casting annoucement: actors from Premiere Stages & Kean University

You're getting a sense of the plays that will premiere at the NJ Young Playwrights Festival next week, but who will you see perform? We bring together actors from a variety of locations, but try to hire as many New Jersey-based artists as we can. Some of what helps in this goal is our production partnership with Premiere Stages @ Kean University. Premiere not only helps provide the location for the Festival, but also connections to the talent pool within the Kean University Department of Theatre. We've been fortunate to cultivate relationships with a number of great actors from the university and continue to do so with recent graduates.

Timothy Regan (Class of 2008) has the longest tenure of our current group of Kean actors having performed with us in a number of young playwrights festivals and in-school assemblies of student written work. Tim has traveled extensively with ArtsPower National Touring Theatre and was most recently seen in Our Town at George Street Playhouse. This week makes his fourth appearance in the NJ Young Playwrights Festival!


Cara Ganski (Class of 2014) first performed in the NJ Young Playwrights Festival in 2012 making her three year tenure with the program the second longest on record. Cara has performed in the Premiere Stages productions of Farragut North and A Beautiful Dark in addition to a variety of roles in Kean University productions. Additionally, Cara is a teaching artist, Disney princess impersonator, and has evaluated script submissions for the NJYPF contest. See what else she is up to on her website at www.caraganski.com.

Kelley McAndrews (Class of 2014) appeared on the Kean stage in roles from Penny Pingleton in Hairspray to Lady Macbeth! (You can see video of these performances and more on her website at http://kelleymcandrews31.wix.com/kelleymcandrews). Kelley first performed with Playwrights Theatre in our local program the Madison Young Playwrights Festival and we're thrilled to have her back again for NJYPF!

Daniel Pellicano (Class of 2013) is no stranger to Playwrights Theatre having performed in a reading of Another Spring by Yasmine Beverly Rana this past April. He received great mentions (NY Times and Talkin' Broadway) for his performance in Premiere Stage's 2013 production of A Beautiful Dark in which he performed with Dana Benningfield (who will also join the Festival cast this year); Daniel also performed as Macbeth opposite Kelley McAndrew during his senior year at Kean.

You can see all four actors in readings of plays by Junior HS and Elementary students at the Festival on Monday, June 2 and in the staged reading of High School plays on Tuesday, June 3. We look forward to seeing you there!