Marjorie Prime
- Written by Jordan Harrison
- Directed by Anne Kauffman
Jordan Harrison was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for Marjorie Prime, which had its New York premiere at Playwrights Horizons after premiering at the Mark Taper Forum. Other plays include Maple and Vine, Log Cabin, and Doris to Darlene (all at Playwrights Horizons), The Amateurs (Vineyard Theatre), The Grown-Up (Humana Festival), Amazons and their Men (Clubbed Thumb), Futura (NAATCO), Act a Lady (Humana Festival), and Finn in the Underworld (Berkeley Rep). He is the recipient of the Horton Foote Prize, the Kesselring Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. TV: Three seasons as writer-producer on the Netflix series “Orange is the New Black,” as well as Netflix’s “GLOW” and AMC’s “Dispatches from Elsewhere.” A print collection of Jordan’s work, Maple and Vine & Other Plays, will be published later this year by TCG.
Anne Kauffman (Directing Consultant) New York Philharmonic, BAM, Ars Nova, NYTW, Roundabout Theatre Company, Encores! Off-Center, Women’s Project, Playwrights Horizons, MCC, The Public, P73 Productions, New Georges, Vineyard Theater, LCT3, Yale Rep, Steppenwolf, Goodman Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Z Space, American Conservatory Theater and Berkeley Rep. She is a Resident Director at Roundabout Theater, Artistic Associate and Founding Member of The Civilians, a Clubbed Thumb Associate Artist and co-creator of the CT Directing Fellowship, a New Georges Associate Artist, an SDC Executive Board Member, Vice President and Trustee of SDCF 2020-2023 and Artistic Director of City Center’s Encores! Off-Center 2017-2020. Kauffman’s awards include a 2024 Tony nomination for Best Director for MARY JANE, a 2023 Tony nomination for Best Revival for THE SIGN IN SIDNEY BRUSTEIN’S WINDOW, three Obies, the Joan and Joseph Cullman Award for Exceptional Creativity from Lincoln Center, the Alan Schneider Director Award, a Lucille Lortel Award, a Drama League award and the Joe A. Callaway. Co-creator of the Cast Album Project with Jeanine Tesori.
2015 Pulitzer Prize Finalist for Drama
It’s the age of artificial intelligence, and 85-year-old Marjorie — a jumble of disparate, fading memories — has a handsome new companion who’s programmed to feed the story of her life back to her. What would we remember, and what would we forget, if given the chance? In this richly spare, wondrous new play, Jordan Harrison explores the mysteries of human identity and the limits — if any — of what technology can replace.
Featuring
Noah Bean
Walter
Lisa Emery
Tess
Stephen Root
Jon
Lois Smith
Marjorie
Playwrights Horizons debut. Off-Broadway: One Arm, The Rise and Fall of Annie Hall, Yellowface, Voyage of the Carcass, Mary Rose. Television: “12 Monkeys,” “Nikita,” “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” “Medium,” “Damages,” “Numbers,” “Joan of Arcadia,” “Ed.” Regional work includes Bus Stop at Huntington Theater, for which he earned Eliot Norton and IRNE nominations for Best Lead Actor.
Playwrights: Marvin’s Room, The Monogamist, Marjorie Prime, For Peter Pan on her 70th birthday. Broadway: Six Degrees of Separation, Casa Valentina, The Women, Jackie, Burn This, others. Other Off-Broadway: A Funny Thing Happened… (MCC), A Kind of Alaska (Atlantic), Iron (MTC), and more. Recipient: Obie Award. Nominee: Lortel, Drama Desk. Film: Admissions, The Night Listener, Unfaithful. TV: “Louie,” “Damages,” Law & Orders,” “Jessica Jones” (Netflix). Currently on “Ozark” (Netflix).
(Updated 8/20/18)
Playwrights Horizons debut. Broadway: All My Sons (1987). Film: Office Space; No Country for Old Men; O Brother, Where Art Thou?; Ladykillers; Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story; Jersey Girl; Ghost; Finding Nemo. TV: “Newsroom,” “Boardwalk Empire,” “The Good Wife,” “Raising Hope,” “Justified,” “Outlaw County,” “24,” “Pushing Daisies,” “True Blood,” “The West Wing,” “NewsRadio,” “Seinfeld,” “Frasier,” “From the Earth to the Moon.”
Playwrights: Jordan Harrison’s Marjorie Prime, Amy Herzog’s After the Revolution, Kate Fodor’s 100 Saints You Should Know. Other favorites: Broadway, Tennessee Williams’ Orpheus Descending, and The Grapes of Wrath and Sam Shepard’s Buried Child (both from Steppenwolf); Off-Broadway, Horton Foote’s The Trip to the Bountiful and The Old Friends, Tony Kushner’s The Illusion, Sam Shepard’s Heartless, Annie Baker’s John (Signature) and Lily Thorne’s Peace for Mary Frances (New Group). Recent films: Marjorie Prime, Lady Bird.
(Updated 8/20/18)
Creative Team
Laura Jellinek
Scenic DesignerJessica Pabst
Costume DesignerBen Stanton
Lighting DesignerDaniel Kluger
Sound DesignerErin Gioia Albrecht
Production Stage ManagerPlaywrights Horizons: The Light Years, A Life (Lortel Award, Drama Desk nomination), Marjorie Prime, Your Mother’s Copy… Broadway: Marvin’s Room. Other Off-Broadway: The Antipodes, Everybody (Signature); The Nether (MCC, Lortel nomination); Buzzer (The Public); The Wolves (Playwrights Realm). Regional: Yale Rep, Bard Summerscape, Cincinnati Playhouse, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Williamstown, Southcoast Rep. Opera: Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Atlanta Opera. Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in Design.
Recent theatre design projects: LITTLE BEAR RIDGE ROAD by Samuel D. Hunter directed by Joe Mantello and starring Laurie Metcalf; INHERIT THE WIND by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, directed by Henry Godinez, at the Goodman’s Albert Theatre. THE COST OF LIVING by Martyna Majok, directed by Jo Bonney on Broadway at the Samuel Friedman Theatre; Other Broadway credits include The Roundabout Theatre Company's revival of MARVIN'S ROOM by Scott McPherson directed by Anne Kauffman starring Lili Taylor, Celia Weston, and Janeane Garofalo and THE HEIDI CHRONICLES by Wendy Wasserstein, directed by Pam MacKinnon starring Elisabeth Moss, Jason Biggs, and Bryce Pinkham.
Ben is a lighting designer for theater, concerts, dance, installations, and events. He is a five-time Tony Award nominee as well as an Obie, Lortel, IRNE, and Ovation Award winner. Ben is currently represented on Broadway by Maybe Happy Ending at the Belasco Theater. Recent Broadway credits include The Notebook at the Schoenfeld Theater; Mary Jane starring Rachel McAdams; Days of Wine and Roses Starring Kelli O'Hara & Brian Darcy James; Goodnight, Oscar starring Sean Hayes; The Collaboration Starring Paul Bettany & Jeremy Pope; Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol Featuring Jefferson Mays; The Rose Tattoo starring Marisa Tomei; Derren Brown: SECRET at the James Earl Jones Theater; Regina Spektor: Live On Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater; Ayad Akhtar’s JUNK at the Vivian Beaumont; Six Degrees of Separation starring Allison Janney, Corey Hawkins, and John Benjamin Hickey; Deaf West Theater’s Spring Awakening at the Lena Horne Theater; Fully Committed starring Jesse Tyler Ferguson; and Fun Home (Broadway, Off-Broadway, 1st National Tour, London).
Daniel Kluger is a composer, music producer, orchestrator and sound designer.
Known for his Tony, Grammy and Olivier nominated bluegrass orchestrations of the Broadway revival of OKLAHOMA!, Kluger’s musical work spans a range from electronic dance music, to neoclassical chamber composition, jazz and atmospheric synth soundscapes. He has created original scores for dozens of award-winning theater projects, films and podcasts.
Playwrights Horizons: Bella, A Life, Men On Boats, Marjorie Prime, The Christians. Broadway: Bullets Over Broadway, Matilda, Bronx Bombers, Hands on a Hardbody. Other Off-Broadway: Charm, Punk Rock, The Village Bike, The Third Story (MCC); Sundown, Yellow Moon (Ars Nova/WP Theater); Red Speedo (NYTW); Abundance (TACT); Venice (The Public); Bronx Bombers (Primary Stages). Regional: multiple productions at The Old Globe and La Jolla Playhouse, most recently the development of John Leguizamo’s Latin History for Morons. MFA: UC San Diego.
Jordan Harrison’s elegant, thoughtful and quietly unsettling drama operates by stealth, landing skillfully targeted punch after punch, right where it hurts. It keeps developing in your head long after you’ve seen it.
This startling and profound new drama – a realistic work, and a brilliant one at that – is devastatingly rendered by the superior ensemble under Anne Kauffman’s beautifully balanced direction. See Marjorie Prime now.
