(WEST ORANGE, NJ) -- Luna Stage is honored to announce a Black Community Performance of Queen of the Night by travis tate on Sunday May 19, 2024 at 3:00pm, to be followed by a conversation with the playwright. The special afternoon performance is focused on celebrating and amplifying Black voices and access to Black theatre for all audiences. The performance will be followed by a conversation with playwright travis tate.

Billed as “a story of queerness, Blackness, masculinity and the challenges of camping with family,” Queen of the Night is an honest, funny, heartwarming play exploring themes of family, history, and reconciliation. The play runs Thursdays-Sundays May 16-June 9 on Luna’s MainStage.

tate (they/them) is a queer playwright, poet, and performer living in Brooklyn. Their poems have been published in Southern Humanities Review, Vassar Review, The Boiler, among other publications. Their first collection of poetry, Maiden, was published in June 2020 by VA Press. Their first collection of short stories, UNTENABLE MYSTIC CHARM, will be published by Stanchion Book Press in early 2024. Their plays have been produced by Dorset Theatre Festival, Victory Gardens, Theatre East and Breaking The Binary Theatre Festival. They earned their MFA in playwriting and poetry from Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin.

Save $10 with code BLKCOM off full-price tickets (regularly $40.) Luna’s sliding scale ticket options will also be available.

As Luna Stage describes the production, “Ty would prefer to go ‘glamping’ but his father has taken him to the middle of the woods. The night before Ty’s mom remarries, the two men fight bears, their past, and one another in playwright travis tate’s exploration of masculinity and queerness through the lens of multi-generational Blackness.”

Queen of the Night plays Thursdays at 7:30pm, Fridays at 8:00pm, Saturdays at 8:00pm, and Sundays at 3:00pm, with an additional matinee on Thursday, May 23 at 1:00pm. Tickets are $10-$40 and available for purchase online.

Luna Stage is a professional regional theatre dedicated to developing and producing vibrant plays about local and global experiences. Firmly rooted in New Jersey's Valley Arts District – a crossroads of cultures – Luna brings its communities together for artistic events that spark conversations and create understanding and change.

Luna received the JerseyArts People's Choice Award for Favorite Small Theatre in New Jersey and has contributed to the development of over 100 new works for the stage, many of which premiered at Luna and have gone on to be produced in New York, regionally, and internationally.

As producer, innovator, and educator, Luna is dedicated to eliminating barriers to participation and allowing all community members to nurture their own creativity and vision. Luna offers classes for children and adults, as well as opportunities for early-career and established theatre artists to develop and incubate new work.

All programs at Luna are pay-what-you-choose to support equity and access to professional arts experiences in our region.