New Jersey Stage published its 25,000th story in December 2021. As the site approached the milestone, we posed the question on social media as how we should celebrate.  One response was to highlight our favorite stories from over the years.  We liked this idea, but could not narrow things down to just 25 favorites so we will present a favorite each day from different genres.  Every Tuesday we feature one of our favorite stories in theatre.  We've been fortunate to see a lot of wonderful theatre in the Garden State. This week's choice is an interview with Vincent Delaney, the playwright behind Las Cruces - one of the most interesting plays we've seen over the years.

The feature was published on August 20, 2016 and is available here. The play is about an unlikely friendship between a stranger hiding out in the New Mexico desert, and a young poker player named Soledad.  In the interview we talk about the inspiration behind the play, how involved the playwright gets with his shows as they are being developed, and his favorite contemporary playwrights. Las Cruces was the winner of the 2016 Premiere Stages Play Festival and received a full production by Premiere Stages at Kean University later that year.

Our review of Las Cruces can be found here. It was our first time visiting Premiere Stages at Kean University, which is now one of our favorite theatres.