SANCTUARY CITY

Martyna Majok

directed by

Philip Lehl

Being young is hard enough without the looming fear of being deported from the only home country you’ve ever known. In this stirring tale, two undocumented friends seek to find a place for themselves in a world that threatens to tear them apart. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Martyna Majok transports us on a time-spanning journey which asks the question, what are we prepared to lose for those we love? For a future?

Special Performance Dates:

March 24 - Opening Night
April 2 - Open-Captioned
- Talkback with cast led by Dr. Robert Shimko from the University of Houston
April 10 - Pay-What-You-Will Night
April 15 - Closing Night

2022 Obie Award for Playwriting

Finalist for the 2019 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize

"Even amid poignant moments, [Majok] is able to find humor. She doesn't shy away from showing people at their messiest." - Forbes

"A work of majestic beauty that rips your heart out..." - TheaterMania

"If Martyna Majok’s talent weren’t so impressive and her subject so imperative, it would be easy to leave her in peace with her Pulitzer. But the American theatre needs her sensibility right now." - Los Angeles Times

〰️

"If Martyna Majok’s talent weren’t so impressive and her subject so imperative, it would be easy to leave her in peace with her Pulitzer. But the American theatre needs her sensibility right now." - Los Angeles Times 〰️

About the Play

Raven Justine Troup as G
Luis Quintero as B
Christian Tannous as Henry
Set | Jodi Bobrovsky
Lighting | Daniel Jones
Sound | Robert Leslie Meek
Costumes | Macy Lyne
Assistant Director | Frances Limoncelli
Stage Manager | Kalin Menzel
Dramaturg | Amy Tones
Production Manager | Chad Muska
Martyna Majok was born in Bytom, Poland and raised in Jersey and Chicago. She was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play, Cost of Living, which debuted this fall on Broadway. Other plays include Sanctuary City, Queens, and Ironbound, which have been produced across American and international stages.
Other awards include The Hull-Warriner Award, The Academy of Arts and Letters’ Benjamin Hadley Danks Award for Exceptional Playwriting, Off Broadway Alliance Best New Play Award, The Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding New Play, The Hermitage Greenfield Prize, as the first female recipient in drama, The Champions of Change Award from the NYC Mayor’s Office, The Francesca Primus Prize, two Jane Chambers Playwriting Awards, The Lanford Wilson Prize, The Lilly Award's Stacey Mindich Prize, Helen Merrill Emerging Playwright Award, Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding Original New Play from The Helen Hayes Awards, Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award, ANPF Women's Invitational Prize, David Calicchio Prize, Global Age Project Prize, NYTW 2050 Fellowship, NNPN Smith Prize for Political Playwriting, and Merage Foundation Fellowship for The American Dream. Martyna studied at Yale School of Drama, Juilliard, University of Chicago, and Jersey public schools. She was a 2012-2013 NNPN playwright-in-residence, the 2015-2016 PoNY Fellow at the Lark Play Development Center, and a 2018-2019 Hodder Fellow at Princeton University. Martyna is currently writing a musical adaptation of The Great Gatsby, with music by Florence Welch and Thomas Bartlett, and developing TV and film for Plan B, Pastel, and MRC.
Majok is pronounced My Oak, like the tree. Or like Cinco de Mayo-k.