Queens Tickets

By: Martyna Majok
Director: Trip Cullman
Producer: Manhattan Theatre Club
Cast list: Brooke Bloom (as Pelagiya), Anna Chlumsky (as Agata), Sharlene Cruz (as Glenys), Marin Ireland (as Renia), Julia Lester (as Inna), Nadine Malouf (as Aamani), Andrea Syglowski (as Lera), Nicole Villamil (as Isabela)

As with Cost of Living and Sanctuary City, Martyna Majok has a knack for exposing realities not often seen on stage. Championing characters from marginalized backgrounds, Majok is a wise, empathetic, and diligent storyteller.

Now, she brings heart and smarts to Queens, a story about multiple generations of immigrant women. Living in a basement apartment, they fight to launch a new life. But when a young Ukrainian woman comes searching for the mother who abandoned her years ago, she forces a reckoning with the impossible choices the women made to survive.

With an ear for sharp dialogue and a desire to spotlight unsung New Yorkers' lives, Queens chronicles the strivers who sacrificed whole worlds for the chance at something remarkable. What does it mean to leave your home and find one, and a family, somewhere else? Never interested in clean answers, Majok instead explores the singular grey areas that make us human.

What to watch for

• Martyna Majok wrote the book to the musical Gatsby: An American Myth at A.R.T.
• Cost of Living was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play.
• MTC has won multiple Pulitzer Prizes, including for Proof and Doubt, over its decades as a leading off-Broadway theatre.
• Lynne Meadow recently announced that she would step down as artistic director after leading Manhattan Theatre Club for over 50 years.