Following 2013’s Belleville, named one of the best plays of the year by the New York Times, Pulitzer Prize finalist Amy Herzog and two-time Obie-winning director Anne Kauffman return to New York Theatre Workshop with MARY JANE. During a rain-drenched summer in New York City, an indefatigable single mother navigates the mundane, shattering and sublime aspects of caring for a chronically sick child.
MARY JANE is produced in association with Yale Repertory Theatre where it was commissioned and received its world premiere in April 2017.

Perhaps one mark of a great play is that it transforms not only the audience, but its actors as well. Only a few months after its world premiere at Yale Rep, Mary Jane, a collaboration between playwright Amy Herzog and director Anne Kauffman, settles in at New York Theatre Workshop to reprise the story of a single mother caring for a chronically ill, special needs child. Carrie Coon takes over the titular role, conveying Mary Jane’s unflagging spirit — one that astounds, confounds, and inspires those around her, and, as she searches for meaning in her son’s suffering, helps her transcend boundaries of class, culture, and religion. Like the rest of the play’s all-female cast, aside from Coon, Susan Pourfar tackles two different roles — Brianne, a new mom Mary Jane coaches on the challenges and bureaucratic loopholes of raising a child with special needs, and Chaya, an Orthodox Jew with a special needs child of her own whom Mary Jane meets in the hospital. The actress, who has made a name for herself in theater (Tribes, Women or Nothing), film (Manchester By the Sea, Irrational Man), and television (Scandal, House of Cards), reflected on the powerful, unexpected ways embodying these …Read more