CARRIE: THE MUSICAL Comes to Centenary Stage

Centenary Stage Company’s NEXTStage Repertory will end their 2025 season with Carrie: The Musical. Performances will take place in the Sitnik Theatre of the Lackland Performing Arts Center of the Centenary University campus at 715 Grand Ave. Hackettstown, NJ. Tickets range from $25.00 - $27.50 for adults with discounted tickets for students and children on select performances. Buy One Get One Tickets are available for Thursday evening performances, only in person at the box office beginning at 5:00pm on the day of the show. For more information, or to purchase tickets, visit centenarystageco.org or call the box office at (908) 979-0900.

With book by Lawrence D. Cohen (screenwriter of the classic 1976 film), lyrics by Dean Pitchford, and music by Michael Gore, Carrie: the Musical, brings Stephen King’s novel to the stage. Carrie White is a teenage outcast who longs to fit in. At school, she's bullied by the popular crowd, and virtually invisible to everyone else. At home, she's dominated by her loving but cruelly controlling mother. What none of them know is that Carrie's just discovered she's got a special power, and if pushed too far, she's not afraid to use it. Stephen King’s 1974 debut novel Carrie sold over a million copies in its first year of publication. The classic 1976 film adaptation, directed by Brian De Palma, became a critical and box office smash, and earned two Academy Award nominations – for Sissy Spacek as Carrie and Piper Laurie as Margaret White.

The cast of Carrie: The Musical includes two casts who alternate the roles they play and includes: Katie O’Shea, Olivia Tomlin, Amanda Ackerman, Kylie Smith, Erin Clark, Luis Rodriguez, Matt Steen, Amanda Whitmore, Cody Jackson, Chris Rice, Miah Moore, Raelyn Menon, Mark Squindo, Kai Vialva, Daniel Paternina, Maximus Klevence, Madisyn Rojas, Fianna Roberts-Squier, Madison Rhine, Taylor Albrecht, Kayleigh Pitts, Aurelia Shanga, Malakii Layton, Evan Flick, Tyler McGeough, and Osaivbie Igiebor.

All cast members are Centenary University students, with additional students also making up a large portion of the creative and stage management team. These students make up the NEXTstage Repertory, CSC’s all student performance division. In addition to being a part of the NEXTstage Repertory, these students also become a part of CSC’s Professional Theatre Company. Unlike many professional theatres located on college and university campuses, Centenary students play an active and vital role in all professional productions from cast to crew, participating in all facets of production. Students are thereby provided with networking opportunities with artists who come to work with CSC throughout the year. These opportunities allow them to make important personal connections with working professionals.

Co-Directing the students in their production are Carl Wallnau and Lea Antolini-Lid, who also serve as professors in the theatre department in varying roles, and are directors and actors within CSC and regionally.