MIDNIGHT AT THE NEW DAWN to Make World Premiere at Kelsey Theatre

Maurer Productions OnStage and the newly formed Maurer TheaterWorks have announced a special co-production partnership - in association with Kelsey Theatre - for the world premiere of Midnight at the New Dawn. The ensemble comedy, written and directed by Dan Maurer, opens October 16, 2025, and reunites an acclaimed, NJACT Perry Award-winning creative team for the first time in more than a decade.

Auditions are open to all: Saturday, June 6 and Sunday, June 7, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., with callbacks Tuesday, June 9, 6 to 9 p.m. - all at Mercer County Community College, 1200 Old Trenton Road, West Windsor, NJ. For audition details, visit https://kelsey.mccc.edu/auditions.shtml .

About the Play

The show is an intelligent, wickedly funny, warm-hearted ensemble comedy set in a New Jersey diner on New Year's Eve. Four couples arrive at the New Dawn Diner at relationship crossroads - with only two hours 'til midnight and one last chance to make a choice that will forever shape their lives together, or apart. It's been compared to Neil Simon but with a Wi-Fi connection.

"This is the show I've been writing toward for a long time," said playwright and director Dan Maurer. "It's funny - genuinely funny - but it earns its laughs from real human drama. These are people you know. They may even be you."

The cast of up to 20 will be invited into the play's development - character discussions, table readings, and collaborative conversations that will help inform rewrites ahead of and during rehearsals. This is not simply performing a finished script. This is the rare chance to help shape one.

"We're inviting actors into the room before the script is locked - their voices, their instincts, their chemistry will influence the final product," said John Maurer, Creative Director of Maurer Productions OnStage. "That's not something community theater actors get to do every day."

Rehearsals begin August 15. The show opens October 16.

About the Companies

Maurer Productions OnStage has mounted some of Kelsey Theatre's most Popular Productions, including Monty Python's Spamalot, Avenue Q, Shrek the Musical, Elton John & Tim Rice's AIDA, Around the World in Eighty Days, and Driving Miss Daisy. Maurer TheaterWorks was founded by Dan Maurer to develop original works; Midnight at the New Dawn is its inaugural full-length production.

Dan Maurer is a director, playwright, screenwriter, fiction writer, and member of the Dramatists Guild. He co-produced more than 20 productions and directed acclaimed runs of Driving Miss Daisy, Hollywood Arms, and Elton John & Tim Rice's AIDA at Kelsey Theatre, winning multiple NJACT Perry Awards and earning induction into the NJACT Hall of Fame.

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