THE MISSILEMAN OF PEENEMÜNDE East Coast Premiere Comes To Somers Point For Two Weekends Only

SPQR Stage Company, the Jersey Shore’s “Original” theater company, will present the East Coast premiere of THE MISSILEMAN OF PEENEMÜNDE, written and directed by SPQR’s Artistic Director Bill Sterritt. The production will run November 14–15 and 21–22, 2025, at Studio;Space in Somers Point.

The Missileman of Peenemünde explores the life and career of Wernher von Braun, the German-American aerospace engineer who rose to prominence in Nazi Germany’s rocket development program before becoming a central figure in the U.S. space race. Von Braun led the creation of the V-2 rocket at the Nazi research center in Peenemünde during World War II, a technological feat shadowed by human suffering and forced labor.

Following the war, von Braun played a pivotal role in America’s space program and was later celebrated as the “father of space travel.” Yet his story remains controversial, raising questions about moral compromise and the cost of progress.

“This true-life story captivated me,” said Sterritt, who describes the play as “Lord of the Rings meets the Space Age.” “It encapsulates the enormous amount of drama that one man’s life can hold—scientific ingenuity and creativity, living within a World War, life and death decisions, and, potentially, getting away with murder due to a nation’s greed and desire to triumph over another country. Von Braun wrestles with the good that his inventions will do for mankind and the destruction that they will cause to men.”

The four-person ensemble includes Jacob Trnka as Wernher von Braun, embodying the complexity of technological progress in the dawn of the space age. Meredith Bishop, a graduate of Rider University’s BFA acting program and a returning SPQR artist, plays the rocket’s “pin-up girl” who comes to life as a symbol of von Braun’s dream of space exploration. Vincent John, trained at The Actors Studio in New York, portrays the doctor who tries to awaken von Braun’s conscience, while Michael A. Green, a graduate of the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Croatia, plays Thiel, von Braun’s rocket team colleague steeped in German folklore and myth.