MARY JANE Comes to the Magic Theatre, San Francisco

The Actors' Reading Collective, in residence at the Magic Theatre, is thrilled to announce the San Francisco premiere of Amy Herzog's Mary Jane. Directed by Amy Kossow, Mary Jane will run November 6-30, 2025. As Mary Jane navigates both the mundane and the unfathomable realities of caring for Alex, her chronically ill young son, she finds herself building a community of women from many walks of life. 

Developing upon last year's critically-acclaimed production of The Antipodes, the Actors' Reading Collective returns with its second fully-staged production. Born of the pandemic lockdown, a group of actors gathered to read scripts together online. As theaters began to re-open, the collective realized they had created something special, and continued to present staged readings in person: script-in-hand, minimal production values, one-night-only performances. ARC's first in-person staged reading was Mary Jane, in August 2022, as a benefit for the Parent Infant Program of UCSF's Benioff Children's Hospital, Oakland. Now, fresh from its celebrated Broadway run, Mary Jane comes to San Francisco.

Bay Area-based director Amy Kossow says, “It is such a joy to bring Amy Herzog's beautiful play to San Francisco. Mary Jane is based on the writer's story as the mother of a medically fragile child. I, too, am the mother of a special needs child. This play reaches into the heart of my life and asks me to bring to bear all the truth I possess in creating a workspace full of heart and truth-telling skill, as this company of women create our Mary Jane. I am so thrilled to work with this spectacular cast and am honored to be the first in-house ARC director to take an ARC show to full production."

Reprising the title role is ARC artist Lisa Morse, who portrayed Mary Jane in ARC's 2022 staged reading. Lisa was recently seen in this summer's ARC Outside the Box reading of The Best We Could, as well as touring her solo show, Mrs. Winchester, or, a Gun in the First Act. Actor Danielle Levin also returns to the cast of Mary Jane, recently seen in ARC's Outside the Box reading of The Thin Place. ARC Artist Leontyne Mbele-Mbong, who directed ARC's Outside the Box reading of Appropriate, and performed in The Best We Could, rejoins the cast of Mary Jane. Rounding out the cast is ARC Artist Stacy Ross, recently seen as Prospero in The Tempest at Marin Shakespeare Company; and making her ARC debut is Anna Takayo, recently seen in Waste at Marin Theatre. 

Amy Herzog's plays include After the Revolution (Lilly Award), 4000 Miles (Obie Award - Best New American Play, Pulitzer Prize Finalist), The Great God Pan, and Belleville (Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Finalist; Drama Desk Nomination). Amy is a recipient of the Whiting Writers Award, the Benjamin H. Danks Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Helen Merrill, the Joan and Joseph Cullman Award for Extraordinary Creativity, and the New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award. She has taught playwriting at Bryn Mawr and Yale.