MRS. STERN WANDERS THE PRUSSIAN STATE LIBRARY Will Come to Edinburgh Fringe

Following the sold-out, Scotsman Fringe First-winning success of RIFT last year, North American new writing theatre Luna-Stage/">Luna Stage and Richard Jordan Productions will return to Traverse Festival with Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library from 6 August (Press performances from 7 August) direct from its NYC premiere. It has also been announced that the show will transfer to New York City's 59E59 Theatre from 11 September.

Written by Jenny Lyn Bader, directed by Ari Laura Kreith, and performed by Daniel Cantor, Ella Kaille, Drew Hirshfield, and Brett Temple, Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library is set in 1933 Berlin, where, with martial law in effect, political activism has become a capital crime. When a young Gestapo officer arrests a philosophy graduate student, her interrogation will endanger them both. Inspired by the real-life arrest of Hannah Arendt, Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library is a powerful story of impossible choices and human connection in dark times. 

Jenny Lyn Bader has been named a 2025 “Visionary Playwright” by Theater Masters. Her plays include Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library (59E59 Theaters), Equally Divine (14th St. Y), In Flight (Workshop Theatre), Manhattan Casanova (Hudson Stage), and None of the Above (New Georges). Her work has been seen at the Signature Theatre, Humana Festival of New American Plays, Symphony Space, and the NY International Fringe (“Best of Fringe” selection). Her audio productions include Communal Table (Broadway Podcast Network) and Tree Confessions (This is Not a Theater Co., with Kathleen Chalfant). Her work has been published in Plays International & Europe, Lincoln Center Theater Review, and The New York Times, where she was a frequent contributor to the “Week in Review.” A Harvard alumna, she has received the Best Documentary One-Woman Show Award (United Solo Fest), Athena Playwriting Fellowship, Edith Oliver Award (O'Neill Center), and Lark Playwriting Fellowship (nominated by Wendy Wasserstein). She belongs to the Dramatists Guild, LPTW, and Honor Roll.

Director Ari Laura Kreith, also director of last year's Fringe First Award-winning RIFT, is Artistic Director at Luna-Stage/">Luna Stage, where her directing credits include Mrs. Stern Wanders The Prussian State Library (world premiere; Off-Broadway at 59E59 Theaters/WP Theater), RIFT (commissioned world premiere), The Ground On Which We Stand (conceived/directed; Giles R. Wright Designation for Excellence in African American History), Heartland (Star-Ledger Top 10), A Case for the Existence of God (NJ.com Top 10), and The Voting Writes Project. As founder and artistic director of Theatre 167 she conceived/directed The Jackson Heights Trilogy – 3 full-length plays collaboratively written by 18 playwrights featuring 37 actors in 93 roles in 14 languages – and directed world premieres of Pirira (New York Innovative Theatre Award: Best Production), Mourning Sun (West End Theatre/Kampala, Uganda) and immersive commissions for Queens Museum and the NY Transit Museum, BA; Yale. MFA: UC Davis. Ari grew up in 27 countries.

Daniel Cantor plays Erich from 18 August. Daniel is an actor, director, writer, and educator. Acting credits include the Broadway cast of Leopoldstadt; Off-Broadway in Things You Shouldn't Say Past Midnight, Tuesdays with Morrie, Strictly Personal; the national production of Picasso at the Lapin Agile. Chicago credits include Goodman Theater, Court Theater, Victory Gardens, Drury Lane, Chicago Shakespeare, Silk Road Rising, Next Theater, American Theater Company. Regional credits include A.C.T., Berkeley Rep, Cincinnati Playhouse, Milwaukee Rep, Cleveland Playhouse, Studio Theater (DC), Hartford TheaterWorks, Marin Theater, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, CATF, Barrington Stage, Notre Dame Shakespeare, Arkansas Rep, Worcester Foothills Theater, Mill Mountain Theater, National Shakespeare Company. TV/film appearances include Empire, Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, Law & Order, Law and Order: SVU, Law and Order: CI, Conviction, Sopranos (webisode), As the World Turns, Asphalt Man, Miskits, The Auteur Theory, Alchemy, Justice, House of Satisfaction, Alternative Universe: A Rescue Mission, Asphalt Man.  He's directed at Joe's Pub, Westbeth Theater, PSNBC, SoloArts, StandUpNY, with Roundabout Theater (outreach project), UV Theater Project, and at various universities; and as Associate Director at Chicago Shakespeare, Marriott Theater. Daniel received his MFA in acting from A.C.T., and his BA from Wesleyan University. Daniel is Head of BFA Acting at the University of Michigan. 

Ella Kaille plays Hannah.  Her previous theatre credits include Connected (59E59), Can You Forgive Her? (Vineyard Theatre), Intimacy (New Group), Card and Gift (Clubbed Thumb), The Two Hander (NJ Rep), Joy and Pandemic (Huntington), Sovereignty and Thomas and Sally (Marin Theatre Company), Three Musketeers: 1941 (Project Y), 4,000 Miles and You Will Remember Me (Hudson Stage), Actually (Aurora), The Wolves (Capital Stage), On the Verge (Attic), Visitors and The Screenwriter's Daughter (Martha's Vineyard Playhouse), A Splintered Soul (Rosalind Productions), The Siegel (City Lights), Twelfth Night (Payomet). On TV and film, she has appeared in Phil Spector (HBO), The Affair (Showtime), Lie to Me (Fox), Knife Fight, Two-Bit Waltz, and Pitching Tents. 

Drew Hirshfield plays Erich until 16 August. Drew is lucky enough to have worked on plays by Bertolt Brecht, Francis Beaumont, Sandy Rustin, Arthur Miller, Kate Hamill, Robert Askins, Jordan Seavey, Lucas Hnath, Anton Chekhov, Steve Martin, Peter Shaffer, Lanford Wilson, Sam Shepard, Oliver Goldsmith, Tom Stoppard, Neil Simon, Steven Sater, Shakespeare, and many others, at theaters and rehearsal rooms large and small across the USA. He's long served on the acting faculty at New York Film Academy and earned an MFA from American Conservatory Theater.

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