PERFORMANCE DATES
Begins October 2025
WHERE
The Irene Diamond Stage
The Pershing Square Signature Center
BEGINS OCTOBER 2025
THE PERSHING SQUARE SIGNATURE CENTER / OFF-BROADWAY
MEET THE CARTOZIANS
BY
TALENE MONAHON
DIRECTEDÂ BY
DAVID CROMER
Part riveting historical drama, part scorching satire, Talene Monahon’s Meet the Cartozians pulls back the curtain on a startling chapter of American history you may never have heard. This bold, witty new play follows two sets of Armenian Americans: one man fighting for legal recognition in the 1920s, while a century later, his descendant fights for followers and a competent glam team. A wildly imaginative and deeply compelling story of culture and heritage, Meet the Cartozians asks who gets to belong — and at what cost?
Subscribe to Season 47 to reserve your seat. Single tickets will go on sale later this summer.
Second Stage Theater’s programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
The Season is supported by a grant from the Howard Gilman Foundation.
BY TALENE MONAHON
Talene Monahon (Playwright) is a person of Armenian and Irish descent and a playwright of actor descent. Off-Broadway: The Good John Proctor (Bedlam Theater, The New Yorker’s “Top 10 Best Plays of 2023”), Jane Anger (New Ohio; 2022 Off-Broadway Alliance Best New Play Nominee), How to Load a Musket (Less than Rent; TheaterMania’s “The 10 Best Theater Productions of 2020”), and Frankie & Will (MCC). Regional: Trinity Rep, Shakespeare Theater of D.C., The Warehouse Theater, Maryland Ensemble Theater, and Peterborough Players. International: The Good John Proctor (Jermyn Street Theater, London, Off-West End Nominee–Best New Play). Her plays have been developed with SouthCoast Rep, Classic Stage Company, Lincoln Center, Clubbed Thumb, Northern Stage and LA Shakespeare. Talene’s work is published by TRW, and has also been featured in The Cincinnati Review and McSweeney’s. She teaches Playwriting at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Education: B.A. Senior Fellow, Dartmouth College. Talene was featured in the NYTimes 2023 list of "Rising Theater Stars."
DIRECTED BY DAVID CROMER
David Cromer (Director) New York credits include Dead Outlaw; Good Night, and Good Luck; The Antiquities; The Counter; I’m Almost There; Prayer for the French Republic; Camp Siegfried; A Case for the Existence of God; The Sound Inside; The Band’s Visit; The Treasurer; The House of Blue Leaves; Brighton Beach Memoirs; Nikolai and the Others; The Effect; When the Rain Stops Falling; Tribes; Adding Machine; Our Town; and Orson’s Shadow. For his work he has received a Tony Award, a Drama Desk, three Obies and three Lortels, and in 2010 he was named a MacArthur Foundation fellow.Â