Basking Ridge 12-Year-Old To Star In 'Lost In Yonkers' In Morristown

BASKING RIDGE, NJ — Basking Ridge 12-year-old is hitting the stage and starring in Neil Simon’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning comedy, Lost in Yonkers at Fellowship Hall in the Morristown Methodist Church in downtown Morristown.

Josiah Irwin is starring as Jay Kurnitz, who is one of the two brothers that the play centers around.

The play follows two brothers, Arty and Jay Kurnitz, who live with their callous grandmother and their Aunt Bella while their father travels, desperately trying to scrape together enough money to pay off his debts to a loan shark. The boys are left to contend with Grandma’s strict discipline, Bella and her secret romance, and their Uncle Louie, a small-time hoodlum, all in a strange new world called Yonkers.

The show, hosted by Pioneer Productions, will have six performances between Oct. 27 and Nov. 5, 2023. Pioneer co-founder Daniel Peter Vissers of Sparta directs this coming-of-age story set in 1942 in Yonkers, New York.

Lost in Yonkers is Simon’s Masterpiece. The New York Times says Yonkers is "the best play Simon ever wrote...America's greatest comic playwright gives us a rich memory play full of insight, laughter and tears." The play won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Tony Award for Best Play, and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play.

Pioneer Production’s Kurnitz family includes a wealth of local New Jersey talent, including Josiah Irwin (Basking Ridge) as Jay Kurnitz, Noah Shidlovsky (Short Hills) as Arty Kurnitz, Jon Beeler (Morristown) as Eddie Kurnitz, Miriam Salerno (Millburn) as Bella Kurnitz, Hedi Molnar (Florham Park) as Grandma Kurnitz, Bill Barry (Montclair) as Louie Kurnitz, Lauren Proda (Mahwah) as Gertrude Kurnitz. Stage manager for the production is Tracey Lynn Haskell.

Tickets are on sale now at pioneer-productions-company.ticketleap.com/lost-in-yonkers.

LOST IN YONKERS

• Oct. 27, 28, Nov. 3, 4 at 8 p.m.
• Oct. 29 and Nov. 5 at 3 p.m.
• Morristown United Methodist Church, 50 South Park Place, Morristown

Funding for this show has been made possible in part by funds from Morris Arts through the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Pioneer Productions was incorporated in 2003 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit theatre company by founding members Dan Vissers, Shanna Levine-Phelps and Jon Mantes. For more information about Pioneer Productions visit pioneerproductions.com.