Premiere Stages, the professional Equity theatre in residence at Kean University, is pleased to recognize “The High Priestess” by Andrew Martini as a Semi-Finalist for the 2023 Premiere Play Festival. “The High Priestess” rose through a competitive selection process conducted by Premiere staff and a panel of outside theatre professionals to become one of 40 Semi-Finalists out of 701 submissions. The panel was particularly impressed by the play’s use of interpersonal drama to explore the sway that spiritualism can have over impressionable minds, trauma, and abuse. Our congratulations and thanks to Andrew.

There are lots of dinner-party-gone-wrong plays, but The High Priestess swerves into a place of magic and depth. The play has so much subtlety, particularly around wealth and the way it ties marriages and people together, and the invisible struggles of motherhood. A sublime tension builds as we question what is real, and what is imagined. And I have to highlight the excellent little flashes of humanity present in each character, keeping them grounded and (maybe) forgivable.