Playwright Jon Marans
Conflicting memories of what happened to two sisters at the New Jersey home they grew up in punctuate Jon Marans’ three-character play home sick, getting a staged reading in Ground UP Productions’ 2026 Winter Reading Series Feb. 9 in Manhattan. Marans is best known for his drama Old Wicked Songs, a Pulitzer Prize finalist.
“Alice and Candace couldn’t be any more different,” Marans told me of the newly revised play. “Candace is methodical, practical. Alice is emotional, sexual. They’ve never been close. Now they end up returning to their childhood home before it’s sold. They’re fighting over everything: Over who gets to sleep where; over items in the house, which sometimes brings up memories of the horrific events that happened there — or make them question if they did.”
To further add to the tension is the play’s setting: an old worn-down family home.
“While there aren’t any literal ghosts in it, that doesn’t mean it isn’t haunted,” Marans added. “Entering some rooms is still terrifying. The house is the fourth character in home sick.”
Lee Brock directs the public reading of home sick, one of five new plays getting sunshine in the Ground UP series on consecutive Monday nights through March 2. A reservation is required to attend the free 7 PM presentations at A.R.T. NY studios at 520 Eighth Avenue (between 36th and 37th Streets).
The home sick cast features Johanna Day, Karl Kenzler and Ground UP artistic director Kate Middleton. Kristine Schlachter is the stage manager. Ground UP producer Josh Evans reads stage directions.
Jon Marans answered a handful of questions about home sick in the days leading up to the script-in-hand reading.
Ground UP Productions artistic director Kate Middleton plays Candace in “home sick.”
I’m always curious about the genesis moment of a play. What inspired home sick? I recall you said it was based on a situation in the life of a friend?
Jon Marans: You’re very right. home sick is based on a very personal situation involving a friend. I’d written an earlier draft and fairly quickly realized I was sticking too closely to the actual facts, trying to be respectful to my friend and not respectful enough to dramatic structure and tension. For me, every play needs to be a mystery, a page-turner. With my friend’s permission, I was able to let go of being purely factual and dream bigger outside the scope of the original situation — to really pursue a much wilder and dramatically fraught world of the play.
I’ve liked this play for a few years and wrote about an earlier version of it in 2019.
Jon Marans: Things have changed in the script. The play is now just three characters. So much shorter, tighter and so many more complications. And the characters are hopefully more complex. And the drama, more immediate. As mentioned, I had to write that first version in 2019 to be truthful to my friend’s story and this version is the one where I feel free to really write a much richer, fuller piece.
On some level, is home sick a mystery?
Jon Marans: I’m hoping in the beginning of home sick that audiences quickly realize Candace and Alice each have mysteries they’re trying to solve. Mysteries somewhat similar and at the same time completely opposite. By the end of each scene, hopefully a little piece of a mystery begins to unfold while other peculiarities crop up. We’re unsure of their significance. But realize something seems off. Unsettling. Or someone is lying. And though we think we know who these two sisters are — we keep realizing that we don’t. With each new scene, hopefully the audience feels they are getting closer to unraveling the mystery — and yet new details make them question if that’s the case. And question the true motives of each person — the two sisters and Candace’s husband, Jonah, as well.
Actress Johanna Day plays sister Alice in the new reading.
These sound like juicy characters.
Jon Marans: While home sick deals with serious issues, it’s also the story of two strong, feisty, say-it-like-it-is Jersey women. And a husband who also grew up in this neighborhood. So even when they’re discussing the most serious of subjects, they’re still a lot of humor throughout as these three battle it out. It’s also a play filled with mysteries and clues to pique an audience’s interest. Ultimately, some of the most obvious clues are right out there in the open, which the audience is completely unable to see because of their own biases and assumptions. Which hopefully adds another reason to pique an audience’s interest!
What emerges for you as a major takeaway from the play that audiences may hold on to? We all take away different things, right? There is not one correct takeaway.
Jon Marans: I agree. It can be many things: the elusive nature of memory, the lies we tell each other, and — even more importantly — the lies we need to tell ourselves to get through the day.
Karl Kenzler plays Candace’s husband Jonah in “home sick.”
This is a play about family. Does home sick share any DNA with other works of yours? If you did this in rep with another play of yours, which one would you choose? Have you written about siblings before?
Jon Marans: That’s interesting. I hadn’t really thought about that until you asked this question! Yes, I’ve written about siblings before. One play quite a few years ago, called Jumping for Joy, had a few productions. And actually home sick and the other play I am currently completing, The Cover Up, both deal with siblings. And I would love for them to be in rep! The Cover Up takes place in Virginia while home sick takes place in New Jersey. Having grown up in Maryland, which is half southern and half northern, I am slightly obsessed with the different way families express themselves, sometimes regionally. However, in both of these plays, it’s about a family that has come to believe their own lies. But for very different reasons. And I’d like to think in both plays there is often great love — and often greatly misguided.
Your breakout/most known play is Old Wicked Songs, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, performed all over the world. What makes it so enduring and popular?
Jon Marans: I’m not completely sure. Might be a number of factors. I think people relate to and often enjoy seeing a teacher/student story. There’s also a lot of gorgeous music in the play. And we get to watch the process of a student learning how to dissect and sing songs throughout. Being set in Vienna probably holds a certain allure. It’s also about a man only now beginning to deal with his own difficult past and his country’s difficult past. Something unfortunately I think we can all relate to. And, actually, now that I tell you that, I realize I have another play, Fear Training, that deals with exactly that. And takes place in my home state of Maryland. I guess I keep repeating myself. Or history does.
What else is coming up?
Jon Marans: In March, I am doing a very casual private first reading of a new musical I’ve written with composer James Rubio. To hear it for the first time. We’re gathering together an amazing group of actors: Robert Cuccioli, Kimberly Jajuan, Nancy Opel, Alanna J. Smith and Michél Castillo. It’s a post-apocalyptic musical set in the 1930s during the Dust Bowl called A Land That I Heard Of. I know it sounds a little crazy. I guess soon enough I’ll find out how crazy it is!
Learn more about the work of Jon Marans at his website or at his page on New Play Exchange.
*
For its Winter Reading Series, Ground UP artistic director Kate Middleton gathers directors and Equity actors for the script-in-hand presentations, which have played to packed houses in the past. Reservations are now being accepted at the Ground UP website. Learn more about the company’s history and mission here.
