Night Sky, starring Jordan Baker at the Baruch Performing Arts Center

Stan Raiff/Power Productions in association with the National Aphasia Association presents Night Sky, a play by Susan Yankowitz, opening at the Rose Nagelberg Theatre at the Baruch Performing Arts Center on 2 Jun 2009, following previews from 22 May and running through to 20 Jun 2009.

Directed by Daniella Topol, Night Sky marks the return to the New York stage of actress Jordan Baker - in the starring role of the astronomer Anna - last seen in NY in the original cast of the off-Broadway production of Edward Albee's 'Three Tall Women' opposite Marian Seldes and Myra Carter 15 years ago.

Also featured in the cast of are Jim Stanek, Tuck Milligan, Lauren Ashley Carter, Dan Domingues and Darlesia Cearcy. Night Sky explores what the noted author and physicist Steven Hawking has called the two remaining mysteries - the brain and the cosmos - as the play looks at what happens to a bright, articulate astronomer, her family and her career when she is struck by a car and loses her ability to speak conventionally, a condition known as "aphasia." As she is left to expresses herself in an alternately funny, poetic, confusing and profound hodge-podge of words, astronomer Anna, her daughter, fianc� and colleagues face uncommon challenges of the mind and spirit as they discover new ways to communicate, and what it really means to listen.

Night Sky is inspired by and dedicated to the memory of the late, revered actor, director, playwright and founder of the Open Theatre, Joseph Chaikin, himself affected with aphasia following a stroke in 1984. Having recovered sufficiently to continue writing, directing and performing until his death in 2003, Mr. Chaikin commissioned Ms. Yankowitz to write a play that dealt with aphasia. Night Sky is that play.

The month of June is National Aphasia Awareness Month. It is estimated that over one million Americans have aphasia -- the sudden inability to communicate, speak, read, write or understand language. In addition to the late Mr. Chaikin, cinematographer Sven Nykvist, poet Ralph Waldo Emerson and composer Maurice Ravel, noted figures who have experienced "aphasia" include ABC-TV reporter Bob Woodruff and Congressmen, Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota.

For more information about aphasia and the National Aphasia Association, please visit www.aphasia.org.

For tickets and further information click here