The Starry Messenger (NHB Modern Plays)

Mark Williams is tired of his marriage and tired of his job teaching astronomy at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. Angela Vasquez is a young single mother training to be a nurse. Norman Ketterly is fighting for his life in a cancer ward.

Their intertwining stories unspool under a canopy of stars too vast to imagine and too beautiful to comprehend, especially when the travails of life on Earth threaten to blot it out.

Kenneth Lonergan's play The Starry Messenger is a bittersweet exploration of love, hope and the mysteries of the cosmos. It premiered in New York in 2009, and received its UK premiere at Wyndham's Theatre, London, in May 2019, featuring Matthew Broderick and Elizabeth McGovern.

'The gentle, compassionate comic drama… has the sweet taste of redemption' – The New York Times

'Lacing questions large and small, about ourselves and the cosmos, with characteristic sensitivity, compassion and humour… a heartbreaking story' – Variety

'A rich and engrossing new play… a sprawling, mature, leisurely profound serious comedy about everyday desperation and cosmic mysteries' – Newsday

'Moving and beautifully written' – New York Post