David Heron Joins Immigration Debate With Revival of His Green Card Play Love and Marriage and New York City

New York- April 9, 2025- Would You Marry For A Green Card?

Broadway World Award winner David Heron and Emmy Award winner Sheryl Lee Ralph backstage following a performance of Love and Marriage and New York City during its world premiere production in Jamaica.This is the intriguing question at the heart of Jamaican born playwright David Heron’s romantic comedy drama Love and Marriage and New York City, which returns to the New York stage this June in celebration of its 25th Anniversary.

Broadway World Award winner Heron will produce and direct the one night only Silver Anniversary Performance, to be presented as a staged reading production at the Jamaica Performing Arts Center (JPAC) on Sunday June 22 at 7pm. It will be an exclusive cultural event in celebration of New York City’s annual Caribbean American Heritage Month festivities, held across the city each June.

A complimentary Caribbean Cuisine Reception from 5:30pm will precede the performance.

Heron won the coveted 2023 Broadway World Award for Best Supporting Performer for his role as Caliban in the acclaimed Colonial Theatre of Rhode Island Shakespeare in the Park production of The Tempest.

Explaining his decision to revive the popular production, Heron says “Over twenty five years after its world premiere in Jamaica, Love and Marriage and New York City remains as topical as ever, dealing as it does with the immensely critical and complicated subject of immigration. In a realistic and humane way, it highlights the allure of the American dream to immigrants everywhere, and the extent to which people will go to achieve it- with romantic, dramatic and comedic consequences.  After our great success with last year’s American premiere of Alwin Bully’s political drama McBee as our inaugural Caribbean American Heritage Month production, selecting Love and Marriage and New York City as our encore was a natural move to make, especially with everything happening in our current environment regarding immigration. The play has never been more relevant, it seems, than now.”

 Set in Manhattan in the late 1990s, Love and Marriage and New York City tells the story of two Jamaican born couples who marry strictly for green card purposes- only to discover that once Cupid’s arrow flies, no marriage is ever purely about business.

Heron believes that the experience of the play in 2025 will evoke feelings of great nostalgia as well as concern about the nation’s current and evolving immigration policies.

“The play’s American premiere took place just over a year before 9/11. America was so much more innocent then. The Twin Towers still stood. Travelling was relatively stress free. There was no ICE or Department Of Homeland Security. There was the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service). So much was so different from now. But the one thing that has not changed is that the easiest and simplest way to acquire US residency and citizenship is to marry an American citizen. I’ve recently spoken with immigration attorneys as well as individuals seeking to stay here permanently, and this absolutely remains the consensus. And  while as of now the US government can do many things, the one thing it cannot do is tell you who to fall in love with and who to marry. So until someone comes up with a magic formula to determine which marriages are totally ‘genuine’ and which ones are for green card purposes- because in many instances, some unions are a combination of both- they will not be able to stop them.”

Love and Marriage and New York City is Heron’s biggest international success to date and had its gala world premiere at The Little Little Theatre in Kingston Jamaica in 1999. Directed by the late Norman Rae, it featured actors Karen Harriott, Douglas Prout, Bertina Macaulay and Heron himself as the four star crossed “green card” lovers. Among the many special guests and celebrities who attended the show during its first run were Emmy Award winner Sheryl Lee Ralph, Shottas and Dancehall Queen star Paul Campbell and others. The production marked its American premiere with a South Florida regional tour in 2000 before heading to Europe where it toured throughout the United Kingdom in both 2002 and 2003, eventually playing at the world famous Peggy Ashcroft Theatre in London.

It was produced at The Paul Robeson Theatre in New York before arriving Off Broadway at Brooklyn’s Billie Holiday Theatre in 2005, directed by legendary theatre icon Woody King Jr. King’s production would go on to become an Official Selection of the 2007 National Black Theatre Festival in Winston Salem, North Carolina- the largest black theatre festival in the world. Kingston 6 Productions of Toronto then produced the Canadian premiere at The Harbourfront Centre, downtown Toronto, in 2008.

Among other accolades, Love and Marriage and New York City earned eight International Theatre Institute (Jamaica) Actor Boy Award nominations-the equivalent of Broadway’s Tony Award - as well as three AUDELCO Award nominations for Excellence in Off Broadway Black Theatre in New York. It also earned Heron the City Council of New York’s Proclamation and Award for Excellence in 2006.

According to Heron, as with last year’s premiere of McBee, an accomplished cast of actors spanning the worlds of stage, film and television is being assembled for the show, “To once again provide a memorable theatrical experience for our audience, right in the heart of Jamaica Queens.” Casting for the production will be announced shortly.

Tickets for the Silver Anniversary Performance of Love and Marriage and New York City will go on sale on Sunday April 20. A limited number of tickets will be made available at early purchase discount prices.

Heron has also confirmed that college and high school students aged 16 and over as well as theatre interns from throughout the New York Tri state area, will again be able to attend the production for free, thanks to tickets donated by event patrons through his Sure Thing Productions Free Student Ticket Initiative.

The Jamaica Performing Arts Center is located at 153-10 Jamaica Avenue, Jamaica New York, 11432.

For further information contact Sure Thing Productions at 646 533 7021.