THAT PRETTY PRETTY Premieres At Rattlestick On 2/23

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater (David Van Asselt, Artistic Director and Sandra Coudert, Managing Director) continues its 14th anniversary season with the World Premiere of That Pretty Pretty; or, The Rape Play, a new comedy by Sheila Callaghan, directed by Kip Fagan (Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom, Nelson). Performances begin Tuesday, February 10th. Opening night is Monday, February 23rd at 7pm. The show will run through Sunday, March 15th.

That Pretty Pretty; or, The Rape Play is Sheila Callaghan's violently funny and disturbing excavation of the dirty corners of our imaginations. A pair of radical feminist ex-strippers scour the country on a murderous rampage against right-wing pro-lifers, blogging about their exploits in gruesome detail. Meanwhile, a scruffy screenwriter named Owen tries to bang out his magnum opus in a hotel room as his best friend Rodney ("The Rod") pontificates on rape and other manly enterprises. When Owen decides to incorporate the strippers into his screenplay, the boundaries of reality begin to blur, and only a visit from Jane Fonda can help keep worlds from blowing apart.

The cast of That Pretty Pretty; or, The Rape Play includes: Joseph Gomez (NY stage debut), Lisa Joyce (Red Light Winter, Blackbird, U.S. Drag), Greg Keller (Steve & Idi, The Seagull - BAM), Annie McNamara (God's Ear) and Danielle Slavick (NYC stage debut).

The creative team is comprised of Narelle Sissons (sets), Jessica Pabst (costumes), Matthew Frey (lights), Eric Shim (sound), Mary Robinette Kowal (props), Rick Sordelet (fight choreography) and Brian Smallwood (technical director). Katrina Renee Herrmann is Production Stage Manager and Melissa Mae Gregus is Assistant Stage Manager. Emily Fishbaine will serve as Assistant Director.

That Pretty Pretty; or, The Rape Play will have the following performance schedule: Wednesday - Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 3pm. Tickets are $40.00 and are available through SmartTix (212-868-4444) or www.smarttix.com. Rattlestick Playwrights Theater is located at 224 Waverly Place (off Seventh Avenue South - between West 11th & Perry Streets).

Sheila Callaghan (Playwright). Plays have been produced and developed with Soho Rep, Playwrights Horizons, South Coast Repertory, Clubbed Thumb, The LARK, Actor's Theatre of Louisville, New Georges, and Moving Arts, among others. Sheila is the recipient of the Princess Grace Award for emerging artists, a Jerome Fellowship from the Playwright's Center in Minneapolis, a MacDowell Residency, a 2005 Cherry Lane Mentorship Fellowship, the Susan Smith Blackburn Award, and the prestigious Whiting Award. She has received grants from NYFA, NYSCA, and the MAP Foundation. Her plays have been produced internationally in New Zealand, Norway, Germany, and the Czech Republic. She has been commissioned by Playwrights Horizons, South Coast Repertory, The Playwright's Foundation, Clubbed Thumb, and EST/Sloan. Her full-length plays include Scab, Crawl Fade To White, Crumble (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake), We Are Not These Hands, Dead City, Lascivious Something, Kate Crackernuts, That Pretty Pretty; or, The Rape Play, and Fever/Dream. Several of her plays are published by Playscripts.com and Samuel French, and her monologues can be found in various anthologies. She has taught playwriting at The University of Rochester, The College of New Jersey, and Florida State University, and she is currently on the faculty at Spalding University's MFA program in creative writing. Sheila is a resident artist at HERE Arts Center and a member of the Obie winning playwright's organization 13P. Sheila is also a resident of New Dramatists. Her play Fever/Dream will be performed at Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington DC in the spring, and Lascivious Something will be produced at the Cherry Lane Theatre in August.

Kip Fagan (Director) recently directed Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom by Jennifer Haley (Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville), The Young Left by Greg Keller (Cherry Lane Theatre), and Caravan Man, a musical about The Life of the Prophet Muhammad by Tommy Smith and Gabriel Kahane (Williamstown). Other recent NYC credits include: Cory Hinkle's Cipher (SPF), Sam Marks's Nelson (Partial Comfort), and Christopher Durang's Not a Creature Was Stirring (The Flea - world premiere). Other regional credits include Craig Lucas's Small Tragedy (Playwrights Center, Minneapolis - world premiere), Kenneth Lonergan's The Waverly Gallery (Empty Space Theatre, Seattle), and several plays with Printer's Devil in Seattle, which he co-founded. Kip has developed new plays with New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Horizons, New Dramatists, Ars Nova, The Lark, Young Playwrights Festival, Hartford Stage, Playwrights Center (Minneapolis), and Bay Area Playwrights Festival (San Francisco). He was a 2003-2004 NEA/TCG directing fellow and the 2007 Bill Foeller directing fellow at Williamstown Theatre Festival.

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater is a multi-award-winning company which has produced over forty world premieres in the past thirteen and a half seasons and was the recipient of the 2007 Ross Wetzsteon Memorial OBIE Award for its work developing new and innovative work. Rattlestick's Advisory Board participates in The Emerging Playwrights Project, which matches a new playwright with an established artist for an experienced eye and creative support. Playwright and artist mentors have included Edward Albee, Jon Robin Baitz, Zoe Caldwell, Arthur Kopit, Craig Lucas, Joe Mantello, Terrence McNally and Marsha Norman. Previous plays include Two Boys in a Bed, Message to Michael, Carpool, Volunteer Man, A Trip to the Beach, Ascendancy, Stuck, Vick's Boy, The Messenger, Saved or Destroyed, Neil's Garden, My Special Friend, Faster, Bliss, St. Crispin's Day, Where We're Born, Five Flights, Boise, Finer Noble Gases, God Hates The Irish: The Ballad of Armless Johnny, Miss Julie, Acts of Mercy: passion-play, Cagelove, It Goes Without Saying, Dark Matters, Stay, American Sligo, Rag and Bone, War, Lady, Geometry of Fire, the Off-Broadway GLAAD Award-nominated hit The Last Sunday in June and Craig Wright's The Pavilion, which received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Play of 2005.