Rattlestick Extends SHESH YAK

Rattlestick Playwrights and LaiLou Productions have announced that the world premiere of Shesh Yak, written by Laith Nakli and directed by Bruce McCarty, will extend one week through Saturday, February 28 at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, 224 Waverly Place, west of Seventh Avenue South. The production had originally been scheduled to run through Sunday, February 22.

Shesk Yak opened January 29, and Time Out New York gave the production four stars, citing the "excellent performances," "taut direction," and "searing dialog."

In Shesh Yak, it's spring of 2011, five weeks into the civil uprising in Syria. Jameel, a 30-something-year-old Syrian-American writer is in his New York apartment waiting for a houseguest to arrive from DC. An older Syrian ex-patriot and a leader in the anti-Syrian government movement, Haytham, has come to New York on business. Jameel is overwhelmed with excitement to have someone of Haytham's stature in his home and the two share stories from their younger days in Syria. An unclear tension arises, leading them into a re-examination of their lives and a revelation of how their different pasts have intertwined and forced them into choices that neither ever imagined.

Shesh Yak stars Zarif Kabier and Laith Nakli.

The set design for Shesh Yak is by John McDermott; costume design is by Lisa Renee Jordan; lighting design is by Peter West; sound design is by Janie Bullard. The production manager is Jeremy Duncan Pape and the production stage manager is Michal Mendelson.

Shesh Yak plays Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday at 7pm, and Friday and Saturday at 8pm, at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, 224 Waverly Place, west of Seventh Avenue South. Tickets may be purchased at www.rattlestick.org or by phoning OvationTix at 866.811.4111. Tickets are $30, premium tickets are $35, student tickets are $5 and theater artist and under-30 tickets are $10. Prices and performance schedule are subject to change. Please refer to the Rattlestick website for the most up-to-date information.

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater is an award-winning company that has produced over sixty world premieres in the past nineteen seasons and was the recipient of the 2007 Ross Wetzsteon Memorial OBIE Award for developing new and innovative work. 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, That Pretty Pretty; or, The Rape Play, 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, Geometry of Fire, The Amish Project, Killers and Other Family, Post No Bills, Blind, Little Doc, underneathmybed, There Are No More Big Secrets, The Hallway Trilogy, Carson McCullers Talks About Love, The Wood, Asuncion, Horsedreams, Yosemite, Massacre (Sing to Your Children), 3C, Through the Yellow Hour, A Summer Day, The Revisionist starring Vanessa Redgrave and Jesse Eisenberg, Buyer & Cellar (2013 Drama Desk and Outer Critic Circle Awards for Outstanding Solo Performance), Basilica, Charles Ives Take Me Home, One Night..., How to Make Friends and then Kill Them, The Correspondent, Ode to Joy, The Few, A FABLE, the Off-Broadway GLAAD Award-nominated hit The Last Sunday in June, Craig Wright's The Pavilion (Drama Desk nominee-Outstanding Play of 2005) and Lady (Drama Desk nominee-Outstanding Play of 2008), The Aliens by Annie Baker (2010 Obie Award winner for Best New American Play), as well as The Hilltown Plays (2014 OBIE Award). www.rattlestick.org.

Lailou Productions is a film, television and theater production company based in NYC. Syrian-British writer and actor, Laith Nakli, and Iranian-American producer, Nilou Safinya, founded the company to tell often-experienced but not-so-often told stories of universal humanity. Along with Shesh Yak, LAILOU also has two feature films in development, The Syrian and Wudu, as well as a comedic TV series. To produce its inaugural play in NYC, LAILOU is honored to be partnering with the multi-award winning and well-renowned Off-Broadway company, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater during its 20th Anniversary Season. LAILOU believes that theatre has a unique ability in the arts to encourage real connections and promote empathy. With this play, we hope to shift some perspectives of what it means to be Syrian, to open some minds and to elicit productive dialogue. www.lailouproductions.com.

Photo by Sandra Coudert