Rattlestick Playwrights Theater Announces New Season; To Open with Thurber's 'Killers and Other Family'

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater is pleased to announce its 15th Anniversary season. This award-winning company, whose mission - "to provide a positive, nurturing experience for emerging playwrights, to present diverse and challenging plays that otherwise might not be produced, and to foster the future voices of the American theater" - will continue during this celebratory season when it produces new plays by two emerging playwrights, as well as the works of two of Rattlestick's accomplished alumni.

The 15th anniversary season will open with a revisit of Lucy Thurber's Killers and Other Family, which had its world premiere at Rattlestick during the 2000-01 season. Just when Elizabeth thinks she has finally escaped her previous life, that life comes crashing back in when her brother and his best friend show up, on the run, demanding she hide them. Their arrival forces Elizabeth to truly confront her past, pushing her into a walking nightmare in which fears and memories become all too real. Directed by Caitriona McLaughlin, performances will begin September 17th with an official opening night set for Thursday, September 24th.

Mando Alvarado's Post No Bills will have its World Premiere production at Rattlestick when performances begin November 11th with an official opening night set for November 16th. Fleeing the Texas border town she grew up in, Reyna arrives in the big city, with nothing but her dream of becoming a singer/songwriter. Taking up with a pair of street musicians, she discovers that love is violent, friendship is pain and the true music comes from the depths of your soul. Directed by Michael Ray Escamilla.

Emmy Award-winner Craig Wright, whose Rattlestick productions of The Pavilion and Lady each garnered Drama Desk Award nominations for "Outstanding Play," will see his newest work Blind in a World Premiere production. In this contemporary re-telling of Oedipus, a married couple slowly re-discover the secret they thought they had buried deep within the cavities of their unconscious. The play explores the blindness of two individuals but also the blindness of a culture that now must confront its own folly. A director for Blind will be announced at a later date.

The 15th anniversary season will conclude with the World Premiere of Annie Baker's The Aliens, directed by Sam Gold. Two angry young men sit outside a Vermont coffee shop and discuss music and Bukowski. When a lonely high school student arrives on the scene, they decide to teach him everything they know. A play with music and shrooms.

Performances begin April 15, 2010 with an official opening night set for April 22, 2010.

Each of the four shows will have the following performance schedule: Monday at 8pm, Thursday - Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 3pm. Memberships are available by calling SmartTix at (212) 868-4444 or online at www.smarttix.com. To learn about the many benefits of membership, as well how to purchase individual tickets, please call the theatre at 212-627-2556. Rattlestick Playwrights Theater is located at 224 Waverly Place (off Seventh Avenue South - between West 11th & Perry Streets).

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater is a multi-award-winning company which has produced over forty world premieres in the past fourteen 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, Geometry of Fire, That Pretty Pretty; or The Rape Play, The Amish Project, the Off-Broadway GLAAD Award-nominated hit The Last Sunday in June and Craig Wright's The Pavilion (Drama Desk nominee - Outstanding Play of 2005) and Lady (Drama Desk nominee - Outstanding Play of 2008).