Rattlestick's AFGHANISTAN, ZIMBABWE, AMERICA, KUWAIT to Host Panel, 6/16

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and piece by piece productions have announced that the The Reverend Micah Bucey will moderate a post-show panel discussion following the performance of the world premiere play Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, America, Kuwait, written and directed by Daniel Talbott, on Tuesday, June 16, at The Gym at Judson, 243 Thompson Street. The panelists will include Greg Grandin, Morgan Jenness, and Michael Ratner.

The panel will consider how we as Americans distance ourselves from war while we are simultaneously involved in ongoing wars, and the ways in which the media and social media shape our access, consciousness, disassociation, and accountability. The panelists bring a range of unique perspectives - legal, historical, journalistic, and artistic - to the question of American imperialism and engagement in foreign affairs.

Reverend Micah Bucey has served Judson since 2010, first as a Community Minister, then as Community Minister of the Arts, and now as Associate Minister. Also a performer, playwright, lyricist, trumpeter, and ukulele player, Micah is committed to nurturing the creative potential inside everyone, especially those who would never call themselves "artists." He bases this pastoral passion in a promotion of "A Theology of Curiosity," one in which question-asking, storytelling, and playfulness nudge individuals toward co-creative change through community. In his time at Judson, Micah has developed and continues to oversee Judson's weekly and completely free "Judson Arts Wednesdays" series, which has commissioned, presented, produced, and promoted the artistic output of hundreds of poets, actors, playwrights, composers, musicians, dancers, choreographers, painters, photographers, sculptors, and many others, from New York City and beyond. The theological basis for these programs stems from a belief that artists have the potential to serve as this world's modern-day prophets, creating stories that show us where we've been, who we are, and what we can become.

Greg Grandin is the author of a number of prize-winning books, including most recently "The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World," which won the Bancroft Prize in American History and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize in the UK. NPR's Maureen Corrigan on Fresh Air named The Empire of Necessity as the best book of 2014, both non-fiction and fiction. "Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City" was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History, as well as for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award and was picked by the New York Times, New Yorker, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune and NPR for their "best of" lists, and Amazon.com named it the best history book of 2009. Grandin's other books include "Empire's Workshop, The Last Colonial Massacre, The Blood of Guatemala," and the co-edited (with Gil Joseph) anthology, "A Century of Revolution: Insurgent and Counterinsurgent Violence during Latin America's Long Cold War." A professor of history at NYU and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Grandin writes on American Exceptionalism, US foreign policy, Latin America, genocide, and human rights. He has published in The New York Times, Harper's, The London Review of Books, The Nation, The Boston Review, The Los Angeles Times, and The American Historical Review. He has been a frequent guest on Democracy Now! and has appeared on The Charlie Rose Show. Grandin also served as a consultant to the United Nations truth commission on Guatemala and has been the recipient of a number of prestigious fellowships, including the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship and the New York Public Library's Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. His new book, "Kissinger's Shadow," will be published in August.

Morgan Jenness spent over a decade at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater, with both Joseph Papp and George C. Wolfe, in various capacities ranging from literary manager to Director of Play Development to Associate Producer. She was also Associate Artistic Director at the New York Theater Workshop, and an Associate Director at the Los Angeles Theater Center in charge of new projects. She has worked as a dramaturg, workshop director, and/or artistic consultant at theaters and new play programs across the country, including the Young Playwrights Festival, the Mark Taper Forum, The Playwrights Center/Playlabs, The Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Double Image/New York Stage and Film, CSC, Victory Gardens, Hartford Stage, and Center Stage. She has participated as a visiting artist and adjunct in playwriting programs at the University of Iowa, Brown University, Breadloaf, Columbia and NYU and is currently on the adjunct faculty at Fordham University. She has served on peer panels for various funding institutions, including NYSCA and the NEA, with whom she served as a site evaluator for almost a decade. In 1998, Ms. Jenness joined Helen Merrill Ltd., an agency representing writers, directors, composers and designers, as Creative Director. She later moved on to Abrams Artists Agency, and is currently head of This Distracted Globe Consultancy. She is the recipient of a special Obie award for long-term support of playwrights.

Michael Ratner is President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York and the Chairman of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) in Berlin. Both are non-profit human rights litigation organizations. He was part of the small group of lawyers that first took on representation of the Guantánamo detainees in January 2001 and with CCR established a network of over 600 pro bono lawyers to represent them. He continues that work with the hope of finally shutting Guantánamo and ending the polices that underlie it. He and CCR are currently U.S. counsel for Wikileaks and Julian Assange. He is also engaged in efforts in European courts to bring US officials to account for torture as well as for their actions at Guantánamo. A major area of Mr. Ratner's litigation and writing has been the enforcement of the prohibition on torture and murder against various dictators and generals who travel to the United States. He has sued on behalf of victims in Guatemala, East Timor, Haiti, Argentina, among other countries. He has also litigated numerous suits to prevent or stop illegal US wars ranging from Central America to Iraq. A constant in his work has been litigation against government spying and surveillance of activists including the targeting of Muslims particularly after 9/11. He and CCR are active on issues of Palestinian rights, represented the Gaza flotilla, the family of Rachel Corrie, and work to protect advocacy on behalf of Palestine in the United States. He was a co-founder with CCR of the Palestine Legal, an organization devoted to defending the rights of Palestinian human rights activists across the U.S. He is the co-host of the radio show "Law and Disorder" (http://lawanddisorder.org/). Ratner's books, authored or co-authored include, Hell No: Your Right to Dissent in 21st-Century America (2011); Killing Che: How the CIA Got Away with Murder(2011); International Human Rights Litigation in U.S. Courts, Second Edition (2008); Against War with Iraq (2003); Guantanamo: What the World Should Know (2004); and The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld: A Prosecution by Book (2008). He has taught human rights litigation at Yale and Columbia Law Schools. A past president of the National Lawyers Guild, Ratner has received many awards, among them Trial Lawyer of the Year, the Columbia Law School Medal of Honor (2005), The Nation Institute/Puffin Foundation Prize for Creative Citizenship (2007). In 2006, the National Law Journal named Ratner as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in the United States.

Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, America, Kuwait takes place in the not-so-distant future; two American soldiers wait at a worn-down outpost in the desert. Hot and bright. Hallucinatory hot. The world has been ravaged by war, its natural resources stripped, and it is no longer clear if there is an enemy left to fight or anything left to fight for. They wait. For orders, provisions, a sign of life. For rescue. Even for death.

The cast of Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, America, Kuwait is Kathryn Erbe ("Law & Order: Criminal Intent," Ode to Joy), Brian Miskell (The Undeniable Sound of Right Now, Hill Town Plays), Seth Numrich ("Turn," Golden Boy, War Horse, Slipping), Chris Stack (Your Mother's Copy of the Kama Sutra, Hill Town Plays, "One Life to Live"), Jimi Stanton, and Jelena Stupljanin (Circus Columbia).

Rattlestick Playwrights Theateris 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).

piece by piece productions is a not for profit producing organization that was started in 1999 by Wendy vanden Heuvel. Productions have included: Medea directed by Deborah Warner with Fiona Shaw on Broadway (associate producer), The Tricky Part (2004 Obie award and two Drama Desk nominations including Outstanding Play) by Martin Moran and All The Rage, (Lucille Lortel Award, Outstanding Solo Show 2013) by Martin Moran produced with Rising Phoenix Repertory and The Barrow Group. Ode to the Man Who Kneels by Richard Maxwell, in association with the NY City Players,The Walworth Farce by Enda Walsh, Mabou Mines DollHouse, and Emma Rice's Brief Encounter, all in association with St Anne's Warehouse. My Name is Rachel Corrie in association with The Royal Court Theatre, Slipping in association with Rising Phoenix Repertory and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. Elective Affinities with Zoe Caldwell by David Adjmi, co-produced with Rising Phoenix Repertory and Soho Rep, Lee Breuer's La Divina Caricatura in association with St Ann's Warehouse, La Mama ETC, Mabou Mines, and Dovetail Productions, and Hundred Days by The Bengsons and Kate E. Ryan co-produced with Z Space (TBA Outstanding New Musical 2014). piece by piecehas been a producer with co-creators Brian Mertes and Melissa Kievman on The Lake Lucille Chekhov Project since 2010 (Ivanov, Seagull). In 2014 piece by pieceand Rising Phoenix Repertory commissioned three playwrights, Charlotte Miller, Sarah Shaefer and Jessie Dickey, to write a play with development and a promised production; the first of the plays, Thieves by Charlotte Miller, was presented in LA at the Monroe Forum Theater at El Portal Theater, co-produced with Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. Film: The Rest I Make Up: Documenting Irene by Michelle Memran (a documentary about the life and work of the playwright Maria Irene Fornes).

Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, America, Kuwait plays Tuesday and Thursday through Sunday at 7pm at The Gym at Judson, 243 Thompson Street, through Saturday, June 27. There will be no performance on Sunday, June 13. Tickets are $45 and may be purchased by visiting www.ovationtix.com; by phoning 866 811 4111; or by going to the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater box office, 224 Waverly Place, Monday through Friday 11am-5pm. In-person purchases can be made at The Gym at Judson box office one hour prior to performance time only. Student tickets are $10 and are available for advance sale at the Rattlestick box office with a valid student ID. For more information about Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, America, Kuwait, please visit www.rattlestick.org.

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