Middle Voice at Rattlestick Presents Arthur Laurents's THE ENCLAVE

RATTLESTICK PLAYWRIGHTS THEATER (Daniella Topol, Artistic Director; Annie Middleton, Managing Director) is proud to announce that the Laurents/Hatcher Foundation has awarded The Arthur Laurents Centennial Grant to MIDDLE VOICE, the apprentice company at Rattlestick, to revive Arthur Laurents's THE ENCLAVE. Directed by Victor Cervantes Jr. (The Parlour), THE ENCLAVE will play an extremely limited run at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater (224 Waverly Place) from April 24, 2018 through April 28, 2018.

Prior to the sit-down production at Rattlestick, THE ENCLAVE will tour the outer boroughs, bringing readings and open rehearsals to various to-be-announced LGBTQ+ centers.

Founded and mentored by award-winning playwright Lucy Thurber (Rattlestick's The Hilltown Plays, MCC's Transfers) in 2012, Middle Voice at Rattlestick is a collection of 26 young theater artists (writers, actors, directors, producers aged 18-30) that both draws from and engages with people of different backgrounds and experiences. The mission of Middle Voice is to create theater that embraces risk, encourages ensemble, and reaches different class segments in American society. The company is united in the belief that people from different walks of life can form a single, strong artistic voice. This program gives a new generation of artists the opportunity to take on projects and leadership roles to which traditionally they do not have access, including producing their own works at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. Middle Voice members are now receiving fellowships and other professional theater opportunities including Xavier Galva (Clubbed Thumb Winterworks), Cesar Rosado (Two River Theater's El Coqui Espactacular, Labrynth's Dolphins and Sharks), Ren Santiago (Cherry Lane Mentor Project, Ojai), David Zheng (Public EWG, Van Lier Fellow), Jenna Worsham (Boris Sagal Fellowship, WTF 2016), Emily Zemba (AntFest ArsNova, First Floor Theater, Chicago), and Alex Keegan (Yale Drama for Directing).

The play, first produced in 1973, exposes hypocrisy and heartbreak among a liberal group of friends when one of their own reveals a long-concealed secret about his lifestyle. The New York Times described The Enclave as: "an attractively hard-edged style, with jokes cracking like ice in extra-dry martinis." When a close-knit group of NYC liberals decide to move to a row of adjoining houses, long held secrets are suddenly brought into the open. When one member of this group comes out as gay, announcing that he and his lover will be moving into this enclave together, this group of liberal-seeming friends must suddenly confront their unconscious prejudices.

"Arthur's play The Enclave was certainly ahead of its time in 1973 with a central homosexual character," said David Saint, President of the Laurents/Hatcher Foundation. "I know he would be so pleased by the revival by the company assembled for Rattlestick's Middle Voice program."

"To be an other is sometimes one of the loneliest feelings a person can carry. The Enclave stings with a prescient fire that forces all those who are 'othered' and cast into the shadows to come together, to show up for one another, to yell together, as Laurents did for so many," says director Victor Cervantes Jr.

The cast of THE ENCLAVE features five-time Obie Award winner David Greenspan (Strange Interlude, The Myopia) as "Oliver" alongside John J. Concado (Locusts Have No King) as "Donnie," Joslyn Defreece (Concealed Truths) as "Cassie," Dan Domingues (The Civilians' The Great Immensity) as "Ben," Alexander Lambie (Poster Boy) as "Roy Lee," Eve Lindley ("Mr. Robot") as "Eleanor," Lisa Purrone(Three Sisters) as "Janet," Anthony Ritosa (Camp Kappawanna) as "Wyman," and Mike Turner (Night of the Iguana) as "Bruno."

THE ENCLAVE will feature set design by Alexander Woodward (Ugly Lies the Bone), lighting design by Jennifer Fok (A Real Boy), costume design by Anna Blazer (The Siblings Play), and sound design by Pornchanok Kanchanabanca (Today is My Birthday).

The performance schedule for THE ENCLAVE is Tuesday thru Saturday at 8:00pm; and Saturday at 3pm. Tickets are $15, with student tickets available for $5. Tickets can be purchased at www.ovationtix.com or by calling 212-627-2556.

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater recently concluded acclaimed runs of both the New York premiere of Pulitzer Prize finalist Dael Orlandersmith's Until the Flood, directed by Neel Keller, as well as the New York premiere of Mashuq Mushtaq Deen's Draw the Circle, directed by Chay Yew. The 2017/2018 season began with the sold-out run of Tow Playwright-in-Residence Diana Oh's {my lingerie play} 2017: THE CONCERT AND CALL TO ARMS!!!!!!!!! The Final Installation, co-directed by Oh and Orion Stephanie Johnstone. The 2017/2018 Season will conclude in June with a workshop production of Cusi Cram's St. Vincent's Project, Novenas for a Lost Hospital.

Rattlestick also recently announced their 2018/2019 Season. In Fall 2018, MacArthur Genius Grant Winner Samuel D. Hunter (The Whale, Bright New Boise, The Few) will team up with long-term collaboratorDavis McCallum with the plays Lewiston and Clarkston, to be performed on a double bill for the first time. In Spring 2019, Rattlestick will present the World Premiere of Lockdown by Cori Thomas (When January Feels Like Summer), and directed by Kent Gash (Barbeque), commissioned by Rattlestick with support from The Toulmin Foundation.

ABOUT RATTLESTICK PLAYWRIGHTS THEATER

Founded in 1994, RATTLESTICK PLAYWRIGHTS THEATER is an Obie-Award winning theater that has created, developed and produced over 100 World Premieres. Our mission is to present diverse, challenging and provocative plays that might not otherwise be produced and to foster the future voices of the American theater. When we take on a playwright, we guarantee him or her a second production, regardless of the reception of the first. We have produced the first plays and early works of some of today's leading voices, including Annie Baker (The Aliens), Sheila Callaghan (That Pretty, Pretty), Jesse Eisenberg (The Revisionist), Martyna Majok (Ironbound), Adam Rapp (The Hallway Trilogy), Lucy Thurber (The Hilltown Plays), Jonathan Tolins (Buyer and Cellar) and Craig Wright (The Pavilion). We have also produced works by some of our nation's most celebrated playwrights, including Craig Lucas (Ode to Joy), Dael Orlandersmith (Horsedreams), and José Rivera (Massacre, Sing to Your Children). We produce theater to inspire empathy and provoke conversations in response to the complexities of our culture. For more info visit www.rattlestick.org.

Rattlestick is accessible via the 1, 2 and 3 trains (at 14 St. and Christopher St./Sheridan Square) and the A, B, C, D, E, F and M trains (at West 4th St.).

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