Jesse Eisenberg's ASUNCION to Premiere at Rattlesnake Theater in 2011-2012; Season Announced!

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater today announced its roster of plays for 2011-12, the award-winning company's 17th season. The all world-premiere season will feature new works by Dan Klores, Dael Orlandersmith, Daniel Talbott, José Rivera, David Adjmi and a play written by Academy-Award nominee Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network).

The season will begin with a world premiere by Dan Klores, whose first work for the stage - Little Doc - had its world premiere at Rattlestick last summer. Klores' new play, tentatively titled The Wood, directed by David Bar Katz, is about Mike McAlary, the larger than life columnist for the Daily News and the New York Post, and his missionary zeal to ferret out the truth. Performances will begin August 31, with an official opening night set for September 8.

In Academy Award-nominated actor and up-and-coming playwright Jesse Eisenberg's play Asuncion, Edgar and Vinny are not racist. In fact, Edgar maintains a blog condemning American imperialism and Vinny is three-quarters into a PhD in Black Studies. When a young Filipina woman named Asuncion becomes their new roommate, the pair have a perfect opportunity to demonstrate how open minded they truly are. Directed by Kip Fagan, the cast will include Mr. Eisenberg and the production will be presented off-site at The Cherry Lane Theatre (38 Commerce Street) with performances beginning on October 12. Opening Night is set for October 27.

Horsedreams, by Obie Award-winning actress, poet and playwright Dael Orlandersmith (Beauty's Daughter, Yellowman), explores the breakdown of the family unit as a result of addiction. After his wife, Desiree, dies of an accidental overdose, Loman faces the harsh reality of raising their son, Luka, alone. Directed by Gordon Edelstein, performances begin on November 9. Opening night is set for November 17.

Daniel Talbott's (Slipping, LAMBDA Literary Award nominee) Yosemite tells the story of three siblings who are sent out into the snow-silent woods in the Sierra Nevada foothills to dig a hole that will be deep enough to bury a family secret. As they dig, they search for a way to escape or be rescued from their lives as the snow continues to fall and the world sinks in around them. Performances will begin on January 18, 2012, with opening night set for January 26. Pedro Pascal directs.

Massacre (Sing to the Children) by Obie-Award winner and Academy Award-nominee José Rivera, is set to begin performances on April 3 with opening night set for April 12. In a small New Hampshire town, seven friends conspire to murder their mysterious neighbor Joe. On the night of the killing, as they confront the many meanings of their crime and finally relax and laugh and love again...there's a knock on their door. Brian Mertes directs.

The season will conclude with David Adjmi's 3C, directed by Jackson Gay. The war in Vietnam is over and Brad, an ex-serviceman, lands in L.A. to start a new life. When he winds up trashed in Connie and Linda's kitchen after a wild night of partying, the three strike a deal for an arrangement that has hilarious and devastating consequences for everyone. Or are they non-consequences? Inspired by 1970s sitcoms, 1950s existentialist comedy, Chekhov and disco anthems, 3C is a terrifying, yet amusing, look at a culture that likes to amuse itself, even as it teeters on the brink of ruin. Performances begin on June 6, 2012 with opening night set for June 14. The production is being presented in association with Piece by Piece Productions and Rising Phoenix Repertory.

Each play will have the following performance schedule: Monday at 8pm, Wednesday - Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 3pm. Memberships are available by calling TicketCentral at (212) 279-4200 or online at www.ticketcentral.com. To learn about the many benefits of membership, as well as 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-eight world premieres in the past sixteen 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, Killers and Other Family, Post No Bills, Blind, Little Doc, underneathmybed, There Are No More Big Secrets, Adam Rapp's The Hallway Trilogy, 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), as well as The Aliens by Annie Baker (2010 Obie Award winner for Best New American Play).

Bios____________________________________________________________

Dan Klores, an Award-winning director, has made six films during the last eight years, four of which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Following The Boys of 2nd Street Park (2003), Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story (2005), and Crazy Love (2007), which also captured the 2008 Independent Spirit Award for best documentary film, he directed the dark operatic comedy, Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks. Klores is also a playwright; his play, Little Doc, premiered at New York's Rattlestick Theatre in June 2010. Klores' other films include the Peabody Award-winning Black Magic and Viva Baseball, which both explore his ongoing theme of exclusion from the mainstream. Mr. Klores grew up in Brooklyn. He resides in Manhattan with his wife Abbe and three sons, Jake, Sam and Luke.

Jesse Eisenberg is the author of two plays, The Revisionist and Asuncion, and has written the music and lyrics to Me Time!, a musical. As an actor, he has appeared in the films The Squid and the Whale, Adventureland, Zombieland, and Roger Dodger. On stage, Jesse starred opposite Al Pacino in Lyle Kessler's Orphans and in Lucy Thurber's Scarcity. Most recently, he received critical acclaim for his performance in The Social Network for which he earned the Best Actor Award from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures and an Academy Award Nomination for Best Actor.

Dael Orlandersmith is the author of the Obie Award-winning Beauty's Daughter and the 2002 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Drama, Yellowman for which she was also nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Best Actress and Best Play. Other works include Stoop Stories, Bones, commissioned by the Mark Taper Forum in 2007, Liar, Liar, The Gimmick, produced with great acclaim at the Long Wharf Theatre and New York Theater Workshop, and Monster. She is also an award-winning actress and poet, having appeared in Williamstown's production of Romeo and Juliet, and touring extensively with Nuyorican Poets Café. She is the recipient of a NYFA Grant, The Helen Merrill Emerging Playwrights Award, a Guggenheim and the 2005 Pen/Laura Pels Foundation Award for a Playwright in Mid-Career, the 2006 Lucille Lortel Playwrights Fellowship, the Whiting Award, and the 2003 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. She recently won the William Inge Award for her play Horsedreams. She is currently at work on her new play Suicide Girlz for the Atlantic Theatre Company.

Daniel Talbott's play Slipping was produced at Rattlestick with Piece by Piece Productions. It was published last year by Dramatists Play Service and was recently nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. His play What Happened When was produced at HERE Arts Center in 2007. Talbott received a Theater Hall of Fame Fellowship, a New York Innovative Theatre Award for directing, a Drama-Logue Award, two Dean Goodman Choice Awards, and a Judy Award for acting, and is the founder and artistic director of Rising Phoenix Rep (recipient of the 2007 NYIT Caffe Cino Fellowship Award).

José Rivera is a playwright and screenwriter. His plays include The House of Ramon Iglesia (Winner of 1983 FDG/CBS New Play Contest), Marisol, for which he received the 1993 Obie Award for Outstanding New Play, Cloud Tectonics which was presented in the XLII Festival of Puerto Rican Theater, School for the Americas, his play about Che Guevara, and Boleros for the Disenchanted which had its world premiere at Yale Repertory Theater. He has won two Obie Awards for playwriting, a Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Grant, a Fulbright Arts Fellowship in Playwriting, the Whiting Writers' Award, a McKnight Fellowship, the 2005 Norman Lear Writing Award, a 2005 Impact Award and a Berilla Kerr Playwriting Award. His screenplay The Motorcycle Diaries was nominated for an Oscar in 2005 for Best Adapted Screenplay, making Rivera the first Puerto Rican screenwriter to be nominated for an Academy Award.

David Adjmi's work has been developed and produced at Lincoln Center Theater, New York Theater Workshop, The Royal Court Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, Yale Repertory Theatre, MCC Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, and Woolly Mammoth Theatre. His play Stunning was nominated for five Helen Hayes Awards, including the Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play, and was produced at LCT3 in July 2009. His untitled memoir is forthcoming from HarperCollins, and a collection of his work entitled Stunning and Other Plays will be published by TCG in 2011. Adjmi is the recipient of a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship, the Whiting Writers' Award, the Kesselring Prize for Drama, the Steinberg Playwright Award (the "Mimi"), and the Bush Artists Fellowship. He attended Sarah Lawrence College, the Iowa Playwrights Workshop and the American Playwrights Program at the Juilliard School. He is a member of New Dramatists.

 

Photo Credit: Walter McBride/WM Photos