THE LONG SHRIFT, Directed by James Franco, Begins Tonight at Rattlestick

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater's Artistic Director David Van Asselt and Managing Director Brian Long previously announced that the World Premiere of The Long Shrift, written by Robert Boswell and directed by James Franco, would begin previews tonight, July 7th, 2014. The official opening night is set for July 13th, 2014 and closing night is August 23rd, 2014.

The Long Shrift tells the story of Richard Singer, who, as a dorky teenage boy, was accused of rape and thrown in jail, tearing his parents apart. Richard is released nine years later, and The Long Shrift follows what happens when his accuser reappears in his life.

ROBERT BOSWELL (Playwright) has published seven novels, three story collections, and two books of nonfiction. The Long Shrift is his second play. Tumbledown is his most recent novel. His work has earned him two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Iowa School of Letters Award for Fiction, a Lila Wallace/Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, the PEN West Award for Fiction, the John Gassner Prize for Playwriting, and the Evil Companions Award. The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards was a finalist for the 2010 PEN USA Award in Fiction. What Men Call Treasure was a finalist for the Western Writers of America Nonfiction Spur Award. Both the Chicago Tribune and Publisher's Weekly named Mystery Ride as one of the best books of the year. The London Independent picked The Geography of Desire as one of the best books of the year. Virtual Death was a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award and was named by the Science Fiction Chronicle as one of the best novels of the year. Boswell has published more than 70 stories and essays. They have appeared in the New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, O. Henry Prize Stories, Pushcart Prize Stories, Esquire, Colorado Review, Epoch, Ploughshares, and many other magazines and anthologies. He teaches at the University of Houston, where he shares the Cullen Endowed Chair in Creative Writing with his wife, Antonya Nelson. He and his wife live in Houston, Texas, and Telluride, Colorado.

JAMES FRANCO (Director) is an actor, director, screenwriter, producer, teacher and author. He began his career on "Freaks and Geeks" and received a Golden Globe Award for his performance in the biographical film James Dean. Notable film credits include Oz: The Great and Powerful, Spring Breakers, Harry Osborn in the Spider-Man trilogy, Milk, and 127 Hours, for which he received Academy Award, SAG and Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor. He is currently starring Of Mice and Men on Broadway. He has directed, written and produced features and been published several times in magazines and his own books. He is currently teaching college courses at UCLA, USC and CalArts and acting classes at Studio 4.

ALLIE GALLERANI: My Children! My Africa! (Off-Broadway, The Signature Theater, dir. Ruben Santiago-Hudson), as well as The Metal Children. Film credits include the upcoming feature Emoticon, film shorts Ballad of Barbara Allen and Chocolate Heart (Official Selection SXSW 2014,) and the web series "Your Dad's Friends." On television she has appeared on "The Good Wife" and "Elementary".

SCOTT HAZE: The Long Shrift marks Scott's Off-Broadway debut. Haze is the lead of James Franco's Child of God, which premiered in competition at the Venice International Film Festival, and screened in the Toronto International Film Festival and New York Film Festival among many others. His talented performance earned him a spot on the highly-coveted Variety "10 Actors to Watch" list in 2013 and was recently featured by for a breakthrough performance in a film for the summer of 2014. Child of God is now set to debut in theaters in August. A longtime collaborator of Franco's, Haze had a supporting role in As I Lay Dying, based on Faulkner's novel that debuted at Cannes 2013, and a cameo in Franco's upcoming Bukowski. Haze recently finished filming Franco's next feature The Sound & The Fury (another Faulkner adaptation) playing Jason Compson IV, starring opposite Franco and Ahna O'Reilly, and wrapped the Jeff Nichols ("Mud" ) thriller for Warner Bros titled Midnight Special opposite Michael Shannon and Kirsten Dunst. A week before rehearsal of this production commenced he arrived back in the States from Africa where he wrapped directing a documentary on the life/works of Kenyan humanitarian Dr. Charles Mulli. Additionally, he is owner, founder and Artistic Director of The Sherry Theater in North Hollywood, a performing arts venue he named after his mother. He would personally like to thank James Franco but says words could never suffice the appreciation and love he has for his friend.

BRIAN LALLY: Brian Lally is one of Hollywood's most versatile and talented actors, with a career spanning film, television, voice-over and stage. From playing a cop in L.A. Confidential to a half-bearded Santa for K-Mart, a grief-stricken father in A Hatful of Rain, to an iconic and charismatic serial killer in Ritual for After Dark Films. Brian has worked with a wide range of Hollywood's elite including Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Steven Spielberg, Jeff Goldblum, Pete Postlethwaite, Constance Marie, Scott Haze, Danny McBride, Beth Grant, Danny DeVito and Adam Sandler. Most recently Brian has partnered with James Franco in creating Studio Four, an acting school, located in North Hollywood, California.Theater has always been Brian's first love. When he began acting, Brian was in a play every weekend for 7 years. It has always been Brian's dream to be on stage in New York. Brian would like to thank James Franco, Robert Boswell, and David Van Asselt and the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. This is Brian's 27th project with James.

AHNA O'REILLY: Having numerous film and television credits to her name, Ahna O'Reilly has emerged as one of Hollywood's most sought after young actors today. O'Reilly's breakout was in the Oscar nominated Disney/Dreamworks film The Help starring alongside Emma Stone, Bryce Dallas Howard and Sissy Spacek. 2012 then proved to be a productive year for Ahna as she completed work on the films The Time Being with Wes Bentley and Frank Langella, Jobs opposite Ashton Kutcher, CBGB with Alan Rickman, the ensemble The Big Ask and the James Franco-directed As I Lay Dying. She then joined Octavia Spencer again in the 2013 Oscar Nominated Film Fruitvale Station opposite Michael B. Jordan. Upcoming films include Lucky Them with Toni Collette and Johnny Depp, James Franco's The Sound & The Fury with Jon Hamm and Dave Franco, Peter Bogdonovich's Squirrel's to the Nuts with Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston and No Way Jose with Adam Goldberg. Previous film credits include the comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall alongside Jason Segel, Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis and Russell Brand. Television credits include guest appearances on the final season of CBS's "How I Met Your Mother" and NBC's "Prime Suspect" as well as "The Vampire Diaries" and "CSI:NY." Ahna currently resides in Los Angeles and enjoys volunteering her time and talent to children with serious medical conditions at Art of Elysium, as well as contributing towards building a sustainable future for Los Angeles with the environmental nonprofit Tree People.

ALLY SHEEDY: Ally's first film role was opposite Sean Penn in Bad Boys in 1983. Since then she has appeared in over 50 film and television projects including War Games, The Breakfast Club, St. Elmo's Fire, Short Circuit, Only The Lonely (opposite John Candy), Life During Wartime (director Todd Solondz) and High Art (Independent Spirit Award-Best Actress 1999). Ally played "Hedwig" in Hedwig and the Angry Inch Off-Bwy in 2000 and has been appearing as "Yang" (recurring role) in the series "Psych" since 2009. She lives in New York, has authored two books and is the proud mother of Rebecca Lansbury, who just went to college. In addition, Ally is deeply involved fighting for the rights of homeless youth in LGBTQ community.

The set design for The Long Shrift is by Andromache Chalfant; costume design is by Jessica Pabst; lighting design is by Burke Brown; sound design is by Bart Fasbender; properties master is Matt Frew; assistant properties master is Judy Merrick. The production manager is Eugenia Furneaux; the production stage manager is Andrew Slater; associate production manager is Jeremy Pape; the assistant stage manager is Taylor Alyssa Marun.

The Long Shrift plays Mondays and Tuesdays at 7pm, Thursdays and Fridays at 8pm, Saturdays at 3pm and 8pm, and Sundays at 7pm. Individual tickets for The Long Shrift are now available. They can be purchased at www.rattlestick.org or by calling OvationTix at 866.811.4111. Individual tickets are $20, Student tickets are $5, Premium tickets are $30, and Theater Artist and Under-30 tickets are $10. **Prices are subject to change. Please refer to the Rattlestick website for up-to-date information. **Time change for July 8th preview will be at 2pm. No 7pm show on July 8th. Memberships for Rattlestick's 2014-2015 season are now available. They can be purchased at www.rattlestick.org or by calling OvationTix at 866.811.4111. Season Memberships are priced at $160. Memberships are also available exclusively for The Long Shrift and Phoenix. They are priced at $60. Rattlestick Playwrights Theater is located at 224 Waverly Pl (off Seventh Avenue South).

RATTLESTICK PLAYWRIGHTS THEATER (Producer) is a multiaward-winning company which 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.

Pictured: James Franco and the cast in rehearsal. Photo via James Franco's Facebook page.