Hani Furstenberg, Brian Mendes & More Join Adam Rapp's THROUGH THE YELLOW HOUR at Rattlestick; Full Cast Announced!

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater Artistic Director David Van Asselt and Managing Director Brian Long have announced the cast and creative team for the world premiere of Through the Yellow Hour, a play written and directed by Adam Rapp (Pulitzer Prize finalist for Red Light Winter). The first production of the company's 18th season, Through the Yellow Hour will begin performances on Thursday, September 13, 2012 at Rattlestick Theater (224 Waverly Place-off Seventh Avenue South, between Perry and West 11th Streets). The official opening night is set for Thursday, September 27th at 7pm. The production is scheduled to run through October 28th. Talkbacks with Adam Rapp will follow the performances on September 21, October 1, October 12, and October 22.

In Through the Yellow Hour, the United States has been attacked. Men are being castrated, women enumerated. Ellen has been in hiding for 52 days, subsisting on very little, hoping against hope for her husband to return. As the world around her falls further into senseless chaos, she takes an unlikely action, one that just might signal a new beginning.

The cast includes Hani Furstenberg, Brian Mendes, Matt Pilieci, Danielle Slavick, Alok Tewari, Joanne Tucker, and Vladimir Versailles.

The creative team features Andromache Chalfant (scenic design), Jessica Pabst (costume design), Keith Parham (lighting design), Christian Frederickson (sound design), and Andrew Diaz (properties). Michael Denis is production stage manager and Lori Singleton is assistant stage manager.

The performance schedule is: Sunday-Monday at 7:30pm, Wednesday at 7:30pm, Thursday-Friday at 8:00pm, and Saturday at 2pm & 8pm. Tickets are $55 for general admission, $15 for patrons under 30 and $10 for students (with Valid ID), and are available through www.rattlestick.org or by calling Ovationtix at 866.811.4111. Rattlestick is also offering $15 discounted tickets for theater artists on the Rattlestick Facebook Page.

Rattlestick Playwrights Theateris a multi-award-winning company which has produced over sixty world premieres in the past seventeen seasons and was the recipient of the 2007 Ross Wetzsteon Memorial OBIE Award for its work 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, 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, The Hallway Trilogy, Carson McCullers Talks About Love, The Wood, Asuncion, Horsedreams, Yosemite, Massacre (Sing to Your Children), 3C, 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).

Adam Rapp (Playwright/Director) is an Obie-award-winning playwright and director. He is the author of numerous plays, which include Nocturn (American Repertory Theatre, Elliot Norton Award; New York Theatre Workshop), Finer Noble Gasses (26th Humana Festival; Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre; 2006 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Fringe First Award), Stone Cold Dead Serious (A.R.T., Edge Theatre), Blackbird (The Bush, London; Edge Theatre), Essential Self-Defense (Playwrights Horizons/Edge Theatre), American Sligo (Rattlestick), KINDNESS (Playwrights Horizons), The Metal Children (The Vineyard), The Hallway Trilogy (Rattletsick), The Edge of Our Bodies (35th Annual Humana Festival), Dreams of Flying, Dreams of Falling (The Atlantic), and Red Light Winter (Steppenwolf; Scott Rudin Productions at Barrow Street Theatre), which received Chicago's Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Play and was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He has published eight novels for young adults, including 33 Snowfish (Candlewick Press), Under the Wolf, Under the Dog (Candlewick Press), which was short-listed for the L.A. Times Book Prize, and Punkzilla (Candlewick Press), a 2010 Michael J. Printz Honor Book. He is also the author of the adult novel, The Year of Endless Sorrows (Farrar Strauss & Giroux), and the graphic novel, Ball-Peen Hammer (First Second Books). His new novel, The Children and the Wolves, was just released from Candlewick Press. His many honors include The Helen Merrill Playwriting Award, The 2006 Princess Grace Statue, a Lucille Lortel Playwright's Fellowship, and The Benjamin H. Danks Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He also wrote and directed the films Winter Passing and Blackbird, and authored the role of Sunil for the third season of HBO's in Treatment. Recently, he directed the world premiere of Karen O's psycho Opera, Stop the Virgens at St. Ann's Warehouse, which will play the Sydney Opera House in May. He is currently in preproduction for the film version of Red Light Winter, which he will direct this coming fall for Parts & Labor and Scott Rudin Productions.

Hani Furstenberg (Ellen) Born and raised in New York, until recently Hani Furstenberg has focused most of her acting career in Israel where she is an award winning actress on both stage and screen. Theatre credits (The Cameri Theatre) include: Constanze in Amadeus; Hodel in Fiddler on the Roof; Ophelia in Hamlet. She won the Israeli Tony in 2010 for her portrayal of a ventriloquist dummy in Joshua Sobol's Ghetto. Film credits include: Yossi and Jagger; The Loneliest Planet which is to be released this fall. In 2004 she won the Israeli Oscar for her performance in Joseph Cedar's Campfire.

Brian Mendes (Dead Man on Floor) is a founding member and former artistic director of the Cook County Theater Department of Chicago. For the past 12 years he has worked primarily with Richard Maxwell and the NYC Players. This is his second time working with Mr. Rapp. In 2011 he played Buck in Mr. Rapp's Animals and Plants.

Matt Pilieci (Doctor Joseph) was born in Brooklyn and raised in South Florida. He is a graduate and company member of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and is also a co-founder of the critically acclaimed theater company, The Amoralists. Recent credits include The Mnemonist of Dutchess County (Atlantic Theater Company) and HotelMotel (The Amoralists).

Danielle Slavick (Maude) NY Theater includes: Bright New Boise (Davis McCallum/Partial Comfort Productions), Practice (Annie Baker/Atlantic Theatre Company's 10X25), Blind (Lucie Tiberghien/Rattlestick Playwrights Theater), That Pretty Pretty; or, The Rape Play (Kip Fagan/Rattlestick), Understudying all 3 ladies in Circle, Mirror, Transformation (Sam Gold/Playwrights Horizons), Goodbye New York, Goodbye Heart (Oliver Butler/HERE Arts Center), Richard II on Trapeze (Sonnet Rep), Your Boyfriend May Be Imaginary (The Management Company). Regional includes: Currently-The Way of the World (Franklin Stage Company); Sam Hunter's A Permanent Image (Kip Fagan/Boise Contemporary Theater), The Diary of Anne Frank (Paul Barnes/The Denver Center), Plainsong (Kent Thompson/Denver Center) TV: recurring "Guiding Light". MFA: National Theater Conservatory.

Alok Tewari (Hakim) Theater credits include: The Strangest (Here CultureMart); Night Over Erzinga (Lark Play Development Center); Marie and Bruce (The New Group); Alternative Methods (NYC/DC Fringe); Masked (Buenos Aires); Inana (Denver Center Theatre); Rafta, Rafta (The New Group); War (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater); The Power of Darkness (Mint Theatre); Betrothed (Ripe Time); Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (Lark Play Development Center); India Awaiting (Immediate Vision, NYC); On the Origin of Darwin (Inverse Theater); The Merry Wives of Windsor (Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival); and Marco Polo (The Group - Argentina). Television: "Homeland"; "30 Rock"; "Fringe"; "Law & Order"; "L&O: CI";" L&O: SVU"; "Guiding Light". Film: Brooklyn's Finest.

Joanne Tucker (Claire) Theater: Tigers Be Still (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park), The Cherry Orchard (CSC), Habit (Mass MoCA), Oedipus after Colonus (HERE), Little Doc (Rattlestick), Theater of War (Bryan Doerries); Film: Gayby, I'm Coming Over, Sweet Nothings, After You Left, Loft; Voice-Over:Prohibition & The Roosevelts (Ken Burns), Scientific American Psychology Film Series; co-runs the non-profit, ARTS in the ARMED FORCES (AITAF/www.aitaf.org). Juilliard.

Vladimir Versailles (Darius)graduated from Marymount Manhattan College with a B.A. in Acting & Minor in Musical Theatre. Received a full scholarship to study abroad at the British Academy of Dramatic Arts. Recent Theater Off-Broadway: Burning (New Group) and The Wood (Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre). Recent TV credits: "The Good Wife" & "Person of Interest" (CBS). Recent Films Completed: The Bitter Pill and The Challenger.

For more information, visit www.rattlestick.org.