Rapp, Aukin, Cullman Direct THE HALLWAY TRILOGY At Rattlestick, Opens 2/20

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater continues its 16th season with the world premiere of The Hallway Trilogy, three full length plays set fifty years apart (1953, 2003, 2053) by Adam Rapp. Performances begin Sunday, February 6th at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre (224 Waverly Place - off Seventh Avenue South between W. 11th & Perry Streets). The official opening night is set for Sunday, February 20th. The Hallway Trilogy is scheduled to run through Sunday, March 20th.

"Adam broached the idea of doing a trilogy back in 2007," said David Van Asselt, Rattlestick's Artistic Director. "My first thought was ‘I wonder who will produce that?' Adam's first thought was, ‘Rattlestick. I'm writing it for Rattlestick.' Weaving, themes of suffering and redemption into a sequence of moments in the same lower east side hallway, fifty years apart, Adam has found a different and, for me, a compelling take on the nature of a trilogy, on what binds people together and how they move forward into the future. We are completely re-orienting the theater in order to accommodate the long hallway in which the plays take place. It is certainly the most ambitious project we have ever undertaken."

The Hallway Trilogy
fourteen actors performing three plays in rep
one design team
three directors

Part 1, Rose, directed by Adam Rapp, takes place on the evening of November 28th, 1953, the day following the death of Eugene O'Neill.

Part 2, Paraffin, directed by Daniel Aukin, is set on the first evening of the 2003 New York City blackout.

Part 3, Nursing, directed by Trip Cullman, is set in 2053 in a disease-free New York when the tenement has been transformed into a museum where young men and women in need of cash are injected with old-fashioned diseases for the amusement of the public.

The Hallway Trilogy cast includes William Apps, Rob Beitzel, Guy Boyd, Louis Cancelmi, Maria Dizzia, Logan Marshall Green, Sue Jean Kim, Nick Lawson, Sarah Lemp, Danny Mastrogiorgio, Julianne Nicholson, Jeremy Strong, Katherine Waterston and Stephen Tyrone Williams.

The creative team includes Beowulf Boritt (scenic design), Jessica Pabst (costume design), Tyler Micoleau (lighting design), Eric Shim (sound design), Eugenia Furneaux-Arends (properties) and Katie Takacs (technical direction). Melissa Mae Gregus and Meredith Dixon are Production Stage Managers. Michael Denis and Rebecca Goldstein-Glaze are Assistant Stage Managers.

The performance schedule for The Hallway Trilogy is as follows:

Part 1, Rose plays Tuesdays at 8pm
Part 2, Paraffin plays Wednesdays at 8pm
Part 3, Nursing plays Thursdays at 8pm

Parts 1, 2 and 3 will run in rotating repertory on Friday at 8pm, Saturday at 4pm
and Saturday at 8pm.

Sunday Marathon Days - All three (3) parts in order - 1pm, 4pm and 8pm.
Each play runs about 90 minutes.

Tickets are $99 (for all three plays) or $55 individually and are available by calling SmartTix at (212) 868-4444 or online at www.smarttix.com. For more information, please visit www.rattlestick.org.

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater is a multi-award-winning company which has produced over forty-six world premieres in the past fifteen and a half 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, 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). And, most recently, There Are No More Big Secrets, by Heidi Schreck.

Bios

Adam Rapp (Playwright/Director, Rose) is a novelist, filmmaker, and an OBIE Award-winning playwright and director. His plays include Nocturne (A.R.T., Off-Broadway at NYTW), Ghosts in the Cottonwoods (Victory Gardens; The Arcola, London), Animals and Plants (A.R.T.), Blackbird (The Bush, London; Pittsburgh City Theatre; Off-Broadway with Edge Theater), Stone Cold Dead Serious (A.R.T., Off-Broadway with Edge Theater), Finer Noble Gases (26th Annual Humana Festival of New American Plays, Off-Broadway at Rattlestick, 2006 Edinburgh Fringe Festival), Faster (Off-Broadway at Rattlestick), Trueblinka (Off-Broadway at the Maverick Theater), Dreams of the Salthorse (Encore, S.F.), Gompers (Pittsburgh City Theatre; The Arcola, London), Red Light Winter (Steppenwolf, Barrow Street Theater), Essential Self-Defense (Playwrights Horizons/Edge Theater, Drama Desk Nomination for Best Original Music), American Sligo (Rattlestick), Bingo with the Indians (The Flea), The Metal Children (Vineyard Theatre), and Kindness (Playwrights Horizons). As a director, his production of Blackbird (Edge Theater) received two Drama Desk Nominations. His production of Red Light Winter was the first play to completely sell-out Steppenwolf's Garage Theater and won the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work. It then transferred to the Barrow Street Theatre for a six-month Off-Broadway commercial run, where it received a Citation from the American Theatre Critics Association, a Lucille Lortel Nomination for Best New Play, two OBIE Awards, and was named a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize. His production of Finer Noble Gases at the 2006 Edinburgh Festival received a Fringe First Award, A Best Actor Award from the London Stage, and the List Magazine/Writers' Guild of Great Britain's Best Newcomer Prize. He also directed Christopher Denham's Cagelove at Rattlestick, Stephen Adly Guirgis' Dominica: The Fat Ugly Ho for E.S.T.'s Marathon '06, and Julian Sheppard's Los Angeles at The Flea. He also directed world premieres of his plays American Sligo (Rattlestick), Bingo with the Indians (The Flea), and Kindness (Playwrights Horizons). Most recently, he directed a sold-out run of the world premiere of his play, The Metal Children, at The Vineyard Theatre, starring Billy Crudup. His first feature film, Winter Passing starring Ed Harris, Will Ferrell, and Zooey Deschanel, received its world premiere as an Official Selection of the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in February, 2006. His second feature, Blackbird, which was adapted from his play, received its world premiere at the 2007 Southxsouthwest Festival, was selected for the 2007 Edinburgh International Film Festival, won the Best Narrative Feature Prize at the Charlotte Film Festival, and garnered a Special Jury Prize for Achievement in Direction from the Florida Film Festival. He is the author of the young adult novels Missing the Piano(Viking/HarperCollins), The Buffalo Tree (Front Street/HarperColllins), The Copper Elephant (Front Street/HarperCollins), Little Chicago(Front Street Press), 33 Snowfish (Candlewick Press), Under The Wolf, Under The Dog (Candlewick Press), which was short-listed for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and received the Schneider Book Award from the American Library Association, and most recently Punkzilla (Candlewick Press), which was named a 2009 Michael J. Printz Honor Book. His adult novel, The Year of Endless Sorrows, is published by Farrar Straus & Giroux. He is also the author of the graphic novel, Ball-Peen Hammer (First Second Books).

Daniel Aukin (Director, Paraffin) directed the critically acclaimed world premiere of This by Melissa James Gibson at Playwrights Horizons in winter 2009. Other credits include: Itamar Moses' Back Back Back at Manhattan Theatre Club, A View from the Bridge at Arena Stage, Melissa James Gibson's Current Nobody at Woolly Mammoth, Elmer Rice's The Adding Machine at La Jolla Playhouse, and a workshop of Rachel Axler's new play Smudge at the Eugene O'Neill Conference. As Artistic Director of Soho Rep., Daniel directed Mark Schultz's critically acclaimed Everything Will Be Different (world premiere), Melissa James Gibson's [sic] (OBIE award for direction), Quincy Long's The Year of the Baby (world premiere), Mac Wellman's Cat's-Paw (world premiere), Marie Irene Fornes' Molly's Dream (world premiere), and Melissa James Gibson's Suitcase (also at La Jolla Playhouse). For other theatres: Alexandra Cunningham's No. 11 (Blue and White), Melissa James Gibson's Brooklyn Bridge at The Children's Theatre of Minneapolis and Mat Smart's The Hopper Collection at the Huntington Theatre. Upcoming projects include Paraffin (part II of Adam Rapp's Hallway Trilogy) at Rattlestick, Melissa James Gibson's This for Center Theater Group, and Sam Marks' The Old Masters at Steppenwolf Theatre Company's First Look Repertory of New Work. He is also developing a musical adaptation of the Jonathan Lethem novel The Fortress of Solitude with Michael Friedman (composer/lyricist) and Itamar Moses (book).

Trip Cullman (Director, Nursing) NY credits include Bachelorette, Some Men and Swimming in the Shallows (Second Stage); The Drunken City and Manic Flight Reaction (Playwrights Horizons); Dog Sees God and The Last Sunday in June (Century Center); The Wooden Breeks (MCC); Roulette (EST); U.S. Drag (The StageFARM); American Hwangap, Bad Jazz, Arabian Night, and Smashing (The Play Company); Dark Matters (Rattlestick); Of a White Christmas (Clubbed Thumb); The Wau Wau Sisters (Ars Nova). Regional: Six Degrees of Separation (The Old Globe), American Hwangap (Magic Theater), The Injured Party (South Coast Rep), A Steady Rain (New York Stage and Film). Upcoming: Unusual Acts of Devotion (La Jolla Playhouse). Training, Yale School of Drama. Associate Artist, The Play Company.

Photo credit: Emily Faye Oakley

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