Rattlestick Playwrights Theater Extends PITBULLS

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater Artistic Director David Van Asselt and Managing Director Brian Long have announced that following strong reviews Pitbulls, written by Keith Josef Adkins and directed by Leah Gardiner, will extend one week through Saturday, December 20, at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, 224 Waverly Place, west of Seventh Avenue South. (Pitbulls had originally been scheduled to close on December 13.)

Pitbulls opened on November 20 to strong reviews. Ben Brantley of The New York Times wrote, "Hats off to Keith Josef Adkins. The dialogue is as flavorful as pulled-pork barbecue marinated in a piquant secret sauce. A resplendently foul-mouthed production."

A small black community in rural Appalachia. Pitbull country. Mary and her son Dipper live in a trailer a few miles from their bible-belt, war-loving, dog-fighting neighbors. Despite being the community's pariah, Mary is at peace making and selling wine. However, when a prize-winning pit bull is slaughtered on the Fourth of July, Mary's solitary existence becomes suspect.

The cast of Pitbulls is Yvette Ganier, Nathan Hinton, Billy Eugene Jones, Donna Duplantier, and Maurice Williams.

Keith Josef Adkins is an Ohio-born, New York-based playwright. His plays include Pitbulls, Safe House which will receive its world premiere Fall 2014 at Cincinnati Playhouse and a subsequent production at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis in Winter 2015. His play The Last Saint On Sugar Hill received its world premiere at MPAACT Theater in Chicago, garnering a Best New Work nomination at the 2012 Jeff Awards. The Last Saint received its New York premiere at the National Black Theatre in 2013. Other plays include The People Before The Park, Sugar And Needles, he Final Days Of Negro-Ville, The Bug Pods. His works have been produced and/or developed at the Public Theater, LaMama, Lark Play Development Center, Epic Theatre Ensemble, New York Theater Workshop, Alliance Theater, Hansberry Project, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Classical Theater of Harlem, among others. Keith is the co-founder and artistic director of The New Black Fest, a festival of new and provocative playwriting, music and discussion from the African Diaspora. The New Black Fest recently curated Facing Our Truth: Ten-Minute Plays on Trayvon, Race and Privilge that's being produced at theaters around the country. Keith penned The Disappearing, a sci-fi feature film script, for Simon Says Entertainment (Blue Caprice, Mother of George, Gun Hill Road). His sci-fi webseries, The Abandon, is currently being developed into a feature film with executive producer and Emmy-Award winning actor Eriq LaSalle.

Leah Gardiner's New York theater credits include: The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (Atlantic Theater Company); Born Bad (Soho Rep, U.S. premiere, Obie Award); Kent, CT (Zipper Theater); The Ghost of Enoch Charlton, (Keen Company); Bulrusher (Urban Stages, World Premiere and Pulitzer finalist). National: Antony and Cleopatra, Othello (Houston Shakespeare Festival); By the Way Meet Vera Stark (Alliance Theater); Fences (Oregon Shakespeare Festival); Sucker Punch (Studio Theatre, U.S. Premiere); Clementine in the Lower Nine (TheatreWorks, World Premiere, top 10, 2012); The Last Five Years (Crossroads Theatre Company); A Streetcar Named Desire (Pillsbury House Theatre); Piano Lesson (Madison Rep); Blue Door (South Coast Repertory, world premiere and Pulitzer finalist); Topdog/Underdog (Philadelphia Theatre Company); Birdie Blue (City Theatre); Orange Flower Water (Contemporary American Theatre Festival, World Premiere); The Flag Maker of Market Street (World Premiere, Alabama Shakespeare Festival); Angels in America (Connecticut Repertory Theatre); (Re-staging Director) Broadway's The Normal Heart (Arena Stage, American Conservatory Theater); National Tour, Wit (Kennedy Center, Ordway, among others). Upcoming: generations (Soho Rep.). Writer, Director: Cultures Collide (Sony Entertainment); Short Film Director: "The Belle of New Orleans" (Alliance Theater); Film producer: Mother of George, best cinematography, Sundance, 2012. Ms. Gardiner holds an M.F.A. in Directing from the Yale School of Drama.

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater is an award-winning company that 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).

Pitbulls plays Sunday and Monday at 7pm and Thursday thru Saturday at 8pm at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, 224 Waverly Place, west of Seventh Avenue South. During the extension, there will be an added performance on Wednesday, December 17 at 7pm. Tickets are $21; premium tickets are $30; student tickets are $5; and theater artist and under-30 tickets are $10. Tickets and season memberships may be purchased by visiting www.rattlestick.org or by phoning OvationTix at 866.811.4111. Please note that prices and performance schedule are subject to change; please refer to the Rattlestick website for the most up-to-date information.

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