Rattlestick Playwrights Theater Opens 15th Anniversary With KILLERS & OTHER FAMILY 9/24

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater will open its 15th anniversary season with a fresh look at Killers and Other Family, the provocative play by Lucy Thurber (Monstrosity, Where We're Born, Stay) which had its world premiere as part of the company's 2000-01 season. Directed by Caitriona McLaughlin (New York directing debut), performances begin Thursday, September 17th, 2009. Opening night is Thursday, September 24th at 7pm. The show will run through Sunday, October 11, 2009.

Just when Elizabeth thinks she has finally escaped her previous life, that life comes crashing back in when her brother and his best friend show up, on the run, demanding she hide them. Their arrival forces Elizabeth to truly confront her past, pushing her into a waking nightmare in which fears and memories become all too real.

David Van Asselt, Rattlestick's co-founder and Artistic Director says "Killers and Other Family was the first play of Lucy's to reach the stage. I think none of us, perhaps even Lucy, understood the style we were reaching for. Consequently, that production left us all unsatisfied. It seemed, somehow appropriate, in our 15th season, to revisit that play, give Lucy a chance to do the rewriting she never got to that first time around, and try to give it the production it deserves."

The cast of Killers and Other Family includes Aya Cash (Offices, The Pain and The Itch), Dashiell Eaves (The Lieutenant of Inishmore, Coram Boy), Shane McRae (Take Me Out), and Samantha Soule (The Philanthropist, Monstrosity).

The creative team is comprised of John McDermott (sets), Emily Rebholz (costumes), Ben Ehrenreich (lights) and Eugenia Furneaux-Arends (props). Terri Kohler is Production Stage Manager, and Melissa Gregus is Assistant Stage Manager.

Killers and Other Family will have the following performance schedule: Monday at 8pm; Thursday - Saturday at 8pm; Sunday at 3pm. Tickets are $45.00 and are available through SmartTix (212-868-4444) or www.smarttix.com. Rattlestick Playwrights Theater is located at 224 Waverly Place (off Seventh Avenue South - between West 11th & Perry Streets).

Bios

Lucy Thurber (Playwright) is the author of seven plays: Where We're Born, Ashville, Scarcity, Killers and Other Family, Stay, Bottom of the World and Monstrosity. The Atlantic Theater Company opened its 2007/08 season with Scarcity. Rattlestick Playwrights Theater has produced three of her plays, Where We're Born, Killers and Other Family and Stay. In 2009-Lucy wrote the text for Quixote, conceived and directed by Lear deBessonet, a site-specific performance with the Psalters made for and with The Broad Street Community, also produced by 13P and directed by Lear deBessonet, Monstrosity. Bottom of the World was commissioned and work shopped by Women's Expressive Theater, Inc. at the Eugene O'Neill, the first Tribeca Theater Festival and The Public Theater. Monstrosity was work shopped at Encore Theatre Company (San Francisco). She was the recipient of the 2000-01 Manhattan Theatre Club Playwriting Fellowship and has been a guest artist at Alaska's Perseverance Theatre twice, where she helped to adapt both Desire Under The Elms and Moby Dick. She has had reading and workshops at Manhattan Theatre Club, The New Group, Primary Stages, MCC Theater, Encore Theatre Company, PlayPenn, Williamstown Theatre Festival, New River Dramatists and Soho Rep. She was one of three playwrights in residence at The Orchard Project, summer 2007. Her 10-minute play Dinner is published in "Not So Sweet," a collection of plays from Soho Rep's 10-Minute Play Festival. Scarcity was published in the December 2007 issue of American Theatre. Her produced plays are published by Dramatists Play Service. Thurber is a member of New Dramatists, MCC Playwrights Coalition and Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages. She is currently writing a new play under commission from Playwrights Horizons. She is the recipient of the 1st Gary Bonasorte Memorial Prize for Playwriting. Lucy currently teaches at Columbia University in Graduate Playwriting and Sarah Lawrence College.

CAITRIONA McLAUGHLIN (Director) currently lives in London and is Associate Director and General Manager of the Playground Studio, a creation space for the development of original theatre. Having a keen interest in the development of new writing she is currently on secondment to The Royal Court Theatre, London and has recently returned from the LAByrinth Summer Intensive, Bard. Recent directing work includes Angels and Accidents, The Recruiting Officer (Derry Playhouse), Shadowbox (Southwark Playhouse, London), Roman Nights (The New End Theatre, London) and Babooshka (Edinburgh Festival). Caitriona has also directed work in Ireland, Germany, The Czech Republic, and South Africa. She currently has 2 new Theatre Projects and a short film in development and due for productions in 2010.

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater is a multi-award-winning company which has produced over forty world premieres in the past fourteen 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, the Off-Broadway GLAAD Award-nominated hit The Last Sunday in June and Craig Wright's The Pavilion (Drama Desk nominee - Outstanding Play of 2005) and Lady (Drama Desk nominee - Outstanding Play of 2008). www.rattlestick.org.

 

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