Rattlestick Theater Unveils 2023/24 Season Featuring SPIRITUS/VIRGIL's DANCE NY Premiere & More

Rattlestick Theater has revealed its full 2023-24 season with the New York premiere of SPIRITUS/VIRGIL’s DANCE by playwright Dael Orlandersmith.  

 “In my first season as Artistic Director, I’m celebrating Rattlestick’s 29-year legacy of artist-centered, ambitious new work and preparing for an exciting transformation of our beloved home on Waverly Place.  Rattlestick thrives because of its community of artists, supporters, and audiences. At its core, Rattlestick is about making work by and for the community.  I am thrilled to continue Rattlestick’s commitment to artistic excellence and service to the field.” 
- Will Davis, Rattlestick Theater, Artistic Director

Latin for breath, “Spiritus” is often used figuratively to mean spirit. In Dael Orlandersmith’s new solo show SPIRITUS/VIRGIL'S DANCE, the word takes on a metaphorical meaning for a soul on a quest. In conversation with Dante’s Divine Comedy, we meet Virgil in the middle of an ordinary life. With their father’s passing, Virgil reframes death and finds the extraordinary they’ve been searching for.

Rattlestick is pleased to support a long-term working relationship with Dael, having first presented her play Horsedreams in 2011, about the breakdown of a family unit as a result of addiction.  She returned to the Rattlestick stage in 2017 with the New York premiere of Until The Flood, written in response to Michael Brown’s death and commissioned by St. Louis Repertory. Until The Flood was a New York Times Critics’ Pick, and saw subsequent productions by multiple major regional theaters (Goodman, Milwaukee Rep, Seattle, Arcola Theatre at Edinburgh Festival, Centre Theatre Group in Los Angeles) after the success of Rattlestick’s production. 

SPIRITUS/VIRGIL'S DANCE will be directed by Neel Keller and will begin performance in early 2024.  This show is being produced in partnership with Merrimack Repertory Theater where it was originally commissioned, and this past summer premiered as part of The Contemporary American Theater Festival at Shepherdstown.  Broadway World deemed the production  “a special, human kind of satisfaction which we might not have realized we needed—but which we truly need nonetheless.”

Dael Orlandersmith has previously collaborated with The Goodman Theatre on Stoop Stories during the 2009/2010 Season. She first performed Stoop Stories in 2008 at The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival and Apollo Theater’s Salon Series. Washington, DC’s Studio Theatre produced its world premiere in 2009. Black n’ Blue Boys/ Broken Men was developed as a co-commission between The Goodman Theatre and Berkeley Repertory Theatre, where it was staged in May of 2012. Her play Horsedreams was developed at New Dramatists and workshopped at New York Stage and Film Company in 2008. It was performed at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in 2011. Bones was commissioned by the Mark Taper Forum, where it premiered in 2010. She premiered The Blue Album, in collaboration with David Cale, at the Long Wharf Theatre in 2007. Yellowman was commissioned by and premiered at McCarter Theatre in a co-production with The Wilma Theater and Long Wharf Theatre. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and Drama Desk Award nominee for Outstanding Play and Outstanding Actress in a Play for Yellowman in 2002. The Gimmick, commissioned by McCarter Theatre, premiered in their Second Stage OnStage series in 1998 and went on to great acclaim at Long Wharf Theatre and New York Theatre Workshop. She won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for The Gimmick in 1999. Her play Monster premiered at the New York Theatre Workshop in November of 1996. She has toured extensively with the Nuyorican Poets Café (Real Live Poetry) throughout the United States, Europe, and Australia. Yellowman and a collection of her earlier works have been published by Vintage Books and Dramatists Play Service. She attended Sundance Institute Theatre Lab for four summers and is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant, The Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights, a Guggenheim, and the 2005 PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Award for a Playwright in Midcareer. She is the recipient of a Lucille Lortel Foundation Playwrights Fellowship and an Obie Award for Beauty’s Daughter. She wrote an  at d performed a solo memoir play called Forever, which was done at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Los Angeles in 2014. In 2015, the play was performed at the Long Wharf and New York Theatre Workshop. In January of 2016, there was a production of the play at Portland Center Stage in Oregon. In 2017, Forever was done at The Abbey Theatre in Dublin. In the fall of 2016, she wrote and performed Until the Flood, which was commissioned by St. Louis Rep. In 2018, it was done at Rattlestick Theatre in New York, Milwaukee Rep, The Goodman Theatre, and ACT Seattle. Ms. Orlandersmith is currently working on two commissions.

Neel Keller has enjoyed a long and happy directing collaboration with Dael Orlandersmith after meeting almost 30 years ago on a production of Romeo and Juliet. Over the last several years they have worked closely on creating and producing Orlandersmith’s acclaimed plays Until The Flood, Forever and Spiritus/Virgil’s Dance on stages across the US and Europe.  Neel’s other recent productions include, the world premieres of Julia Cho’s Office Hour, Eliza Clark’s Quack, Jennifer Haley’s The Nether, Kimber Lee’s to the yellow house, and Lucy Alibar’s Throw Me On The Burnpile and Light Me Up. Neel has directed at many theaters including, The Public Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Mark Taper Forum, Kirk Douglas Theater, Goodman Theatre, South Coast Repertory, and Williamstown Theatre Festival. Neel is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and the Directors Guild of America.

Rattlestick’s season also includes a series of previously announced works IN DEVELOPMENT (Terrence McNally New Works, Mellon Foundation Playwright in Residence, Van Lier New Voices, Rattlestick’s Directing Fellowship) and FIRST LOOK (First Tuesdays, The Lab, Global Forms Theater Festival) programs aimed to encourage early career artists whose work stretches our assumptions about what a play can be.

Terrence McNally New Works Incubator
Playwrights: Molly Bicks, HyoJeong Choice, Haygen-Brice Walker 

Mellon Foundation Playwright in Residence 
Playwright: Basil Kreimendahl

Van Lier New Voices Fellowship 
Playwrights: AriDy Nox, a.k. payne 

Rattlestick Directing Fellowship 
Director: Jacob Basri 

The Lab

Development of new work comes in many forms.  At Rattlestick we tailor the development process to the work and to the artist. From full play readings to movement workshops to site-specific explorations, our goal is to bring our resources to the artist and let them create, draft, and discover their work on their own terms.  In keeping with the spirit of community, the Lab brings our fellows and commissioned artists together with directors, actors, and other artists for collaborations and invited sharings.

Global Forms Theater Festival 

In 2020, Rattlestick and New York Theatre Salon formed the Global Forms Theater Festival, designed to meet the urgent and unique needs of immigrant artists during the pandemic. Celebrating its fifth year, Global Forms produces work by immigrant artists and provides important production opportunities that support the process of applying for artist visas. The festival showcases work that is often underrepresented on New York stages and serves as an essential hub for the community. Global Forms is made possible by the Ford Foundation and New York State Council on the Arts.

Rattlestick's patron program fuels our season of brave and transformative works that speak to the most pressing issues facing our community. Rattlestick serves approximately 150 artists per year and maintains low ticket prices so that everyone has access to our work. Becoming a Member directly supports artistic programming, play development, and commissions, and allows us to invest in underrepresented artists. All Members receive free performance ticket(s), discounts on guest ticket(s), recognition online and in programs, as well as access to exclusive perks like First Tuesdays, a new monthly artist salon series where we’ll partner with a local bar in our West Village community to host an intimate evening of cocktails and conversation featuring Rattlestick-affiliated artists and friends. On top of affordable memberships starting at $125, for a limited time, Rattlestick is offering discounted memberships to patrons under 40. Join Rattlestick's community and consider becoming a Member today! Learn more at rattlestick.org/membership.

About Rattlestick Theater

Founded in 1994 by David Van Asselt and Gary Bonasorte, Rattlestick Theater has been steadfast in producing diverse, challenging, and provocative plays while fostering the future voices of the American theater. Now led by Artistic Director Will Davis, the first transgender person to run an off-Broadway theater, we are proud to make Rattlestick a place that is focused on energetic theater that responds to the complexities of our culture in conversation with community partners. Our mission is to produce ambitious plays to inspire empathy and provoke conversation that will lead to positive social change.

From our historic West Village theater, Rattlestick has produced the first plays and early works of some of today’s leading voices, including Martyna Majok (Ironbound), Diana Oh (mylingerieplay), and Heidi Schreck (There Are No More Big Secrets). We are proud to make Rattlestick a place where some of our nation’s most celebrated playwrights feel safe to test their boldest ideas, including Dael Orlandersmith (Until the Flood), José Rivera (Massacre, Sing to Your Children), and Sam Hunter (Lewiston/ Clarkston, nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play and the Outer Critics Circle Awards for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play).
 

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