Rattlestick's 2015-16 Season to Include New York, World Premieres

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater Artistic Director David Van Asselt and Managing Director Brian Long announce the company's 2015-16 season, its 21st, which includes New York and world premieres by Michael Laurence, William Francis Hoffman, and Martyna Majok. All productions play at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, 224 Waverly Place.

Hamlet in Bed (world premiere)
Written by Michael Laurence; Directed by Lisa Peterson
August 28 - October 25, 2015
At Rattlestick Playwrights Theater

Michael is a neurotic actor and adoptee obsessed with two things-finding his real mother, and playing the famous gloomy Dane. His twin fixations collide when he tracks down Anna, a reclusive former actress-turned-barfly; gripped by the notion that she might be his actual birth-mother, he first stalks her from a distance, then lures her into a noirish production of Hamlet playing the role of his mother the queen. Hamlet In Bed is a twisty and darkly comic story about mothers and sons--about what it means to live a life in the theatre, both a generation ago, and now-and about families-the ones we're born into, and the ones we find along the way.

Michael Laurence is the author of the plays Krapp39, The Escape Artist, Virgil's Cauldron, and the co-creator (with playwright-performer Edgar Oliver) of Chop Off Your Ear. He also wrote and directed the independent feature film Escape Artists.

Ironbound (New York premiere)
Co-Production with Women's Project TheaterWritten by Martyna Majok; Directed by Daniella Topol
March 2 - April 10, 2016
At Rattlestick Playwrights Theater

Waiting for a bus in a run-down Jersey town, an immigrant cleaning woman gives her cheating boyfriend a long-deserved tongue-lashing. She's done talking about feelings; it's time to talk money. Over the course of three relationships (and three presidencies) spanning 22 years, Darja negotiates for her future with men who can offer her love or security, but never both. Ironbound is a clear-eyed, compassionate portrait of a woman for whom love might not be enough.

Martyna Majok's plays have been performed and developed at companies such as Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and New York Stage & Film. She has received awards such as the David Calicchio Emerging American Playwright Prize and the 2050 Fellowship from New York Theatre Workshop.

Cal in Camo (world premiere)
Co-Production with Colt Coeur
Written by William Francis Hoffman; Directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt
April 23 - June 4, 2016
At Rattlestick Playwrights Theater

Cal's worst fear about motherhood has come true and in a desperate attempt to understand her present she summons her only connection to a long lost past.

William Francis Hoffman was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. He was a one time member of the Rivendell Theatre Ensemble in Chicago and is a current member of the Actor's Gym in Los Angeles.

Other programming at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater this season includes The Bachelors written by Caroline V. McGraw, produced by Lesser America.

Lesser America presents
The Bachelors
A play by Caroline V. McGraw
Directed by Portia Krieger
November 7 - November 29, 2015

Inside a house, a house in a series of houses on a fraternity row, a house in which DVDs serve as coasters and drool stains the sofa, live three roommates far past their college days. A thousand girlfriends come and gone, a thousand drinks downed, a thousand parties crashed-every night the same, until now. There's a party tonight on fraternity row, but it is not the blaring music that makes sleep impossible. Tonight, these bachelors will understand what their choices have really gotten them.

Rattlestick Playwrights Theateris a multi-award-winning company that has produced over sixty world premieres in the past twenty 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, Phoenix, The Long Shrift, Pitbulls, Shesh Yak, Everything You Touch, The Undeniable Sound of Right Now, 'Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, America, Kuwait', 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).

All shows play at Rattlestick Playwrights, 224 Waverly Place, west of Seventh Avenue South, between Perry and West 11 Streets. Memberships, which are priced at $83, and tickets are available by visiting www.rattlestick.org or by phoning OvationTix at 1.866.811.4111. Theater artist and Under 30 tickets are $10; student tickets are $5. Ticket prices are subject to change. For up-to-date information, please visit www.rattlestick.org.

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