| Rattlestick Theater Announces 2024-2025 "On The Road" Season, First Curated by Will Davis | |
| Posted by: Official_Press_Release 04:44 pm EDT 06/13/24 | |
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| RATTLESTICK THEATER ANNOUNCES 2024-2025 "ON THE ROAD" SEASON, FIRST CURATED BY WILL DAVIS We Are Your Robots, World Premiere of a New Musical, Book and Lyrics by Ethan Lipton, Music Composed and Performed by Ethan Lipton, Vito Dieterle, Eben Levy & Ian Riggs, Co-Produced with Theatre for a New Audience at Polonsky Shakespeare Center, Directed by Leigh Silverman, Nov-Dec 2024 Two Sisters Find a Box of Lesbian Erotica in the Woods by Emma Horwitz and Bailey Williams, World Premiere Production Co-Produced with New Georges, Directed by Tara Elliott, Mar-Apr 2025 Launch of Waverly Performance Studio, New, Bespoke, Multi-Year Development Program with Arturo Luíz Soria & Danilo Gambini, and Will Davis Plus 2024 Pride Plays, 6th Annual Global Forms, Terrence McNally New Works Incubator Fellowship, Van Lier New Voices Fellowship, Directing Fellowship, and Mellon Playwright-in-Residence Rattlestick Theater, under the leadership of Artistic Director Will Davis, is thrilled to announce its 30th anniversary season, which not only finds the company "on the road," producing in partnership with Theatre for a New Audience and New Georges, and also launching Waverly Performance Studio, an ambitious, multi-year commitment to the creation of new work in a robust, meaningful, and fully-supported way. Rattlestick's 2024-2025 season also marks the first season to be fully envisioned and curated by Davis, the first transgender leader of a major institution without a defined LGBTQIA+ mission. Davis began his work as Artistic Director in May 2023. "Rattlestick's 30 year legacy of championing new work that sits outside the mold of traditional theater making has made an indelible mark on the American theater," says Artistic Director Will Davis. "Our 2024-2025 season, my first, builds on this foundation as we move towards holistic commitments to our artists, making space for them to develop their work on their own terms. Rattlestick is committed to championing theatrically expansive artists who create in inventive and unexpected ways. As we begin our ‘On the Road' season, we are thrilled to partner with Theatre for a New Audience and New Georges to present innovative work by Ethan Lipton, Emma Horwitz, and Bailey Williams. In addition, I'm excited to launch our bespoke development program, Waverly Performance Studio which will include new work by Arturo Luíz Soria and Danilo Gambini, and myself. Simultaneously, as our beloved West Village home undergoes a transformation, our fellowship programs will continue to provide invaluable resources and creative space to ambitious theatermakers." The season opens in Fall 2024 with the world premiere of a new musical, We Are Your Robots , by Obie-winning playwright Ethan Lipton (No Place to Go, Tumacho) and directed by two-time Tony nominee and frequent collaborator Leigh Silverman. Co-produced with Theatre for a New Audience at Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn, We Are Your Robots features book and lyrics by Lipton, and music by Lipton and his bandmates of 20 years: Vito Dieterle on saxophone, Eben Levy on guitar, and Ian Riggs on bass. The quartet play robots who've come to the theater to answer the question, "What do humans want from their machines?" With witty songs that are "twisted, dark and sophisticated both lyrically and musically, yet schleppy, sweet and sad all at once" (NPR ), We Are Your Robots looks at brain mapping, consciousness, violence, surveillance, and the problem better known as being human. In Spring 2025, Rattlestick will team up with New Georges to present Two Sisters Find a Box of Lesbian Erotica in the Woods, a fun, titillating, and surreal theatrical experience by the playwrights and performers Emma Horwitz and Bailey Williams and directed by Tara Elliott. In every woods, there is a box. The box is full of lesbian erotica. Emma and Bailey are going to read some for you. Set inside an intimate archive of towering bankers boxes, Two Sisters… teases a literary reading, a dialogue, an interview, a magazine. A researcher collides with a librarian, paranormal investigators are abducted by aliens, and a pet shop owner receives a late night visitor. As these narratives weave and connect, the private becomes public. Two Sisters… asks how we become visible to ourselves. Rattlestick's 2024-2025 season will also usher in a new era of supporting theatrically expansive new works via the Waverly Performance Studio. This one-of-a-kind approach to the act of theater making will include commissioning support, multi-year development, and week-long workshops with the entire creative team called Production Incubators, all building towards an eventual Off-Broadway premiere. The Waverly Performance Studio will begin in October 2024 with actor and writer Arturo Luíz Soria, whose solo show, Ni Mi Madre, premiered at Rattlestick and won an Obie Award for Best Performance. Soria, in collaboration with director Danilo Gambini, will begin work on Sin Padre, a companion piece to Ni Mi Madre. Sin Padre thrusts us into the heat of the kitchen where Turo drunkenly fumbles to make his Nonno's famous tomato sauce for his niece. Following the sudden death of his brother, he's left to pick through the pieces of his life as he grapples with what it means to be a queer man thrust into a father figure role. Artistic Director Will Davis, who recently directed the "gorgeous, gender-liquid production" (The New Yorker) of Sarah Ruhl's Orlando at Signature Theatre, will also begin work with his collaborators as part of the Waverly Performance Studio in early 2025 . His new dance-theater piece centers on the rise and fall of a lesbian bar. Public presentations will also include the 6th annual Global Forms, a theater festival in June 2025 showcasing the work of immigrant theater artists. Global Forms was created in 2020 to meet the urgent, specific needs of immigrant artists during the pandemic. Since its inception, Global Forms has grown to a major annual event that has hired over 150 immigrant artists from 50+ countries. Rattlestick will continue its widely successful fellowship programs which include the Terrence McNally New Works Incubator Fellowship, the Van Lier New Voices Fellowship, and its directing fellowship. Mellon Playwright-in-Residence Basil Kreimendahl will also continue his residency and develop his new play, Sadie Rivers Drag Ball on the Lawn for a future Rattlestick production. As a continuation of Terrence McNally's singular legacy of mentorship, and his commitment to fostering bold new voices in the American theater, the Terrence McNally New Works Incubator is designed to support ambitious early-career playwrights by giving them time, space, financial support to develop their work, professional mentorship with veteran playwrights, and access to the community of artists and work being developed at Rattlestick and Tom Kirdahy Productions. The Cycle 2 Fellows are Jesse Jae Hoon, Sam Mueller, and Eliana Theologides Rodriguez. With the support of The New York Community Trust and the Jerome Foundation, the Van Lier New Voices Fellowship was rehomed from The Lark in 2022. This fellowship provides substantial support to two emerging playwrights of color. The 2024-2025 cohort of Van Lier fellows will be announced in Summer 2024. Additionally, Pride Plays, the initiative launched in 2019 by Michael Urie, Doug Nevin, and Nick Mayo, will return, beginning in Summer 2024. Under the new leadership of Sam Gravitte and Sammy Lopez, and with the support of the original founders, Pride Plays will celebrate the rich tapestry of LGBTQIA+ experiences through the power of live theater. Launched in partnership with Rattlestick, the initial Pride Plays festival hosted 19 separate works and involved more than 200 artists over five days. Pride Plays then presented a virtual festival in 2020, along with several online workshops. Pride Plays has also supported LGBTQIA+ creative initiatives, including Donja R. Love's Write Out Loud program. 2024-2025 Pride Plays programming will kick off with a 3-play Pride Plays Celebration at Rattlestick on June 24. The "On the Road" season enables Rattlestick to begin reimagining its beloved home in the heart of the West Village. First built in 1854 and occupied by Rattlestick since 1999, Rattlestick's home will undergo a renovation that enhances accessibility with the installation of an elevator and new bathrooms. The theater will transform into a responsive, flexible performance space that can be reshaped for each show and capable of hosting more community events and celebrations. Please visit www.rattlestick.org for more information. About the Artists Will Davis: As a director and choreographer, his work has been seen Off-Broadway at Signature Theatre, City Center, Roundabout Theatre Company, MTC, MCC, Playwrights Horizons, Clubbed Thumb, and Soho Rep. Regionally, his work has been seen at La Jolla Playhouse, Baltimore Center Stage, Shakespeare Theater Company, Long Wharf Theatre and ATC in Chicago where Davis previously served as Artistic Director. He received a Helen Hayes award for best direction for his work on Colossal at the Olney Theatre Center, was nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award for his direction of Men on Boats at Playwrights Horizons, and is the recipient of a Princeton Arts Fellowship. Davis is the Artistic Director of Rattlestick Theater. Tara Elliott is a director and choreographer of plays and devised works. She is the recipient of a Venturous Theater Grant for development of experimental audio drama, Pleasure Machine and a Tow Travel Grant for research in Cuba. She has developed new plays with Clubbed Thumb, Pipeline, Fresh Ground Pepper, LaMicro Theater, Goethe Institut, and the Exquisite Corpse Company, among others. Her work has been seen in London, Seoul, Edinburgh, Toronto, Vancouver, and Santiago, and in NYC theaters including The Public, Cherry Lane, The New Ohio, HERE Arts, and Walkerspace. Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellow. New Georges Affiliate Artist. CoCo Resident with Colt Coeur. Drama League Directing Fellow. MFA Directing: Brooklyn College. She currently teaches directing at NYU Tisch: Playwrights Downtown. Danilo Gambini is a director, writer, and producer, originally from São Paulo, Brazil. He is currently the Associate Artistic Director at Studio Theatre. Recent directing credits include the world premieres of Ni Mi Madre (Rattlestick/ OBIE Award Winner, Drama Desk Nom., NYT Critics Pick), and the musical Sabina (Portland Stage Maine, co-directed with Daniella Topol), as well as Stravinsky's opera The Rake's Progress at Yale Opera. His production of Agreste at Spooky Action Theater in DC has recently received six Helen Hayes Awards nominations, including Outstanding Director. Upcoming productions include WIPEOUT by Aurora Real de Asua, at Studio Theatre. Other credits include Fun Home, The Tempest, Rock Egg Spoon (Yale School of Drama), Agreste (Drylands), Bakkhai, The Swallow and the Tomcat, Truck (Yale Cabaret). Opera: Don Giovanni, Ariadne Auf Naxos, Eugene Onegin (Theatro São Pedro). Before Studio Theatre, he was the Associate Artistic Director at Rattlestick Theater, Co-Artistic Director at Yale Summer Cabaret, and a member of Roundabout Director's Group. He has developed work at The Public Theater, Joe's Pub, The Old Globe, NYTW, Ars Nova, Milwaukee Rep, Chautauqua Opera, Yale Opera, Gulfshore Playhouse, among others. Danilo holds an MFA in Directing from the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale, a BFA in Film and Television (Curso Superior do Audiovisual) and an artist diploma as an actor from the School of Dramatic Art (Escola de Arte Dramática – EAD) both from the University of São Paulo. www.danilogambini.com Emma Horwitz is a writer of plays, fiction, and comix from New York City. Her play, Mary Gets Hers premiered with The Playwrights Realm at MCC in fall 2023, directed by Josiah Davis (NYT Critic's Pick.) Emma is the 2023/2024 Page One Playwright with the Playwrights Realm, an alum of Clubbed Thumb's Early Career Writers' Group, & was in residence at the William Inge Center for the Arts in 2024. This summer, she will be in residence at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center with the National Play Conference. Emma is an Affiliated Artist with New Georges, where she received a 2022 Audrey Residency with Bailey Williams. www.emmahorwitz.com Jesse Jae Hoon is a playwright, organizer, and actor whose work combines raucous comedy with a deeply felt sense of urgency to investigate power, class, hope, and our responsibility to the collective good. 2024 O'Neill National Playwrights Conference; 2022-2024 CRNY Resident Artist, Ma-Yi Theater Company; 2023-2025 member, Public Theater Emerging Writers Group; Winner, 2023 Ollie Award; 2024 MacDowell Fellow; 2022-2023 Writing Fellow, The Playwrights Realm; under commission from Theater J; 2023 Radio Roots fellow, The Parsnip Ship; inaugural member, Orchard Project Adaptation Lab; member, The TANK NYC's LIT Council, Page Break. MFA in Playwriting from Hunter College, BFA in Drama from NYU Tisch. www.jessejaehoon.com Ethan Lipton's produced plays include Tumacho ; Red-Handed Otter; Luther; Goodbye April, Hello May; 100 Aspects of the Moon, and Meat . His musicals No Place to Go (Obie Award) and The Outer Space (Lortel nom.) were developed with his band, Ethan Lipton and his Orchestra, and produced by The Public in Joe's Pub. The band has released five studio albums and played venues including SF Jazz, Lincoln Center, Celebrate Brooklyn, MASS MoCa, Pitchfork Paris, Theatre de la Ville, the Gate (London), the Pavilion (Dublin), and the Troubadour in LA. Ethan won the 2023 Kleban Prize for librettists and is a Creative Capital Grantee. He's been a Guggenheim Fellow, an Alpert Prize Fellow at MacDowell, a Clubbed Thumb Associate, part of the Public's EWG, a Space on Ryder Farm resident and the Playwrights Realm's inaugural Page One Fellow. www.ethanlipton.com Sam Mueller [they|she] is a Chicago-born, Florida-raised, New York-based playwright. Their work primarily explores the search for security to live as one's authentic self. Their plays include PIN. (2024 O'Neill Finalist, 2023 EST/Sloan First Light), Laced (2022 Princess Grace Semifinalist, 2020 Kilroys List, 2019 O'Neill Finalist), and 70.3 (2020 Hearth Theater Commission). Sam is in their last year of EST/Youngblood as well as an alum of the Ucross Foundation and the New Harmony Project. They feel most at home in the pit of a punk show. The plays (and Sam) are all very queer. BS: Northwestern University Eliana Theologides Rodriguez is a playwright and dancer whose work includes Marble Rooftop, Emma Has Church (2024 O'Neill Finalist, 2021 Princess Grace Semifinalist, 2020 John Golden Award for Excellence in Playwriting), Indian Princesses (2024 Seven Devils Finalist, 2023 Playwrights Realm Fellowship), Poor Queenie (2021 Playwrights Realm Fellowship Finalist, 2021 Goldberg Play Prize Finalist, 2020 Kennedy Center Playwrights Workshop), and Juniperfect (2021 commission with Adventure Theatre MTC). She is currently under commission at South Coast Repertory and is a proud member of EST Youngblood. A production of Poor Queenie is scheduled for 2025 at Subtext Studio. BFA: Dramatic Writing, NYU Tisch Leigh Silverman With Ethan Lipton: Tumacho (Clubbed Thumb) and with his Orchestra: No Place to Go and The Outer Space (Public). Broadway: Yellow Face (upcoming); Suffs (Tony nom); Grand Horizons; The Lifespan of a Fact; Violet (Tony nom), Chinglish; Well. Recent: Harry Clarke (West End, BRT, Vineyard/Audible); Suffs (Public); Merry Me (NYTW); The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (Shed, CTG); Soft Power (CTG/Curran, Public); Hurricane Diane (NYTW). Encores: Violet; The Wild Party; Sutton Foster's streaming concert, Bring Me To Light. Audible: Yellow Face; Harry Clarke; Dykes to Watch Out For. 2011 Obie Award; 2019 Obie for Sustained Excellence. Arturo Luíz Soria is an Obie Award winning actor and writer. His solo show, Ni Mi Madre, premiered at Rattlestick Theater and was nominated for a Drama Desk Award, Outer Circle Critics Award, a Drama League Award, and won the Obie Award for Best Performance. Ni Mi Madre will be playing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this summer at The Pleasance Theatre. Arturo received a NYSCA Grant and commission from Rattlestick Theatre to write his follow-up solo show, Sin Padre. And, recently received another commission from The Alcove New Play Development Program at the Lucille Lortel Theatre to work on a new play called a La Kasa Mita'echo. As an actor, Arturo made his Broadway acting debut in The Inheritance (Tony Award for Best Play) and was also seen Off-Broadway in Wet Brain (Playwrights Horizons) and Hit the Wall (Barrow Street Theatre). He can be seen on television in "Insatiable", "The Blacklist", "East New York", and "Found". He holds an MFA from David Geffen School of Drama at Yale and a BFA from The Theatre School at DePaul University. www.arturoluizsoria.com Bailey Williams is a playwright, performer, and producer. Past productions include Coach Coach, dir. Sarah Blush, Clubbed Thumb's Summerworks 2024; Events , dir. Sarah Blush, The Hearth at The Brick, December 2022; I thought I would die but I didn't, dir. Sarah Blush, The Tank, May 2019; Buffalo Bailey's Ranch for Gay Horses, Troubled Teen Girls and Other: a 90 Minute Timeshare Presentation, The Exponential Festival, January 2018. MFA: Brooklyn College. www.baileywilliams.live About Theatre for a New Audience Founded in 1979 by Jeffrey Horowitz, and led by Horowitz and Managing Director Dorothy Ryan, Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA) is a New York City home for Shakespeare and other contemporary playwrights. It performs for audiences of all ages and backgrounds; is devoted to economic access through its New Deal Initiative which offers $20 tickets for age 30 and under and full- time students of any age; and promotes humanities and education programs. TFANA created and runs the largest program to introduce Shakespeare and classic drama in New York City's public schools; the program has served more than 140,000 students. With Shakespeare as its guide, TFANA explores the ever-changing forms of world theatre and builds a dialogue between the language and ideas of Shakespeare and diverse authors, past and present. TFANA also builds long-term associations with artists from around the world supporting their development as well as commissions, translations, residencies through the Merle Debuskey Studio Fund. In 2001, TFANA became the first American theatre invited to bring a production of Shakespeare to the Royal Shakespeare Company, and in 2007, TFANA returned to the RSC. The Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh and TFANA have inaugurated The Shakespeare Exchange, the exchange of two productions in the 2024 and 2025 seasons. In 2013, TFANA opened its first permanent home, Polonsky Shakespeare Center (PSC), Brooklyn, with the 299-seat uniquely flexible Samuel H. Scripps Mainstage and the 50-seat Theodore Rogers Studio. TFANA honors the Lenape and Canarsie People on whose ancestral homeland PSC is built. www.tfana.org About New Georges Since 1992, New Georges (Susan Bernfield, Artistic Director/Producer; Jaynie Saunders Tiller, Executive Director/Producer) has advocated for an intergenerational ecosystem of exuberant theatrical minds, furthering fierce new works along with long-term wellbeing, expanding aesthetic boundaries and gender equity in tandem. Projects in their "weird or weird-ish" aesthetic have wit (in the classical sense), are funny (in any sense), are idiosyncratic, often impossible, maybe messy. Grounded in community and collaboration, their development pathways, resources, and artist services include The Room, their permanent workspace, founded in 1994. They scaffold and support New Georges' affiliated artists, the largest ongoing working community of women+ theater artists in New York City. As a pivotal home and launchpad for now two generations of artists, their impact reaches every corner of the culture. www.newgeorges.org About Rattlestick Theater Founded in 1994, Rattlestick Theater has been steadfast in producing diverse, provocative, and expansive new work to foster the future voices of the American theater. From its 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). Rattlestick is where some of our nation's most celebrated playwrights are encouraged to test their boldest ideas, including Dael Orlandersmith (Until the Flood), Jose´ Rivera (Massacre , Sing to Your Children), and Samuel D. Hunter (Lewiston/ Clarkston, nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play and the Outer Critics Circle Awards for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play). www.rattlestick.org Funding Credits Rattlestick Theater's programming is made possible with funds from The Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, Actors' Equity Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, A.R.T./New York, Axe-Houghton Foundation, Booth Ferris Foundation, Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Ford Foundation, Frederic R. Coudert Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Hyde and Watson Foundation, Jerome Foundation, John Golden Fund, Lambs Foundation, Laurents/Hatcher Foundation, Lucille Lortel Foundation, MacMillan Family Foundation, Nancy Friday Foundation, New York Community Trust, NYU Community Fund, Select Equity Group, SHS Foundation, Shubert Foundation, Still Point Fund, Terrence McNally Foundation, Tow Foundation, Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation, Victor & Clara C. Battin Foundation, The W Trust, Waldman Foundation. We Are Your Robots was originally commissioned by Media Art Xploration, Inc. with support from the Ensemble Studio Theater / Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science and Technology Project. It was developed, in part, with assistance from the Orchard Project. (www.orchardproject.com, Ari Edelson, Artistic Director). Two Sisters Find a Box of Lesbian Erotica in the Woods was originally developed in New Georges' Audrey Residency program. A workshop production was presented in January 2024 by The Exponential Festival at the Loading Dock Theatre. |
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