Rattlestick Playwrights announce new season

Rattlestick Playwrights have announced the company's 2013-14 season will include world premieres by Halley Feiffer, Charles Fuller, Samuel D. Hunter, Craig Lucas, Lucy Thurber, and Ken Urban.

As the first part of its 19th season, Rattlestick will present The Hill Town Plays, a cycle of five plays by Lucy Thurber that will be produced simultaneously at five different West Village theaters, including Rattlestick Theater, Cherry Lane Mainstage Theatre, Cherry Lane Studio Theatre, Axis Theatre, and the New Ohio Theatre. The Hill Town Plays comprise the inaugural season of Theater: Village, what will become an annual theatrical event of five plays centered around one playwright or theme running simultaneously in five different West Village venues.

The plays will be presented in the following season order:

Casting announcements for each production will be forthcoming.

The Hill Town Plays
by Lucy Thurber
Venue: To be presented at five different venues simultaneously

Synopsis: The Hill Town Plays tell the story of a woman who works her way into a new life from a troubled childhood. Each play examines a pivotal stage of the character's life--from a childhood of poverty, alcoholism, and abuse in a western Massachusetts mill town through adulthood as a successful author. The Hill Town Plays investigate where we come from, what we dream of becoming, and who we are.

Lucy Thurber is the author of the plays 'Bottom of The World,' 'Monstrosity,' 'Dillingham City' and 'The Locus and The Insurgents.' Rattlestick Playwrights Theater has produced three of her plays, 'Where We're Born,' 'Killers and Other Family' and 'Stay.' She was the recipient of the 2000-01 Manhattan Theatre Club Playwriting Fellowship. She was one of three playwrights in residence at The Orchard Project, summer 2007. Thurber is a member of New Dramatists, 13P, MCC Playwrights' Coalition. She is the recipient of the 1st Gary Bonasorte Memorial Prize for Playwriting 2008 and a recipient of a Lilly Award.

Scarcity
Presented by Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and Cherry Lane Theatre
Director: Daniel Talbott
Cast: to be announced.
Venue: Cherry Lane Studio Theatre
Previews: 14 Aug 2013
Opens: 05 Sep 2013
Closes: 28 Sep 2013

Where We're Born
Director: Jackson Gay
Cast: to be announced.
Venue: Rattlestick Playwrights Theater
Previews: 14 Aug 2013
Opens: 05 Sep 2013
Closes: 28 Sep 2013

Killers and Other Family
Presented by Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and Axis Company
Director: Caitriona McLaughlin
Cast: to be announced.
Venue: Axis Theatre
Previews: 14 Aug 2013
Opens: 05 Sep 2013
Closes: 28 Sep 2013

Ashville
Director: Karen Allen
Cast: to be announced.
Venue: Cherry Lane Theatre
Previews: 21 Aug 2013
Opens: 05 Sep 2013
Closes: 28 Sep 2013

Stay
Presented in association with the New Ohio Theatre
Director: GT Upchurch
Cast: to be announced.
Venue: New Ohio Theatre
Previews: 21 Aug 2013
Opens: 05 Sep 2013
Closes: 28 Sep 2013

World Premiere
One Night...
Produced by Cherry Lane Theatre and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater
Playwright: Charles Fuller
Director: Clinton Turner Davis
Cast: to be announced
Venue: Cherry Lane Theatre
Previews: 16 Oct 2013
Opens: 30 Oct 2013
Closes: 07 Dec 2013

Synopsis: Takes an unflinching look at what has happened to women in the US Armed Forces when their decision to serve their country exposes them to an unforeseen battle against their fellow soldiers.

Charles Fuller (Playwright) achieved critical notice in 1969 with 'The Village: A Party.' He later wrote plays for the Henry Street Settlement theatre and the Negro Ensemble Company in New York. His 1975 play 'The Brownsville Raid,' won him critical acclaim. He won an Obie Award for 'Zooman and the Sign' in 1980. His next work, 'A Soldier's Play' won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize, Best American Play, New York Critics and Edgar Awards. He later adapted the script into the 1984 film "A Sodier's Story." Directed by Norman Jewison the film and his screenplay were nominated for Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a Writers Guild of America Award.

World Premiere
How to Make Friends and then Kill Them
Playwright: Halley Feiffer
Director: Kip Fagan
Cast: to be announced
Venue: Rattlestick Playwrights Theater
Previews: 23 Oct 2013
Opens: 07 Nov 2013
Closes: 14 Dec 2013

Synopsis: Left to their own devices by their alcoholic mother, Ada and Sam cultivate an insular world into which they soon draw a third wheel - a pockmarked, limping wallflower named Dorrie. In the years spanning childhood to young adulthood, these three troubled girls learn to lean on each other completely, finding ways to fill each other up and to tear each other down. But when a horrible accident turns their reality upside down, they find they must decide whether they will continue to foster their familiar, codependent cycle, or whether they will break free, with or without each other's aid.

Halley Feiffer's (playwright) plays have been produced or developed by Second Stage, The New Group, New York Theatre Workshop, The Orchard Project, terraNOVA Collective, Rising Phoenix Rep, Naked Angels, LAByrinth Theater Company and Young Playwrights Inc. (Young Playwrights' Festival XXII). She is the current Harold Clurman playwright-in-residence at the Stella Adler Studio. She co-wrote the film "He's Way More Famous Than You," directed by Michael Urie, which was released in May 2013.

World Premiere
The Correspondent
Playwright: Ken Urban
Director: Stephen Brackett
Cast: to be announced
Venue: Rattlestick Playwrights Theater
Previews: 05 Feb 2014
Opens: 20 Feb 2014
Closes: 23 Mar 2014

Synopsis: A grieving husband hires a dying woman to deliver a message to his recently deceased wife in the afterlife. When he receives letters signed by his wife, describing events that only she could know, he's faced with determining if the correspondence is from a con artist or actually from a ghost.

Ken Urban's (playwright) plays have been produced and developed at Summer Play Festival at The Public, Donmar Warehouse (London), TimeLine Theatre Company, Studio 42, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Playwrights Horizons, Irish Rep, Primary Stages, and The Huntington. Upcoming productions and workshops: 'A Future Perfect' (The Huntington), 'Wasps' (Studio 42), 'The Awake' (kef productions/59E59 Theatres), 'Nibbler' (Stable Cable) and 'Simple' (Rising Phoenix Rep). Awards include the Weissberger Playwriting Award, Huntington Playwriting Fellowship, Djerassi Artist Residency, Dramatist Guild Fellowship, and MacDowell Colony Fellowships. The feature film adaptation of his play "The Happy Sad," with a screenplay by the author, premieres this summer.

World Premiere
Ode to Joy
Playwright: Craig Lucas
Director: Craig Lucas
Cast: to be announced
Venue: Cherry Lane Theatre
Previews: 12 Feb 2014
Opens: 27 Feb 2014
Closes: 12 Apr 2014

Synopsis: Tells the story of love, heartbreak, addiction, and illness through the eyes of Adele, an audacious painter and her destructive relations with Mala and Bill, her two lovers.

Craig Lucas (playwright/Director) is the author of the plays 'Missing Persons,' 'Reckless,' 'Blue Window,' 'Prelude to a Kiss,' 'God's Heart,' 'The Dying Gaul,' 'Stranger,' 'Small Tragedy,' 'Prayer for My Enemy,'and 'The Singing Forest.' His screenplays include "Blue Window," "Longtime Companion," "Prelude to a Kiss," "Reckless," "The Secret Lives of Dentists" and "The Dying Gaul" (which he also directed). Lucas has written the scripts for the musicals 'Marry Me A Little,' 'Songs' by Stephen Sondheim, 'Three Postcards' (music and lyrics by Craig Carnelia) and 'The Light in the Piazza' (music and lyrics by Adam Guettel). His opera libretti include 'Orpheus in Love' (composer Gerald Busby) and 'Two Boys' (composer Nico Muhly), which premiered at the English National Opera. Lucas directed the world premiere of 'The Light in the Piazza' at the Intiman Theater in Seattle, the film "Birds of America," the play 'This Thing of Darkness' (by Lucas and David Schulner) and Harry Kondoleon's plays 'Saved or Destroyed' and 'Play Yourself.'

World Premiere
The Few
Playwright: Samuel D. Hunter
Director: Davis McCallum
Cast: to be announced
Venue: Rattlestick Playwrights Theater
Previews: 16 Apr 2014
Opens: 01 May 2014
Closes: 31 May 2014

Synopsis: Four years ago Bryan abandoned his labor of love, a newspaper for truckers. Now he's returned - with no word of where he's been - and things have changed. His former lover is filled with rage, his new coworker is filled with incessant adoration, and his paper is filled with personal ads. As he considers giving up for good, Bryan searches for what he couldn't find on the road: a way to keep faith in humanity.

Samuel D. Hunter's (playwright) plays include 'The Whale' (2013 Lucille Lortel Award), 'A Bright New Boise' (2011 Obie Award), and his newest plays, 'The Few,' 'A Great Wilderness,' and 'Rest.' He is a member of New Dramatists and currently a Playwright-in-Residence at Arena Stage.