New Plays by Jesse Eisenberg, Adam Rapp & More Set For Rattlestick Playwrights Theater Season

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater has announced its upcoming 2012-13 season, which will feature plays by Oscar-nominated actor Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network), Pulitzer Prize finalist Adam Rapp (Red Light Winter) and more.

Rapp’s Through the Yellow Hour will kick off the season beginning performances on September 13 and opening on September 27. The United States has been attacked. Men are being castrated, women enumerated. Ellen has been in hiding for 52 days, subsisting on very little, hoping against hope for her husband to return. As the world around her falls further into senseless chaos, she takes an unlikely action, one that just might signal a new beginning. Rapp will also direct the play, which runs through October 28.

A Summer Day, written by Jon Fosse and translated and directed by Sarah Cameron Sunde, will begin on October 10 and open October 25. A visit to an old friend sparks the memory of a visit years earlier and the mysterious disappearance of a loved one. Set in two time periods in the same idyllic house overlooking a fjord, A Summer Day evokes the nostalgia of the end of an affair, capturing love both in the moment and as a distant memory. The play will run through December 8.

Jesse Eisenberg’s The Revisionist, directed by Kip Fagan, begins performances on February 6, 2013, opens on February 21 and will run through April 20. A fledgling science fiction writer suffering from writer's block travels to Poland to stay with his 73-year-old second cousin, a Holocaust survivor obsessed with her distant American family. While David hopes the change of scenery will spur a creative reawakening, lonely Maria assumes he’s visiting primarily to connect with her. As their bond develops and peaks, Maria reveals a deep secret about her post-war past that ruptures their relationship and teaches them both something new about what it means to be family.

Next up will be The Correspondent, written by Ken Urban and presented in association with terraNOVA Collective. The play will begin performances on March 20, open April 4 and run through May 4. 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. Stephen Brackett directs.

Basilica, by Mando Alvarado and directed by Jerry Ruiz, will begin performances on May 1 and open on May 16. The production will run through June 16. In South Texas, two things loom large—the Catholic Church and Texas pride—and Joe Garza, a strong, hard-working man, embodies one more than the other. When he learns that Gilbert Gonzalez has returned as the new pastor at the basilica, Joe's confronted with the choices he made in life and questions the past the only way he knows how—with anger, pride, and a biting tongue.

Finally, Jessica Dickey’s Charles Ives Take Me Home will begin performances on May 29. Daniella Topol directs the piece, which opens June 13 and runs until July 13. When a father's love of music clashes with his daughter's passion for basketball, modernist composer Charles Ives is the perfect referee in this story of dissonance, defense, and devotion.

Through the Yellow Hour and The Correspondent will be staged at company’s existing home on Waverly Place, while A Summer Day, The Revisionist and Basilica will play the Cherry Lane Theatre. Casting for all productions will be announced at a later date.