James Franco Will Make Stage Directing Debut for Rattlestick Playwrights Theater; 20th Anniversary Season Announced
James Franco is set to make his stage directing debut for Rattlestick Playwrights Theater’s 20th anniversary season. The Of Mice and Men star will helm the world premiere of Robert Boswell’s The Long Shrift. The season will also include New York and world premieres by Keith Josef Adkins, Sheila Callaghan, Laura Eason, Michael Laurence, Laith Nakli and Daniel Talbott. The previously reported Phoenix, starring Julia Stiles and James Wirt, will also be part of the season.
Boswell’s The Long Shrift will have a limited engagement July 7 through August 23 at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. The play follows Richard Singer, a dorky teenage boy who is accused and thrown in jail for rape, tearing his parents apart. Now, nine years later, Richard is out of jail and his accuser is back in his life.
The world premiere of Pitbulls, written by Keith Josef Adkins and directed by Leah Gardiner, will play November 6 through December 13 at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. The show is set in a small black community in rural Appalachia and explores what it costs to be an individual in America.
Laith Nakli’s Shesh Yak will be helmed by Bruce McCarty and play January 15, 2015 through February 19 at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. Set in the spring of 2011, five weeks into the civil uprising in Syria, the play centers around Jameel, a 40-year-old Syrian-American writer in his New York apartment and his houseguest Haytham, 15 years Jameel's senior, a Syrian ex-patriot and a leader in the anti-Syrian government movement in New York on business.
The New York premiere of Everything You Touch, written by Sheila Callaghan and directed by Jessica Kubzansky, will run February 13, 2015 through April 14 at Cherry Lane’s Mainstage. Skipping back and forth in time, the production is a viciously funny look at the struggle to find an identity that’s more than skin deep.
The Undeniable Sound of Right Now will have its world premiere March 20, 2015 through May 2. Written by Laura Eason and helmed by Kristen Kelly, the show will play at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. It’s 1992. Hank is struggling to keep his legendary rock club going amid changing times and changing tastes. When his beloved daughter, Lena, starts dating a rising star DJ, Hank must contend with the destructive power of the next big thing.
The world premiere of Hamlet In Bed will run May 14, 2015 through June 18 at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. Written by Michael Laurence and directed by Lisa Peterson, the show follows Michael, a neurotic actor and adoptee obsessed with two things: finding his real mother and playing the famous Gloomy Dane
Daniel Talbot's Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, America, Kuwait will have its world premiere in spring 2015, with specific dates to be announced later. American soldiers Smith and Leadem kill time at a worn out desert outpost swallowed by sand on the other side of the world. As the days fall away it becomes less and less possible to know what is future, past, living, dead, or dream.
