Our team clears out the theater to prepare for our space changes. Demolition is due to start August 6th. What??!!! We are actually just removing our stage, our seating platforms, and our lighting grid but contractors use the word ‘demolition’ which is a bit too dramatic for my taste. We have been meaning to give the physical plant of Rattlestick theater some love for quite some time. Like anything in one’s life, if it hasn't been loved in a while, it needs tending to. The impetus for all of this is Sam Hunter’s diptych in the fall. He wrote these two beautiful plays -- set on either side ..read more

pictured here, TYWLS youth attending Draw the Circle by Mashuq Mushtaq Deen One of my favorite things about working at Rattlestick is having the opportunity to develop and carry out educational programs around our artistic programming. Job descriptions for Managing Director positions do not typically include educational program development, so this is one of many perks of being a part of a small but mighty team like Rattlestick. For the two seasons I’ve been working here, our team has grown partnerships with various educational entities, and we are committed to that continued growth. Dur ..read more

by core team member nicHi douglas what is the Thanksgiving holiday? most liberal Americans will say that it's really just a time to celebrate family, passively acknowledging their understanding of the sordid history attached to the tradition, but escaping that truth through a more palatable reframing.  sadly, our relationship to history is not passive and it cannot be ignored, especially when it repeats itself.  just last week, Mashpee Wampanoags rallied at the U.S. Capitol to protect their sovereignty and tribal land base because the current Presidential Adminis ..read more

(Dramaturg Guy Lancaster, Rattlestick Board Member Zachary Quinto, Speaker Corey Johnson, and Artistic Director Daniella Topol. Photo cred: William Alatriste, NYC Council Photographer) Researching The St Vincent’s Project – Guy Lancaster, Dramaturg When you are listening to people talk about St Vincent’s Hospital the experience can sometimes feel like the ancient Indian Parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant. In that story each blind man describes a piece of the elephant but is unable to grasp the totality of what an Elephant is. We wanted to see if we could offer a larger history for peop ..read more

By Cusi Cram, playwright of the St. Vincent's Project: Novenas for a Lost Hospital If you stand on the corner of Bank and Greenwich Avenue and look up at the place where St. Vincent’s once was, inevitably someone will start talking to you about it. Villagers have heated opinions on the subject. So, in discussing the Village and what interested me about it from a storytelling perspective with Rattlestick’s Artistic Director, Daniella Topol, the hospital’s closing seemed like a wound in the neighborhood which had not yet healed. There was a play to be found somewhere in the 161 years of the h ..read more

Photo: Robert Altman, courtesy of Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, 2018 A couple of days ago, we did our first “tech stumble-through” of our next play, Dael Orlandersmith’s UNTIL THE FLOOD, which explores the impact of the shooting of Michael Brown in August 2014 on the residents of that area. The “tech stumble-through” was Dael’s first pass at doing the show with lights, sound, costumes, projections before our first audience joined us 2 days later. Afterwards, the creative team circled up to discuss how it went and what changes might make it a more cohesive and effective performance. As they ..read more