Will Davis. (Photo by: Sammy Tunis)
NEW YORK CITY: Rattlestick Theater has appointed multi-disciplinary artist Will Davis to be the group’s subsequent creative director. Following an inclusive nationwide search led by ALJP Consulting and a devoted group of board, workers, and affiliated artists, Davis has been chosen to succeed Daniella Topol, who has been creative director since 2016. He will assume the function full time as of May 1, after working alongside Topol for the subsequent few months.
“Will is just an amazing artist with a beautiful eye, and we’re so excited for that aesthetic to be used for developing the culture of Rattlestick,” mentioned board and search committee chair Jeff Thamkittikasem in a press release.
Davis is a transgender director and choreographer centered on producing bodily adventurous new work for the stage. He is the primary transgender individual to steer a significant nonprofit establishment with no outlined LGBTQ mission. Davis’s Off-Broadway credit embody: Road Show (Encores! Off-Center), India Pale Ale (MTC), Bobbie Clearly (Roundabout Underground), Charm (MCC), CALIFORNIA (Clubbed Thumb), and Men on Boats (Clubbed Thumb and Playwrights Horizons). Some of his regional credit embody As You Like It (La Jolla Playhouse), The Swindlers (Baltimore Center Stage), Everybody (Shakespeare Theater Company), A Doll’s House, Part 2 (Long Wharf Theatre), and a number of productions for American Theater Company in Chicago, the place Davis additionally served as creative director.
“I’m delighted to lead Rattlestick and look forward to working with the board and staff to launch the exciting next chapter for this remarkable theatre,” mentioned Davis in a press release. “I’m grateful to Daniella Topol for her years of excellent leadership and for the opportunity to carry her work forward.”
Davis is a member of the TCG board of administrators, and the Breaking the Binary Festival’s advisory council. He is an alum of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, the NYTW 2050 Directing Fellowship, the Brooklyn Art Exchange’s Artist in Residence program, and the Princeton Arts Fellowship. Currently, he’s an affiliate professor of Directing within the John Wells Directing Program on the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama.
“Rattlestick has long been known for inventive and ambitious new work and it will continue to be a theater focused on the future of the form,” Davis continued. “Rattlestick is also a community-centered civic space, and I look forward to deepening our invitation to artists and community members who are looking for a place to call home. It’s thrilling to return to the downtown theatre landscape where I began my career, and I cannot wait to get started.”
Founded in 1994, Rattlestick Theater is an off-Broadway theatre in New York’s West Village. The theatre seeks to provide provocative works which can be important, pressing, and essential to artists and audiences in NYC and the worldwide group. As of 2020, Rattlestick had an approximate price range of $1.2 million.