This month’s OPEN PLAY will be hosted by Josie Whittlesey and Robbie Pollock. 

Josie is the Founder and Executive Director of Drama Club, a nonprofit whose mission is to consistently care for youth-especially those who are incarcerated and court involved-by creating space for them to thrive, using improv as their guide. Drama Club is committed to providing New York City’s most vulnerable and overlooked youth the opportunity to play, be seen and heard, and cultivate life skills via improvisational theatre. Josie has taught acting, scene study, public speaking, and text analysis at Fordham University, New York University, Montclair State University, Nassau Community College, Purchase College, SUNY, Larry Singer Studios, Sing Sing Correctional Facility, Woodbourne Correctional Facility, GEMS, and Ravenswood Community Center (NYCHA). She holds an MFA from NYU’s Graduate Acting program. 

Robbie is PEN America’s Prison Writing Program Manager. and has worked with the justice system and its intersection with the arts for over a decade.

For those who are interested in sharing, the event will last until 9:30pm which means that we will have time for roughly 12 offerings. Every offering will need to be no more than 5-minutes and everyone should be prepared to stay until 9:30pm. If you are interested in sharing work, you will be invited to write in your name at the top of the event, and we will honor the names by spinning the Wheel of Names (Nuyorican style adapted for the virtual world!). If you need others to read your work with you, you can invite them into the Zoom room with the link we will be sharing with you, or you can look for other actors in the community that evening. OPEN PLAY is designed for those who know Rattlestick and for those who do not (yet) to find collaborators and community and is open for the public to listen.

All of the excerpts will need to be live. We will not be able to support any recorded offerings.

We look forward to a fun-filled surprising evening!