Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, in partnership with Rosalind Productions, Inc., is proud to announce the line-up for New Songs Now in Your Living Room. This free unplugged concert series gives inventive songwriters the opportunity to test out new material in a low-key, fun environment. Every Thursday in May, two composers will share selections of their work, followed by a conversation with the artists to demystify the songwriting process.

New Songs Now in Your Living Room kicks off on May 7 with three-time Drama Desk nominee Max Vernon (The View UpStairs, KPOP) and 2020 Jonathan Larson Grant recipient Rona Siddiqui (Salaam Medina: Tales of a Halfghan). Pulitzer Prize-finalist, playwright, composer, and actor Eisa Davis (Bulrusher) and Emmy-nominated songwriter and performer Shaina Taub (Twelfth Night, The Devil Wears Prada) share work on May 14. Grammy-nominated songwriter Jamie Floyd (The King’s Wife) and songwriting brothers Daniel and Patrick Lazour (We Live in Cairo) will be featured on May 21. Closing out the concert series on May 28 are actor and singer-songwriter Grace McLean (In The Green, Great Comet) and performance artist and songwriter Rotana (Alien of Extraordinary Ability).

“Hearing songwriters share new material and speak about their work can often be an intimate and moving experience,” says Rattlestick Playwrights Artistic Director Daniella Topol. “In the past, we’ve encouraged our audiences to picture themselves inside an artist’s living room, and now, here we literally are! Everyone at Rattlestick and Rosalind Productions is grateful to these artists for courageously sharing their work in this intimate way.”

New Songs Now in Your Living Room will stream live on YouTube every Thursday in May at 8pm. Online reservations are required. Please visit rattlestick.org for more information.

About the Artists

Eisa Davis is a performer, composer, and writer working on stage and screen. A recipient of the 2020 Creative Capital Award, the Herb Alpert Award in Theater and an Obie winner for Sustained Excellence in Performance, Eisa was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for her play Bulrusher, and wrote and starred in the stage memoir Angela’s Mixtape. She has recorded two albums of her original music, Something Else and Tinctures, and performed her songs at numerous venues in New York and across the country. Eisa has appeared in musical projects such as The Secret Life of Bees (AUDELCO Award), Carrie Mae Weems’ Grace Notes, Dave Malloy and Rachel Chavkin’s Preludes, The Cradle Will Rock, The Piano Lesson (Berniece, music director and composer), This, and Passing Strange. Other stage and television work includes Kings, Julius Caesar, Succession, Bluff City Law, Rise, Mare of Easttown (upcoming), Betty (upcoming), God Friended Me, The Looming Tower, House of Cards, Hart of Dixie, and The Wire. Eisa wrote the narration for Cirque du Soleil’s Crystal and episodes for both seasons of the Netflix series She’s Gotta Have It. 

Grammy-nominated songwriter, Jamie Floyd just independently released her brand new EP NEW GIRL, which debuted at #6 on the iTunes Country Album charts. She’s written songs recorded by Miranda Lambert, Ronnie Dunn, Ingrid Andress, Ashley Monroe, and Brian McKnight. She co-wrote pop star Kesha’s current single, “Resentment,” which features Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys, Sturgill Simpson, and Wrabel. She’s currently working on writing all the original music for the new upcoming musical in development, The King’s Wife. Instagram @jamiefloyd, @thekingswifemusical. www.officialjamiefloyd.com.

Daniel and Patrick Lazour are brothers, songwriters, and theater-makers. They have workshopped their piece We Live in Cairo at the O’Neill National Music Theater Conference and at New York Theatre Workshop under the 2016 Richard Rodgers Award. It premiered at the American Repertory Theatre in May 2019 directed by Obie Award-winner Taibi Magar. They have developed their work during residencies at the O’Neill, Ucross, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Yaddo, and the MacDowell Colony. Their new musical Evita Has Cancer: Visions of Cure about cancer and its treatment through the ages was workshopped at the Johnny Mercer Writers Colony at Goodspeed Theatre, Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, and is being developed with the American Repertory Theater. Patrick and Daniel were 2015-16 Dramatists Guild Fellows and are New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspects. Most recently, they were artists-in-residence at the American University in Cairo and are teaching artists at Lincoln Center Theater. They perform songs from their E.P. freres live at the Boiler Room in New York City.

Called “electrifying” by The Huffington Post and “phenomenal” by The New York Times, Grace McLean is a multi-hyphenate actress-singer-writer-teacher on the rise. She is a Writer In Residence at Lincoln Center Theater and her first original musical In The Green was produced by LCT3 in 2019. She has had two artistic ambassadorships with the US State Department touring Pakistan (2015) and Russia (2018), and her band performed in both the 2015 and 2016 Lincoln Center American Songbook series. McLean received the 2017 Emerging Artist Award from Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and is a 2018 MacDowell Colony Fellow. She has developed work at CAP21, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Goodspeed, The Orchard Project, The PiTCH and with The Civilians R&D Group. Grace McLean & Them Apples have released 2 EPs, “Make Me Breakfast” and “Natrural Disaster,” and are looking forward to releasing a full length album soon. Find out more at www.gracemclean.com

Rotana, named BBC’s 100 Most Powerful Women, is a performance artist and songwriter born and raised in Saudi Arabia. She moved to Los Angeles four years ago to pursue music after quitting her job at Saudi Aramco, the largest oil company in the world. Rotana is currently working on her debut album and her one-woman show/musical, Alien of Extraordinary Ability.Rona Siddiqui is an award-winning composer/lyricist, orchestrator and music director based in NYC. She is the recipient of the 2020 Jonathan Larson Grant and the 2019 Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award, and was recently named one of Broadway Women’s Fund’s Women to Watch. Her show Salaam Medina: Tales of a Halfghan, an autobiographical comedy about growing up bi-ethnic in America, had a developmental workshop at Playwrights Horizons November 2019. She has also received the ASCAP Foundation Mary Rodgers/Lorenz Hart Award, and the ASCAP Foundation/Max Dreyfus Scholarship. She performed her concert Rona Siddiqui: Halfghan on a Mission at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Her musical One Good Day (book & lyrics by Liz Suggs) was selected for the ASCAP/Dreamworks Musical Theatre Workshop with Stephen Schwartz in L.A. and was named one of the Best New Musicals of 2014 by the Festival of New American Musicals. She has been commissioned to write songs for Wicked’s 16th Anniversary Commemoration, Flying Free, Broadway Inspirational Voices, The Civilians, the NYC Gay Men’s Chorus, MuseMatch, 52nd St. Project, and the web series Amateur Dicks. She has been a featured songwriter in concert venues such as 54 Below, Joe’s pub, and New York City Center. She received her Masters from NYU’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program.

Shaina Taub is an Emmy-nominated songwriter and performer. She is a winner of the Kleban Prize, the Fred Ebb Award, and the Jonathan Larson Grant. She is an artist-in-residence at The Public Theater where she has a regular concert residency at Joe’s Pub. She is currently writing lyrics for the upcoming Broadway musical The Devil Wears Prada, with music by Sir Elton John, as well as a new musical about the American women’s suffrage movement. She created and starred in musical adaptations of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and As You Like It that were commissioned and produced by the Public Theater at the Delacorte in Central Park as part of their groundbreaking community-based program, Public Works. Those adaptations have now been produced in London, Seattle, Dallas and beyond.

Max Vernon is a 3 time Drama Desk nominee, Out100 Honoree, and recipient of the Lucille Lortel Award for Best Musical, Richard Rodgers Award, Jonathan Larson Grant, New York Stage and Film’s Founders Award, New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship, and the JFund Award from the Jerome Foundation. They have been a Dramatist Guild Theatre Fellow, MacDowell Fellow, and an artist in residence at Berkeley Rep, Ars Nova, Kimmel Center (viaThe Public Theater), Disney Creative Entertainment, and Rhinebeck Writer’s Retreat, among others. Their musical, The View UpStairs, ran 105 performances Off-Broadway and had sixteen new productions around the world in 2017-2019; original cast recording on Broadway Records. Their other musical, KPOP, enjoyed a sold-out, extended run at Ars Nova in 2017 and was the most nominated Off-Broadway show of the 2017-2018 season. Max is also an acclaimed cabaret artist. Notable concert performances include a sold out 6 month residency at Joe’s Pub of the Public Theater (“Existential Life Crisis Lullaby”), Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. www.maxvernon.com Instagram: @frauleinsallybowels Twitter: @maxvernon

About Rosalind Productions Inc.

Rosalind Productions Inc. is a Tony Award-nominated and Drama Desk Award-winning producer of new and classical works, championing female-driven stories and female-identifying artists. Broadway: The Prom, King Lear, Three Tall Women, The Miracle Worker. Producing Associate on War Paint. Off-Broadway: My Lingerie Play w/Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, The Last Seder, A Splintered Soul, Savage in Limbo. Four plays in Los Angeles. Led by Executive Producer, Abigail Rose Solomon, and Director of Creative Development, Jennifer Kranz. @RosalindProductions. www.RosalindProductions.com

About Rattlestick Playwrights Theater

Founded in 1994, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater consistently produces new voices and works that are provocative and immediate in both form and substance. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Daniella Topol, Rattlestick has a deep commitment to producing fierce works that challenge and stimulate audiences to confront the complexities of our culture. Notable productions include: Diana Oh’s {mylingerieplay}, Dael Orlandersmith’s Until the Flood, Samuel D. Hunter’s The Few and Lewiston/Clarkston, Jesse Eisenberg’s The Revisionist, Jonathan Tolins’ Buyer and Cellar, Lucy Thurber’s The Hilltown Plays, Adam Rapp’s The Hallway Trilogy, and Martyna Majok’s Ironbound.Rattlestick produces mainstage productions; develops work by Middle Voice (Rattlestick’s apprentice company); creates artistic development opportunities for artists to hone their craft; and provides opportunities for students to engage with innovative work through residencies, fellowships, and special performances. Rattlestick serves approximately 8,000 audience members and 400 artists each year.