The 2002 Rattlestick Productions season continues Nov. 13 with Bliss, a new play by Ben Bettenbender focusing on a widow who hires an ex-con to avenge the murder of her husband.

Johanna Day of Proof leads a cast which also includes Off-Broadway stalwarts Peter Jay Fernandez and Rob Sedgwick. Julie Gibson directs.

Rattlestick produced Bettenbender's Vick's Boy in 1999.

Day won a Tony Award nomination for her portrayal of Mary-Louise Parker's older sister in Proof. Her Off-Broadway credits include How I Learned to Drive, which also starred Parker.

Gibson, who directed 2001's successful Off-Broadway revival of Craig Lucas' Blue Window, is also an actress. She starred in New York Theatre Workshop's premiere of Teresa Rebeck's View of the Dome. Bliss designers include sets by Randall Parsons, lighting by Josh Epstein, costumes by Amy Clark and sound by Rob Kaplowitz.

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The Rattlestick season began Sept. 5 with an Adam Rapp play called Faster. Rapp wrote Nocturne, which was seen at New York Theatre Workshop last season.

Darrell Larson directed Faster, which is about two small-town scam artists who intend to sell a girl they found in the river. They wait for the prospective buyer during a heat wave which only gets hotter.

In the cast were Rob Bietzel, Mtume Gant, Fallon McDevitt-Brooking, Roy Thinnes and Chris Messina.

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  The Rattlestick is located at 224 Waverly Place in the Village. For information, call (212) 627-2556.

—By Robert Simonson