Yale Cabaret: Dr Ride's American Beach House

A Note from the Cab Team

It’s hard not to draw a connection between the leaping and landing of our Cabaret season’s “parachute,” and the anticipated liftoff of Dr. Sally Ride, the heroine at the center of Liza Birkenmeier’s subversive and spellbinding play. Without turning this into a battle of metaphors, both events hope to inspire conversation, and even transform the way we see ourselves and think about what’s possible. The symbolic launch of the first American woman into space propels the women in this play to examine their agency in their own lives, leading to unanticipated discoveries. Similarly, Cab 55 hopes to be a launchpad for acts of daring that spark moments of discovery for all of us. We’re so grateful to the incredible women and nonbinary people at the helm of this production, both onstage and off. And if you’re reading this, as always we thank you for taking a leap with us. We’re curious to learn what you discover!

-Jason, Kayodè & Ashley

A Note from the Director

Can

you ever really know someone else?

What happens when you’re tired of yourself and hope has you hovering on the precipice of change, but fear has you hanging on to what is known and safe?

Are you one person, or are you every person you could have been and are yet to become?

What happens when you see yourself as the subject of your stories as opposed to the object?

Where does your knowing fit between fact and opinion?

These are just a few of the questions Liza asks us over the course of one summer evening in 1983, where both nothing happens and everything changes.

I don’t have the answers, but I’ve loved living in the unknown with these characters. I hope you do as well.

There’s just one rule: never talk about men on the roof.

-Rebeca Robles

A Note from the Dramaturg

“The rule is not to talk about men on the roof,” Harriet reminds us more than once in Dr.Ride’sAmericanBeachHouse . So, in this program note, I’M NOT GOING TO TALK ABOUT MEN.

Does a rule like this sound familiar? Perhaps you’ve heard of the Bechdel test. We can analyze a movie based on one simple rule: is there a scene where two or more women talk to each other about something besides a man? Even today, surprisingly few movies (or plays) pass.

This test, which has become the subject of memes and cinema classes alike, originated in Alison Bechdel’s comic strip “Dykes to Watch Out For.” Bechdel printed her comic in queer publications from 1983 (the year this play is set!) to 2008. “Dykes” aimed for a lesbian audience, and Bechdel took every opportunity to lovingly make fun of her own people. Even though the Bechdel test became famous beyond the comic strip, Bechdel is quick to remind anyone listening that it began as an in-group joke.

Dr.Ride’sAmericanBeachHousemay not be about dykes who know they are dykes, but it converges with the universe of Bechdel’s characters. Harriet, Matilda, Meg, and Norma are another group of women living life together in the 1980s. Not to mention, how often do we get to see FOUR queer women onstage together in 2023? Or SIX, if you count the spectral presence Sally Ride and Molly Tyson at the edges of the play? (I don’t want to be presumptuous, but my gaydar tells me all these characters are queer, and it’s pretty well-tuned these days.)

Liza Birkenmeier’s play has an unusual relationship to history. A queer one, if you will. Birkenmeier is writing the story of queer women into a place where they probably existed, whether or not we can prove it with hard documentation. Sometimes gaydar is the best tool we have. Meg gives us a great reminder, insisting that Sally Ride was a lesbian in the play, even though she only came out posthumously in 2012. But even more than Birkenmeier is invested in Dr. Ride, she is invested in the middle class, the Midwestern, and the not-famous queer women. We the queers of today have Bechdel and her Dykes, we have Sally Ride and Molly Tyson, and we also have each other.

-Hannah Fennell Gellman

Dr.Ride’sAmericanBeachHouse

By Liza Birkenmeier

PRODUCED BY

Anne Ciarlone

CREATIVE TEAM Director Rebeca Robles*

Stage Manager Regina Carson

Dramaturg Hannah Gellman

Scenic Designer Kim Zhou

Lighting Designer Yichen Zhou

Costume Designer Kyle Artone

Sound Designer Joe Kremptz

Props Manager Bennet Goldberg

Production Electrician Steph Burke

Technical Director Cian Freeman

Asst. Technical Director

Matteo Lanzarotta

Lobby Display Anne Ciarlone & Hannah Gellman

Show Sponsor People of Marginalized Genders

Affinity Group

CAST

Tavia Hunt

Karen Killeen*

Maggie McCaffrey*

Amelia Windom*

*Yale Cabaret Debut

Special Thanks

Nikki Mills, Florie Seery, Patti Panyakaew, Ankit Pandey, Theo Sung, Ellora Venkat, Doaa Ouf, Julie Foh, Nate Angrick, Megan Birdsong, Steph Burke, Ro Burnett, Shawn Poellet, Luke Tarnow-Bulatowicz, Josh Owen and Cameron Waitkun

Mission

Yale Cabaret 55 is a transition; a space to place your art and watch it transform. We do not suggest that your art begins or ends with us, but it will change with us. We invite our community to take risks with us. Failure is not an option; it is an illusion. Like Pantone Color of the Year: Very Peri, we know that “as we emerge from an intense period of isolation, our notions and standards are changing, and our physical and digital lives have merged in new ways.” We seek to be a holding space to explore these changes. Cabaret 55 is a shared experiment of what it means to come back to theater.

Values

• The Cab is a studio

• The Cab is a space for trial and error

• The Cab is a space for fellowship

• There is no utopia, only risk and commitment

• There are no assignments, only invitations

Land Acknowledgement

The state of Connecticut and Yale University occupy the traditional, ancestral, and unceded lands of the Mohegan, Mashantucket Pequot, Eastern Pequot, Schaghticoke, Golden Hill Paugussett, Niantic, Quinnipiac, and other Algonquian speaking peoples. We honor and respect their continued relationship with and stewardship of this land, and we acknowledge that Yale University, Yale Cabaret, and those affiliated have benefited from the oppression of these Nations.

Labor Acknowledgement

Yale University does not exist independently from the centuries of forced labor and economic extraction of enslaved people, primarily of African descent, on which this country was built. We are indebted to their labor and their unwilling sacrifice, and we must acknowledge the ongoing violence inflicted on Black and brown people and the resulting impact and generational trauma still felt today.

Leadership Team

Executive Artistic Director

Jason Gray

Producing Artistic Director

Kayodè Soyemi

Production Managers

Producing Artistic Director

Ashley M. Thomas

Leo Surach & Cameron Waitkun

Collaborators

Graphic Designer

Mikayla Johnson

Website Designer

Kayodè Soyemi

Community Engagement a.k. payne

Anchor Spa x Yale Cabaret

Chef Kendall Thigpen

Stage Management

Nakia Avila

Theater Management

Fanny Abib-Rozenberg

Dramaturgy

Lily Haje

Playwriting

Danielle Stagger

Marketing Associate

Roman Sanchez Cabaret Assistant(s)

Ramona Li & Maya Shed

Advisory Board

Sound Evdoxia Ragkou

Scenic Cat Raynor

Projections

John Horzen

Acting

Lucas Iverson

Technical Design

Eugenio Saenz Flores

Lighting

Jiahao (Neil) Qui

Directing

Garrett Allen

Costumes

Kyle Artone

Board of Directors

Chair

Wendy Davies

Jacob Basri

Samanta Yunuen Cubias

Eric M. Glover

L.T. Gourzong

Doug Robinson

Linda-Cristal Young

About the Cab

In 1968, the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale students established a basement performance venue in the former home of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity at 217 Park Street. Envisioned as an alternative outlet for drama school students’ creativity and experimentation, Yale Cabaret became a forum for our expanded New Haven communities, whom we invite to gather around food, drink, conversation, fellowship, and artistry.

Since its founding, the Cabaret has remained in continuous operation, including pivoting to virtual performance during the 2020/21 season. The Cab has produced hundreds of plays, old and new, alongside musicals and musical revues, comedy shows, dance, performance art, and genre-defying performance.

Our supporters have made this storied history happen. With their partnership, we continue this tradition into 2023 and beyond.

Our Supporters

Honorary Season Producer ($7,500+)

Indira Etwaroo & Apple

Parachuter ($5,000-$7,499)

Santino Blumetti

Brian Tyree Henry Champion ($2,500-$4,999)

Wendy Davies R. Lee Stump Partners ($1,000-$2,499)

Nina Adams & Moreson Kaplan

Joan Channick

Eric M. Glover, PhD

James G. Hood

Bennett Pudlin & Ann Judd

Bill & Sharon Reynolds

Elaine Ring

Show Sponsors ($500-$999)

Audrey Conrad

Betty & Josh Goldberg

Jim & Eileen Mydosh

Anne Renner

Enthusiasts ($250-$499)

James A. Bundy & Anne Tofflemire

Sarah Cain

Pamela C. Jordan

Corby S. Kummer

Erin Rocha

What’s Next

Cab

March 30-April 1st

EveryBrilliantThing

By Duncan MacMillan

Proposed by Malachi Beasley & Alexis Woodard

“You’re seven years old. Mom’s in the hospital. Dad says she’s ‘done something stupid’. She finds it hard to be happy. You start a list of everything that’s brilliant about the world. Everything worth living for.”

FINAL SHOW!!!

Cab 12

April 20-22nd

Tobie

Proposed & Adapted by Lily Haje

An adventure-romance of quasi-Biblical proportions. A Symbolist fever dream. A poetic celebration of object performance. Freely translated and adapted from Maurice Bouchor’s 1889 puppet play, Tobie is a story of growing up, of falling in love and finding yourself, and of defeating the fish demon trying to sleep with your girlfriend.