Yale Cabaret: DRAGARET

A Note from the Cab Team

This one goes out to Uncle Johnny…

We’re so glad you’ve decided to join us for the 10th anniversary of Dragaret! As the Cab’s first all-Black leadership team, and given that it’s Black History Month, this year we wanted to celebrate a major moment in the evolution of drag culture: the Ballroom scene, and the Black Trans womxn who invented it. Ballroom is as rich and prolific an art form as any we’ve ever seen, one that’s permeated every corner of popular culture and the modern vernacular. Before it was absorbed into the mainstream, it was a community of Black queer and trans artists seeking family and a safe space to be themselves. That’s all we really want, isn’t it? A safe space to BE. So, let’s give Ballroom her flowers. Tonight, we won’t be shady, just fierce…we’ll serve looks that land tens across the board…we won’t gag because we know she brings it to you every ball…and if you shoot an arrow and it goes really high, hooray for you!

WELCOME TO HOUSE OF PARACHUTE.

We hope you’ll support these Queer Black orgs doing amazing work:

House of Tulip

A Place to Nourish

The Okra Project

The R.O.A.D. Project (Reuniting of African Descendants)

Black Trans Fund

-Jason,

Kayodè & Ashley

DRAGARET

House of Parachute: A Celebration of Queer Culture

PRODUCED BY Anne Ciarlone, Kemar Jewel*, and Natalie King

CREATIVE TEAM

Stage Manager Regina Carson

Lobby Display Ashley M. Thomas & Linda-Crystal Young

Sound Designer(s) Evdoxia Ragkou & Bryn Scharenberg

Set Designer(s) B Entsminger* & Pat Blanchard

Lighting Designer(s) Jasmine Moore, David DeCarolis & Theo Song*

Costume Designer(s) Kyle Artone

Projection Designer(s) Doaa Ouf* & Ein Kim*

Technical Director Aholibama Castañeda Gonzalez

Hosts & Performers

Locals Night

Hosted by Laiylah Alf Wa Laiylah Tintanabulah*

Jayde Aloure*

Malaya love Nations*

Dalyla Mizani Cristal*

Songbird AngelLove*

Dalyla Mizani Cristal*

Bubblicious* Casey*

Kareylis Bleau*

Mz. October May Lay*

Yale Night

Hosted by Sheneeda Shave & Nomè SiDone

DJ GARE

Fire and Brynstone*

Dalyla Mizani Cristal*

Kate's Bush*

S.L.U.T.S.*

The Diamond Pussys*

*Yale Cabaret Debut

Special Thanks

Joe Krempetz, Adi Orme, Hannah Tran, Constanza Etchechury López, Linda-Crystal Young, Madeline Pages, Suzu Sakai, Stephen Strawbridge, Sarah Scafidi

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

Graphic Designer

Mikayla Johnson

Website Designer

Kayodè Soyemi

Producing Artistic Director

Kayodè Soyemi

Production Managers

Producing Artistic Director

Ashley M. Thomas

Leo Surach & Cameron Waitkun

Collaborators

Community Engagement a.k. payne

Marketing Associate

Roman Sanchez

Anchor Spa x Yale Cabaret

Chef Kendall Thigpen

Cabaret Assistant

Ramona Li

Advisory Board

Stage Management

Nakia Avila

Theater Management

Fanny Abib-Rozenberg

Dramaturgy

Lily Haje

Sound

Evdoxia Ragkou

Scenic

Cat Raynor

Projections

John Horzen

Technical Design

Eugenio Saenz Flores

Lighting

Jiahao (Neil) Qui

Directing

Garrett Allen

Danielle Stagger Acting Lucas Iverson

Playwriting

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 2022 and beyond.

Our Supporters

Honorary Season Producer ($7,500+)

Indira Etwaroo & The Benevity

Community Impact Fund

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

Cab 8

February 16-18th

MarryMeaLittleby

Stephen Sondheim

Proposed by Kemar Jewel & Fanny Abib-Rozenberg

What’s LOVE got to do with it?? MarryMeALittlefollows the story of two strangers moving into a cramped New York apartment while navigating personal space, sexual tensions, and what love looks like for one another. In this reimagined version of the show, the two strangers are Black queer men who learn how to mesh their big personalities and their bigger identities all into a less-than-spacious home.

Watch the men fall in love, fall out of love, and everything in between

Cab 9

February 23-25th

Written & Proposed by Abigail Onwunali & Nomè SiDone

A Nigerian immigrant couple trying to create roots in a new country begin trying for a baby. What should be a simple process of love making amongst husband and wife turns into a tumultuous, life altering night of betrayal, submission and pain. Is their love strong enough to keep them anchored to each other? Or will they admit defeat, disappointing not only themselves but everyone back home?

Visit our website at www.yalecabaret.org to