Yale Cabaret: The International Collaborations Festival

A Note from the Cab Team

When we think of theater, many of our minds often go towards a play. It was important for our team to introduce a new festival to the School of Drama and New Haven community that centered all kinds of theater. From dance to poetry to dialogue to songs, we’re excited about bringing a sense of theatricality to all art forms. But it wasn’t only about the art, we sought out to create community across several diasporas, inviting artists to share their experiences with one another. The International Collaborations Festival is a testimony to the kinds of partnerships such invitations can foster. In our digital world and pandemic times, it’s easy to have never ending access to other people’s “lives,” but the feelings of isolation haven’t gone away. Here, we invite our artists and audiences to come together to celebrate shared cultural experiences, disparate kinds of storytelling, and a chance to remember one another through the intimacy of collaboration.

A Note from the Producers

To be international is to exist between two places, the United States of America and another home. To be international in the United States is to have that distanced travelled be part of who we are. In deciding how to curate this festival, we looked closely at this idea of being international – what does it mean for us? As people who did not originate from the United States, is our art, by default, international because we are making it here? And where does that start, the making of our art? Does it happen here? Or did it begin years ago, when we were different people, perhaps in different homelands?

This weekend, we have curated a selection of five works made by collaborators from all over the world; each of these pieces works with different art forms and genres, but they touch on similar themes: memory, language, and the distance our bodies hold from our homelands. As artists, we make art in the United States with an awareness of what is happening in this country. But our bodies also hold another history, another set of cultural memories and awareness. We exist between two places at any given moment, and so does our work, both tethered to this place and bound to another. We hope you can join us in existing between those spaces for a time.

-Matthew, Sebastián, and Stefani

The International Collaborations Festival

PRODUCED BY

Sebastián Eddowes-Vargas, Stefani Kuo & Matthew Sonnenfeld

CREATIVE TEAM

Technical Director Cameron Waitkun

Stage Manager Regina Carson*

Sound Design Evdoxia Ragkou & Bryn Scharenberg

Projections Ein Kim*

Special Thanks

Amy Stern

Kino Alvarez

Jilly Morris

Akila Tyler

Nadir Balan

Brandon Fuller

*Yale Cabaret Debut

A

New Play

WeirdSisters

Reading by Henriëtte Rietveld

CAST

Madeline Pages

Evdoxia Ragkou

Karoline Vielemeyer*

Camilla Tassi

Journeys

A Dance Play by Shyama Iyer

PERFORMERS

Shyama Iyer*

Maanasa Nandigam*

Gautham Umashankar*

Roshan Palakkal*

NuestraMirada

by Juliana Morales Carreño & Andrew Aaron Valdez

PERFORMERS

Juliana Morales Carreño

Andrew Aaron Valdez*

CREATIVE TEAM

Creator Juliana Morales Carreño

Creator & Intimacy Coordinator Andrew Aaron Valdez*

Lighting Designer Ankit Pandey*

Projections Ein Kim*

*Yale Cabaret Debut

by Sebastián Eddowes-Vargas

CREATIVE TEAM

Director Jisun Kim

Producer Fanny Abib-Rozenberg

Dramaturg Karoline Vielemeyer*

CAST

Twaha Abdul Majeed*

Annabel Guevara

Shyama Iyer*

Christopher Paul Jordan

Matías Montaldo*

Alexis Kulani Woodard

Sebastián Eddowes-Vargas

MountainMom

by Rachel Chin

CREATIVE TEAM

Director & Producer Matthew Sonnenfeld

Producer Ramona Li*

Baby Maker David Mitsch

CAST

Grace Yu Shi*

Salim Malachi Dre Beasley

Linda Anjiang Xu*

*Yale Cabaret Debut

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.

Executive Artistic Director

Jason Gray

Graphic Designer

Mikayla Johnson

Website Designer

Kayodè Soyemi

Leadership Team

Producing Artistic Director

Kayodè Soyemi

Production Manager

Cameron Waitkun

Collaborators

Community Engagement

a.k. payne

Marketing Associate

Roman Sanchez

Producing Artistic Director

Ashley M. Thomas

Anchor Spa x Yale Cabaret

Chef Kendall Thigpen

Cabaret Assistant

Jeremy Landes

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 Costumes

Playwriting

Board of Directors

Chair

Wendy Davies

Jacob Basri

Samanta Yunuen Cubias

Eric M. Glover

L.T. Gourzong

Doug Robinson

Linda-Cristal Young

Kyle Artone

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

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

Santino Blumetti

The Benevity Community Impact Fund Champion ($2,500-$4,999)

Wendy Davies Partners ($1,000-$2,499)

Nina Adams & Moreson Kaplan

Joan Channick

James G. Hood

Bennett Pudlin & Ann Judd

Bill & Sharon Reynolds

Elaine Ring

Show Sponsors ($500-$999)

Audrey Conrad

Jim & Eileen Mydosh

Anne Renner

Enthusiasts ($250-$499)

James A. Bundy

Sarah Cain

Pamela C. Jordan

Erin Rocha

What’s Next SPRING SEASON

Cab 6

January 19-21st

HotandColdShowers

AN EVENING OF GRAND GUIGNOL

Proposed by Mikayla Stanley & Roman Sanchez

Grand Guignol, or Theatre of Horror and Laughter, is a French physical theatre form that has resulted in many accounts of audiences vomiting and fainting from the scenes they witness. Be warned, this experience will take you on a journey and you may be sitting in a (blood) splash zone.

Cab 7

January 26-28th

MarryMeaLittlebyStephenSondheim

Proposed by Kemar Jewel & Fanny Abib-Rozenberg

What’s love got to do with it? You’re invited to enter the home of two New Yorkers, forced to share an apartment in 2020. Join them as they explore what happens when your dreams come true, and the downside of what happens when your dreams come true. Come and witness a Sondheim show unlike you’ve ever seen before!

Cab 8

February 9-11th

DRAGARET

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?

Tickets go on sale Thursday, December 15th!

Visit our website at www.yalecabaret.org to learn more!