SEPTEMBER 28–30, 2023
DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF DRAMA AT YALE
James Bundy, Elizabeth Parker Ware Dean
Florie Seery, Associate Dean
Chantal Rodriguez, Associate Dean
Carla L. Jackson, Assistant Dean
PRESENTS FALL PROJECT A
Directed by Joan MacIntosh
Creative Team
Assistant Director
Rebeca Robles
Stage Manager Hope Ding
Assistant Stage Manager
Josie Cooper
Cast in alphabetical order
Emma Caroline Campos
Shelley Nat Lopez
Frog Grayson Richmond
Oscar Marlon Alexander Vargas
Setting: Soup kitchen, Catholic Church, The Bronx, 2014
Grand Concourse is performed without an intermission.
Content Guidance: This production contains a reference to animal cruelty.
This production is supported by The Benjamin Mordecai III Production Fund.
Production
Associate Safety Advisor
Steph Burke
Associate Production Manager
Katie Chance
Technical Supervisor
Lilliana Gonzalez
Properties Manager
Steven Blasberg
Production Crew
Destany Langfield
Run Crew
Alexus Jade Coney
Micah Ohno
Administration
Associate Managing Director
Jake Hurwitz
Assistant Managing Director
Ramona Li
Management Assistant
Joy Chen
House Manager
Maura Bozeman
Production Photographer
Maza Rey
David Geffen School of Drama productions are supported by the work of more than 200 faculty and staff members throughout the year.
Sister Christine Hoffner
Father Ryan Lerner
Yale acknowledges that indigenous peoples and nations, including Mohegan, Mashantucket Pequot, Eastern Pequot, Schaghticoke, Golden Hill Paugussett, Niantic, and the Quinnipiac and other Algonquian speaking peoples, have stewarded through generations the lands and waterways of what is now the state of Connecticut. We honor and respect the enduring relationship that exists between these peoples and nations and this land.
We also acknowledge the legacy of slavery in our region and the enslaved African people whose labor was exploited for generations to help establish the business of Yale University as well as the economy of Connecticut and the United States.
The Studio Productions are designed to be learning experiences that complement classroom work, providing a medium for students at David Geffen School of Drama at Yale to combine their individual talents and energies toward the staging of collaboratively created works. Your attendance meaningfully completes this process.
FUND, established by a graduate of the School, honors the memory of the Tony Award-winning producer who served as Managing Director of Yale Repertory Theatre, 1982–1993, and as Associate Dean and Chair of the Theater Management Program from 1993 until his death in 2005.
Masks will no longer be required at David Geffen School of Drama productions beginning in the 2023–24 season. Of course, audience members who wish to mask up during their attendance are welcome to do so.
The taking of photographs or the use of recording devices of any kind in the theater without the written permission of the management is prohibited.
Set in an unassuming soup kitchen at a Catholic church in the Bronx, Heidi Schreck’s Grand Concourse provides a deep investigation of faith, doubt, forgiveness, redemption, and human connection.
Here we encounter Shelley, a devout nun second-guessing her life’s purpose; Emma, an impulsive college dropout with a troubled past; Oscar, a charismatic security guard from the DR with big dreams; and Frog, a hippie intellectual turned unhoused joke-writer. With little in common besides the soup kitchen and a shared desire for community and meaning, these human beings weave in and out of each other’s daily lives, recklessly bumping heads one day and compassionately holding each other up the next.
Grand Concourse is more than a play about the efficacy of social justice and the plight of poverty; it is a play that confronts the messiness of being human. What is the line between the forgivable and unforgivable? What constitutes evil? Who is qualified to care and who is worthy of being cared for? These are just a few of the questions Schreck poses over the course of the play. She doesn’t attempt to provide easy, digestible answers, but rather invites us to join Shelley, Emma, Oscar and Frog in that space between faith and doubt, to find peace in the unknown, and maybe even something resembling joy.
—Rebeca Robles, Assistant Director