NOVEMBER 11–16, 2024
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 Nancy Yao, Assistant Dean
Anne Erbe and Marcus Gardley, Co-Chairs, Playwriting
By Andrew Rincón
Directed by Andreas Andreou
Creative Team
Production Dramaturg
Shyama Iyer
Fight and Intimacy Director
Michael Rossmy
Stage Manager
Thomas Nagata
Cast
Lillith
Chinna Palmer
Lucy/Adam
Kamal Sehrawy
Animal
Marlon Alexander Vargas
Eve/God
Lauren F. Walker
Content Guidance
This play contains sexual content and simulated violence.
Tempt Me is performed without an intermission.
This production is supported by The Benjamin Mordecai III Production Fund.
Production Stage Manager
Adam Taylor Foster
Assistant Stage Manager
Claire Young
Production
Technical Supervisor
Meredith Wilcox
Properties Manager
Shannon Dodson
Associate Safety Advisors
Steph Lo 盧胤沂
Kay Nilest
Associate Production Manager
Bryant Heatherly
Production Crew
Micah Ohno
Run Crew
Surrey Houlker
Juice Mackins
Administration
Associate Managing Director
Jeremy Landes
Assistant Managing Director
Mithra Seyedi
Management Assistant
Alesandra Reto Lopez
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.
Special Thanks
Chloe Howard, Max Sheldon, Darius Sakui, Kim Vilbrun-Francois
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 Projects 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.
PRODUCTION 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.
They say Lucifer is evil personified. His great and fiery fall from Heaven due to demonic irreverence. They say Adam and Eve, the first man and woman to walk the earth, are perfection personified. Made in the image of God, they were once placed in the center of a splendid garden and oversaw the naming of every facet of God’s freshly created life. When Eve stole God’s forbidden fruit and invited a barrage of divine curses on all humankind, most blame it on a limbless creature who tempted her to sin. Thus, the world was created according to Christian scripture. But, whether received as fact or fiction, scriptures are merely stories. Stories can be rewritten.
In Tempt Me, playwright Andrew Rincón rewrites the creation myth, asking us to reconsider the archetypal characters we know so well. In this world, Adam and Eve are far from perfect. Eve, trapped by duty to her husband and the Almighty, is stuck in a miserably familiar patriarchal structure. Here Lilith, Animal, and Lucifer, so often portrayed as demons with ulterior motives, are far from evil. Lucifer, who self-identifies as Lucy, aches to be good even when God’s goodness falls short. In his search, he discovers theater and the “magic of storytelling,” which leads to other discoveries: A lonely animal and Adam’s forgotten first wife Lilith, who are both making discoveries of their own. Rincón suggests that sexual preference is the main reason Lucy, Lilith, and Animal have been left to fend for themselves. They try their very best to exist in God’s heterosexual “paradise.” But when it comes time they ask if an all-powerful God didn’t want me to exist, why did he create me at all?
With Good and Evil repositioned, Tempt Me makes space for a new creation centering queer identity. By placing creativity in all its myriad forms into queer hands, it celebrates resilience and reclamation.
—Shyama Iyer, Production Dramaturg