TWELFTH NIGHT SHAKESPEARE REPERTORY PROJECTS | 2021–22 SEASON —Hannah F. Gellman, Production Dramaturg
FEBRUARY 17–19, 2022 Iseman Theater, 1156 Chapel Street DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF DRAMA AT YALE James Bundy, Elizabeth Parker Ware Dean Florie Seery, Associate Dean Chantal Rodriguez, Associate Dean Kelvin Dinkins, Jr., Assistant Dean
PRESENTS
Twelfth Night by William
Shakespeare directed by James L. Fleming Creative Team Scenic Designer
Cat Raynor
Costume Designer
Meg Powers
Sound Designer and Composer
Matthew Suttor Lighting Designer
Yichen Zhou
Production Dramaturg
Hannah F. Gellman Technical Director
Cast
in alphabetical order Sir Andrew Aguecheek
Olivia
Sebastian
Malvolio
Maria
Orsino
Viola
Antonio
Feste
Sir Toby Belch
Samuel DeMuria Sola Fadiran Tavia Elise Hunt
Alexandra Maurice Reed Northrup
Madeline Seidman Adam Siddiqui Shaukat Kayodè Soyemi Thomas Pang (yao) Jessy Yates
Nate Angrick Fight Director
Michael Rossmy Intimacy Choreographers Kelsey Rainwater and
Michael Rossmy
Setting Illyria, a coastal country living through a plague Twelfth Night is performed without an intermission.
Stage Manager
Amanda Nita Luke
This production is supported by The Benjamin Mordecai III Production Fund.
Artistic
Scenic Charge
Jihane Fareseddine Lighting Design Advisor
Graham Zellers
Associate Sound Designer
Joe Krempetz
Assistant Sound Designer and Engineer
Ro Burnett
Assistant Stage Manager
Chloe Liu
Production Associate Safety Advisors
Jacob Santos Eric Walker
Associate Production Manager
Megan Birdsong
Assistant Technical Director
Luanne Jubsee
Production Electrician
Sydney Garick Run Crew
Risa Ando Sophie Greenspan Jacob Santos Jimmy Stubbs
Administration Associate Managing Director
Emma Rose Perrin
Assistant Managing Director
Chloe Knight
House Manager
Jason Gray
Production Photographer
Leigh Busby
David Geffen School of Drama productions are supported by the work of more than 200 faculty and staff members throughout the year.
All patrons must wear masks at all times while inside the theater. Our staff, backstage crew, and artists (when not performing on stage) will also be masked at all times. 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.
Land Acknowledgment
Yale University 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 and continuing relationship that exists between these peoples and nations and this land. The Shakepeare Repertory Project 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. THE BENJAMIN MORDECAI III 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.
“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word “love” here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.”
—James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
My part of death, no one so true Did share it. Twelfth Night plunges us into a world of grief. Of family members lost to plague and lost at sea. Of lovers unrequited, imagining they may die alone. “Come Away Death” is a song of deep loneliness, and Viola and Orsino bond over the way it touches their individual sadness. For each of the characters, loss and love are intertwined.
O’ the twelfth day of December This is also a play of revelry and antics. The show’s title refers to Epiphany Eve (the twelfth night of Christmas), when Elizabethan people abandoned social hierarchy to drink and play pranks. Similarly, the play’s comic structure relies on Viola’s arrival turning Illyria’s social order upside down temporarily.
In delay there lies no plenty In “O Mistress Mine,” Feste reminds us that time ticks on no matter how anyone resists. The song celebrates chasing desire while we are young because the future is unknown. However, Viola cannot pursue her love while she is disguised, so instead she must trust in time itself. Time drives everyone deeper into chaos, and yet time is the only force capable of untangling the crossed wires in this play.
The rain it raineth every day It is February 1602, and it is February 2022. We are in Illyria and in the Iseman Theater. We are carrying pain and hurt. We are in the midst of many plagues. Maybe it will even be raining when we walk outside. The rain it raineth every day, and so let us offer each other shelter from the storm. Offer each other love. —Hannah F. Gellman, Production Dramaturg