a note from the leadership collective...

Welcome to the season opener for Development Studio 49 @ Yale Summer Cabaret! DS49 has been a labor of love for all four members of the leadership collective since the winter of 2022, and we are so thrilled that you're here to share this special moment with us. We're especially excited that the first of our three productions this summer is the betrayal project. Stefani, Jisun, and Bobbin have spent countless hours gathering actors, designers, and interviewees to make this show come to life, and we could not be more proud for DS49 to serve as the first home for this beautiful, funny, heartbreaking piece. One of the most special things about this show is that it's a devised work, meaning that each person whose name you see on the next page worked to make decisions about how these interviews turned into a piece of live theater that's entertaining and meaningful, while still maintaining the integrity of each story. It's a LOT of work, and we can't wait for you to experience it all. Enjoy the show!

– Adrian, Maya, Mikayla, and Sarah a note from the co-creators...

“You can tell me whatever stories you want. You can tell me what your experience was. You can tell me the life lesson you learned.” presents:

We began working on this project to better understand what betrayal really means. So much of art concerns itself around love and heartbreak. We craft narratives out of love and turn them into movies and books, tv shows and poetry. But instead of crafting a singular narrative, we wanted to explore what betrayal meant to a multitude of people – real people, who were generous enough to speak to us and articulate their stories of betrayal, past and present, as the betrayed or the betrayer. Where does betrayal come from? Why is the experience so isolating, when so many others have experienced it as well? What compels us to betray those we love? And what comes in the aftermath? In this first iteration of our project, we spoke to 25 different interviewees about their experiences of betrayal in a romantic context, and out of almost 500 pages of transcript, we gathered as a collective of artists: creators, performers, designers, and producers alike, and began to piece together the arc of this piece. From the depths of pain and beauty of healing in these stories, we gathered to ask ourselves: what is the story that these people have told us? And how can we create and gather community to share in the overwhelming feeling we ourselves experienced: that we are not alone. As one of our interviewees said, “You give something of yourself every time you are in a relationship with someone.” And simultaneously, as another asked, “Is it ever hard to reconcile the person you knew and loved, in this deep way, who is so good in these ways, with the feeling you had at the end?” Each of the stories on this stage tonight are unique, heartbreaking, humorous, inspiring in their own ways, and deeply true. In each of them, we learned more about ourselves and what love and betrayal mean to us. In every one of them, we saw some of ourselves and felt less alone. We hope you will too.