David Geffen School of Drama UNCLE VANYA (2023)

2023–24 SEASON

OUR MISSION

David Geffen School of Drama and Yale Repertory Theatre train and advance leaders in the practice of every theatrical discipline, making art to inspire joy, empathy, and understanding in the world.

OUR CORE VALUES Artistry

We expand knowledge to nurture creativity and imaginative expression embracing the complexity of the human spirit.

Belonging

We put people first, centering well-being, inclusion, and equity for theatermakers and audiences through anti-racist and anti-oppressive practices.

Collaboration We build our collective work on a foundation of mutual respect, prizing the contributions and accomplishments of the individual and of the team.

Discovery

We wrestle with compelling issues of our time.

Energized by curiosity, invention, bravery, and humor, we challenge ourselves to risk and learn from failure and vulnerability.

drama.yale.edu ABOVE: Abigail C. Onwunali ’23, Rebeca Robles ’24, Tyler Cruz ’23, Karen Killeen ’24, Giovanna Drummond ’24, and Whitney Andrews ’24 in Marys Seacole by Jackie Sibblies Drury, directed by Leyla Levi ’23. Photo © T. Charles Erickson.

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.

Contents Title Page................................................................................................. 4 Cast........................................................................................................... 5 Setting......................................................................................................5 Content Guidance................................................................................. 5 From Our Dramaturg............................................................................ 6 Cast Bios..................................................................................................8 Creative Team Bios...............................................................................9 For This Production........................................................................... 16 David Geffen School of Drama Staff............................................. 17 3

DECEMBER 9–15, 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 Liz Diamond, Chair, Directing Program PRESENTS

By Anton Chekhov

Adapted by Annie Baker

Working with a literal translation by Margarita Shalina and the original Russian text Directed by Sammy Zeisel Scenic Designer

Silin Chen

Costume Designer

Arthur Wilson

Lighting Designer

Kyle Stamm

Projection Design Consultant

Uncle Vanya (Baker translation) is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. concordtheatricals.com

Production Dramaturg

SEASON SPONSOR

Sound Designer

Joyce Ciesil

Christian Killada Sophia Carey

Technical Director

Aholibama Castañeda González Fight and Intimacy Director

Michael Rossmy Stage Manager

Hope Binfeng Ding 4

This production is supported by the Benjamin Mordecai III Production Fund.

cast

in alphabetical order: Ilya Ilych Telegin............................................................................... Edoardo Benzoni Ivan “Vanya” Petrovich...................................................................... Samuel Douglas Yefim................................................................................................................. Leo Egger Mikhail Lvovich Astrov........................................................................... Lucas Iverson Yelena Andreyevna................................................................................. Karen Killeen Maria Vasilyevna Voinitskaya..................................................... Caro Reyes Rivera Sophia “Sonya” Alexandrovna............................................................ Rebeca Robles Marina....................................................................................................... Anna Roman Alexander Serebryakov...................................................................... Kamal Sehrawy

content guidance This production of Uncle Vanya contains live blank-firing gunshots, nonconsensual sexual situations, sustained strobe-like lighting effects, haze, and herbal cigarette smoke.

The first live blank-firing gunshot will be off-stage and seem to be coming from the theater lobby. The second will involve a realistic-looking gun being safely handled and monitored as a stage prop.

Uncle Vanya also includes themes of alcoholism, depression, and suicidality.

There will be a 15-minute intermission.

recording and photo policy The videotaping or making of electronic or other audio and/or visual recordings of this production and distributing recordings or streams in any medium, including the internet, is strictly prohibited, a violation of the author(s)’s rights and actionable under United States states copyright law. For more information, please visit concordtheatricals.com/resources/protecting-artists

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Chekhov’s Ecologies “There’s something wrong with this house…”

In the winter of 1901, Anton Chekhov visited a bedridden Leo Tolstoy. At the end of the visit, as Chekhov bent over to kiss his friend goodbye, Tolstoy whispered in his ear, “I hate your plays. Shakespeare was a bad writer, and I consider your plays even worse than his.” Tolstoy later explained, “A playwright should take the theatergoer by the hand and lead him in the direction he wants him to go. And where can I follow your character? To the couch in the living-room and back—because your character has no other place to go.”

Though today often held up next to Shakespeare as the pinnacle o f t h e a t r i c a l c o n s e r v a ti s m , Chekhov wrote his plays to d ef y co nve nti o n , i n c l u d i n g t h e c o n v e n ti o n s o f t h e “well-made play” that dominated 19th-century European drama.

It is possible to map the events of Uncle Vanya onto this conventional triangle-shaped plot chart, but it feels artificial.

The well-made, next to Chekhov, appears decidedly man-made.

“There are fewer and fewer forests…”

The shape of Uncle Vanya is different depending on whose story you think it is—which character you try to follow. If you try to follow Astrov, the play is shaped like a wave, like ripples in sand. If you try to follow Sonya, the play is shaped like a spiral—like a fiddlehead fern or the rings in a tree stump.

If you try to follow Vanya, the play is shaped like a snowflake, a burst of light, an explosion. Layer all the shapes of the play on top of each other, as Chekhov does, and you get the forest floor that is Uncle Vanya.

The environment of Chekhov’s play is an environment in crisis. Today, forest fires are destroying lives and livelihoods across the globe. Yet fires can also be used as a tool of maintenance.

C o n t ro l l e d b u r n s h e l p c l e a r o u t underbrush accumulating on the forest floor, making way for new life, preventing future fires, and maintaining the health of the ecosystem. We are in a climate crisis largely because such practices of maintenance have been neglected in favor of a destructive idea of progress.

Chekhov knew this in the 1890s when he was writing Uncle Vanya.

“My holy of holies is the human body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love, no matter what form the latter two take. Such is the program I would adhere to if 6

“I still want to live…”

“Everything is so desperately boring…”

This is a play about the e x i s t e n ti a l s t a k e s o f maintenance—the immanent work of cleaning, tending, repairing, checking-in, and checking-up. In Uncle Vanya, maintenance has been largely neglected because the characters find maintenance boring.

The words “boring,” “bored,” and “boredom” appear sixteen times in Annie Baker’s translation.

The word “boring” is an English translation of a Russian word related to “yearning”—yearning for what could have been but isn’t. The characters of Uncle Vanya wish they were in any play other than the one they're in. As Chekhov scholar Gary Saul Morson writes, “they try to transform their lives into theater.” If they can’t be happy, can’t they at least be tragic?

Almost every character in Uncle Vanya moves through the play as if they’re the tragic hero.

But whose play is it?

Ownership in and of Chekhov is contested.

In the months after the Russian military invasion of Ukraine, both nations have claimed the writer as their own. Chekhov was born half a day’s carriage ride from what is now Mariupol, Ukraine. On March 16th of last year, the Russian military bombed Mariupol’s Drama Theater, killing hundreds of civilians who had sought refuge inside. The Russian authorities then built a façade around the destroyed theater—a theater that frequently produced Chekhov’s plays. Onto this façade they projected the faces of several famous Russian artists: Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy.

But not Chekhov. Chekhov is difficult to appropriate. Take a truth about Chekhov’s plays and the opposite is often also true. And if there’s anything that resists totalitarianism, it’s contradiction. Chekhov doesn’t tell his audience where to go.

We can’t follow his characters, only sit with them on the forest floor of our daily lives.

—Sophia Carey, Production Dramaturg

and the most absolute freedom imaginable, freedom from violence and lies, I were a major artist.” —Anton Chekhov in a letter to Alexei Pleshcheev (October 4, 1888) 7

cast

in alphabetical order Edoardo Benzoni (Ilya Ilych Telegin)

is a second-year M.F.A. candidate at David Geffen School of Drama, where he has been seen in How to Live on Earth and Running Play. Other credits include We F*cked Up (Yale Cabaret); Pride and Prejudice, Cannabis Passover, The Light and the Dark (Chautauqua Theater Company); and The Importance of Being Earnest (Chalk Rep). He received his bachelor’s degree from University of California, Berkeley.

He wants to dedicate this performance to his mother, Paola. <3

Samuel Douglas (Ivan “Vanya”

Petrovich) is in his fourth year at David Geffen School of Drama, where his credits include Macbeth, The Misanthrope, The Cherry Orchard, Esme, and Affinity, as well as The Betrayal Project at Yale Summer Cabaret.

Additional credits include work with Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Northlight Theatre, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, Nashville Shakespeare Festival, and Montana Shakespeare in the Parks, among others. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University in theater and German.

Leo Egger (Yefim) is a theater

director and actor from Durham, North Carolina. He is currently a second-semester senior at Yale College studying humanities. His recent directing credits include As You Like It, Richard II, Coriolanus, The Government Inspector, Phaedo, 8

and most recently, an adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s Dead Souls, which toured from North Carolina to New York to London. He is grateful for his friendship with and mentorship from Sammy. For more information about his work visit enoriverplayers.org.

Lucas Iverson he/him (Mikhail

Lvovich Astrov) is a fourth-year M.F.A. candidate at David Geffen School of Drama, where his credits include The Misanthrope, How to Live on Earth, Macbeth, and Hedda Gabler.

Select regional credits include Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (understudy, performed) at Yale Rep, along with works at Williamstown Theatre Festival, Premier Stages, Texas Shakespeare Festival, among others.

He hopes you find something, anything, that you love in this play—maybe even a couple things. Thanks to this fabulous company for the wonderful whirlwind adventure this process has been.

Karen Killeen (Yelena Andreyevna)

is an Irish actor in her fourth and final year at David Geffen School of Drama, where her production work includes The Misanthrope, The Cherry Orchard, Marys Seacole, Affinity, and Bodas de sangre/Blood Wedding. This past summer, Karen was a member of the Conservatory at Chautauqua Theater Company where she was seen in Pride and Prejudice by Kate Hamill.

Karen is delighted to be working with Sammy and this incredible company, and profoundly grateful for the adventure that has been this process.

Caro Reyes Rivera (Maria Vasilyevna

Voinitskaya) is a fourth-year M.F.A. candidate at David Geffen School of Drama at Yale, where her credits include Macbeth, Affinity, and Bodas de sangre/Blood Wedding. She holds a B.A. in humanities with a concentration in drama from Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Río Piedras, and is also an alumna of the BADA Midsummer in Oxford Program at Magdalen College. @caroriverita

Rebeca Robles (Sophia “Sonya”

Alexandrovna) is a fourth-year actor at David Geffen School of Drama, where her credits include Marys Seacole, How to Live on Earth, Affinity, and Bodas de sangre/Blood Wedding. Other credits include Indecent (Chautauqua Theater), Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (understudy, performed, Yale Rep), The Wolves (Horizon Theatre Company), and The Hero’s Wife (Synchronicity Theatre). Television credits include Hulu’s Reprisal, FX’s Better Things, Neflix’s Insatiable, and OWN’s Ambitions. Recently, Rebeca’s work in the two-hander feature Old Flame garnered a Best Cast Award at The Brooklyn Horror Fest. Prior to graduate school, Rebeca led Atlanta Theater Club, which was named Best Emerging Theater by Atlanta magazine in 2019. Rebeca is an alumna of A Guthrie Experience (2023).

Anna Roman she/her (Marina) is

a second-year M.F.A. candidate at David Geffen School of Drama, where she has been seen in Fucking A and How to Live on Earth. Other credits include stray dogs by comfort ifeoma katchy and The Lighthouse Keepers (Yale Cabaret); The Dreamer Examines His Pillow (Tampa Repertory Theatre); Cannabis Passover by Sofya-Levitsky Weitz, and Pride and Prejudice (Chautauqua Theater Company). She has a B.F.A. in theater performance from the University of Florida. She is honored to have worked on this production with all her little chicks.

Love to her family and E. @a.rom

Kamal Sehrawy he/him (Alexander

Serebryakov) is a second-year M.F.A. candidate at David Geffen School of Drama, where he has been seen in How to Live on Earth and The Misanthrope, as well as Mad Love at Yale Cabaret.

Elsewhere, Kamal has acted at the Theatre Workshop of Nantucket, Smith Street Stage, Mercury Store, and other theaters in New York City.

He holds a B.F.A. in drama from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Kamal is thrilled to help bring Sammy’s visionary production of Chekhov’s masterpiece to life alongside this extraordinary cast.

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creative team

in alphabetical order Sophia Carey she/her (Production

Dramaturg) is a second-year M.F.A. candidate in dramaturgy and dramatic criticism at David Geffen School of Drama, where she was the production dramaturg on Running Play by Ida Cuttler as well as Every Brilliant Thing at Yale Cabaret. In 2022, she graduated with a B.A. in English from the University of Washington, where she was named a 2021–22 Beinecke Scholar. Her writing engages theater built around an ethic of joy, particularly that which draws from epic and mythological sources to center women’s voices and explore contemporary questions about gender, childhood, and magic. She is originally from Seattle, Washington.

Aholibama Castañeda González

(Technical Director) is a production manager and technical director from Mexico, currently residing in New Haven, Connecticut. Before coming to the U.S., they worked for the National Theater Coordination, Festival Internacional Cervantino, and the National Dance Company at the National Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City. For the past two summers, they worked as an assistant technical director for Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City Festival in NYC. They are currently pursuing an M.F.A. in technical design and production at David Geffen School of Drama.

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They feel grateful and blessed for all the learning opportunities at Yale and all their professors, staff, and classmates who have been with them all these years.

Silin Chen (Scenic Designer) is a

second-year M.F.A. candidate at David Geffen School of Drama.

She studied theater and art history as an undergrad. She designs for stage and exhibitions. @de.silin

Joyce Ciesil (Sound Designer) Originally from the suburbs of Illinois, Joyce is a Jeff Award-nominated sound designer and a second-year M.F.A. candidate at David Geffen School of Drama, where her credits include littleboy/littleman, pride365 (Yale Summer Cabaret), and Romeo and You-liet (Yale Cabaret). Selected design credits include Hurricane Diane (Theater Wit), Seven Days at Sea (Light and Sound Productions), and SPAY (Rivendell Theatre Ensemble). Joyce holds a B.F.A. in sound design from the Theater School at DePaul University.

Hope Binfeng Ding she/her (Stage Manager) is a second-year M.F.A. candidate at David Geffen School of Drama and is originally from Shenzhen, China. Selected stage management credits include Romeo and Juliet (NAATCO); Ghosts, Next to Normal, The Winter’s Tale (the Geffen School); Aubergine, The Scarlet Letter (South Coast Rep); Sleep No More Shanghai; Eye of the Storm (Disney Shanghai).

Many thanks to her teammates Hannah

Jones and Thomas Nagata. B.A., University of California, San Diego.

Christian Killada (Projection

Design Consultant) is an Egyptian transmedia designer and a secondyear M.F.A. candidate in projection design at David Geffen School of Drama. He holds a degree in set and costume design. His research is dedicated to exploring the synergy between technology, interactive media, and live performance arts.

Chris’s selected credits include De la cave au grenier (French Cultural Center, Egypt, projection designer), Fantasia (Alhosabir Theater, scenic designer), and Gymnastics World Challenge Cup 2021 (Cairo Stadium, 3D video designer). @cnwk122

Michael Rossmy (Fight and

Intimacy Director) is a Resident Fight and Intimacy Director for Yale Rep, a lecturer in acting at David Geffen School of Drama, and the Stage Combat and Intimacy Advisor for Yale College. Broadway credits include A Tale of Two Cities, Cymbeline, and Superior Donuts.

Regional theater credits include The Public Theater, Westport Country Playhouse, Goodspeed Musicals, Paper Mill Playhouse, Asolo Rep, The Old Globe, TheaterWorks Hartford, Princeton University, The Acting Company, Soho Rep, the Geffen Playhouse, Long Wharf Theatre, McCarter Theatre, Kansas City Rep, People’s Light & Theatre, and others. He was nominated for

a 2017 Drama Desk Award for his work on Troilus and Cressida for The Public Theater’s production in Central Park. Recent credits include Cyrano de Bergerac at Kansas City Rep directed by Nelson T. Eusebio III and the world premiere of Bonez written and directed by Steve Broadnax III. Upcoming is the New York premiere of Sally & Tom by Suzan-Lori Parks.

Kyle Stamm (Lighting Designer)

is a second-year M.F.A. candidate in lighting design and a Co-Artistic Director of Yale Cabaret Season 56: Sandbox. Select lighting design credits include Julius Caesar (the Geffen School); We Fucked Up [a gameshow], Four Meddling Kids and One Dumb Dog (Yale Cabaret); The Betrayal Project (Yale Summer Cabaret); for the honey, you gotta say when (New York Theatre Workshop/Frances Black Projects); Bat Boy, Grease, Something Rotten, Young Frankenstein, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Indecent, Metamorphoses, The Wolves, Cabaret (Weston Drama Workshop); and Rent, Trojan Women (Ithaca College).

Kyle graduated from Ithaca College with a B.F.A. in theater production and design in the spring of 2022 and is originally from Framingham, Massachusetts. kylestammdesign.com

Arthur Wilson (Costume Designer) is a second-year M.F.A. candidate at David Geffen School of Drama.

Recent costume design credits include Scenes from Beckett at Area Cooperative Educational Services

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creative team (ACES). Assistant design credits include Candide (Glimmerglass Opera Festival) and Jane Austen’s Emma: The Musical (Chance Theater Anaheim, California and Ensemble Theater in Santa Barbara). Arthur holds a double B.A. in music and theater, California State University, Fullerton.

Sammy Zeisel (Director) is a fourth-

year M.F.A. candidate at David Geffen School of Drama, where he has directed The Winter’s Tale, Danielle Stagger’s rent free in the Langston Hughes Festival, and Doug Robinson’s The Figs as a part of the New Play Lab. Before pursuing his M.F.A., Sammy lived and worked in Chicago where select credits include the Chicago premieres of The Late Wedding and Home Invasion by Christopher Chen; Meatball Séance, the solo work of performance artist John Michael (Steppenwolf LookOut, WINNER: Best Solo Performance Ottawa Fringe Festival); formally inventive new work by playwrights Beth Hyland, Laura Winters, and others; and devised youth circus performance with the Actors Gymnasium. Sammy has assisted directors including Les Waters, Lee Sunday Evans, Jessica Thebus, Meredith McDonough, Michael Patrick Thornton, John Vreeke, Devon DeMayo, and Marti Lyons, and worked at institutions including Steppenwolf Theatre, Lookingglass Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, The Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and The Actors Theatre of Louisville. Sammy is also a filmmaker whose short films Clambake,

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The Care and Keeping of You, and Cheese Shop (WINNER: Best Chicago Director, The Windy City International Film Festival) have screened at festivals across the country. Sammy graduated summa cum laude from Northwestern University with a degree in theater.

Sammy collaborates across media to create playful spaces of collision where joy and pain might co-exist. He believes that—through a communal embrace of complexity and contradiction—art has the potential to make us gentler to ourselves and each other.

Annie Baker Plays include The Antipodes (Signature Theatre, National Theatre); John (Signature Theatre, National Theatre, Obie Award); The Flick (Playwrights Horizons, Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Obie Award for Playwriting, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize); Circle Mirror Transforamtion (Playwrights Horizons, Obie Award for Best New American Play, Drama Desk nomination for Best Play), The Aliens (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Obie Award for Best New American Play), Body Awareness (Atlantic Theater Company, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations for Best Play/Emerging Playwright); and an adaptation of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya (Soho Rep, Drama Desk nomination for Best revival) for which she also designed the costumes. Other honors include a MacArthur Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowship, Steinberg Playwriting Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, and the

Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library. She is Associate Professor of Practice in the M.F.A. in playwriting program at the University of Texas, Austin, and wrote and directed the upcoming film Janet Planet for A24 and BBC Film.

Margarita Shalina is a poet and translator originally from Leningrad, now Saint Petersburg, in the former Soviet Union. Previously, she played a pivotal role as a small press buyer at the renowned St. Marks Bookstore on Third Avenue. Shalina’s body of work includes translations of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya and The Duel (The Art of the Novella).

Her insights into the intricacies of publishing and marketing translated books have been showcased on C-SPAN, contributing to the dialogue around international literature.

Concord Theatricals is the world’s most significant theatrical company, comprising the catalogs of R&H Theatricals, Samuel French, TamsWitmark and The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection, plus dozens of new signings each year. Our unparalleled roster includes the work of Irving Berlin, Agatha Christie, George & Ira Gershwin, Marvin Hamlisch, Lorraine Hansberry, Kander & Ebb, Tom Kitt, Ken Ludwig, Marlow & Moss, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Anaïs

Mitchell, Dominique Morisseau, Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Thornton Wilder, and August Wilson.

We are the only firm providing truly comprehensive services to the creators and producers of plays and musicals, including theatrical licensing, music publishing, script publishing, cast recording, and firstclass production. @concordshows 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 Associate Dean and Chair of the Theater Management program at David Geffen School of Drama from 1993 until his death in 2005. During his tenure as Yale Rep’s Managing Director alongside Dean/ Artistic Director Lloyd Richards, 1982–1993, he developed a model of professional producing that changed the course of new play development in the American theater.

His 25 Broadway credits included Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, as well as work by Anna Deavere Smith, Athol Fugard, David Henry Hwang, Terrence McNally, Robert Schenkkan, and perhaps most significantly August Wilson, with whom he collaborated on each of the ten plays in the epic 20th-Century Cycle.

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for this production artistic

Assistant Director

Leo Egger

Assistant Scenic Designer

Karen Loewy Movilla

Assistant Costume Designer

Allison Morgan

Assistant Lighting Designer

Celia Chen

Assistant Sound Designer and Engineer

Constant Dzah

Assistant Stage Managers

Laam Tsang

Projection Engineering Consultant

Erik Keating Run Crew

Claudia Campos Iyanna Huffington Whitney Joe Krempetz Ankit Pandey Erik Manuel Robles Lara Sachdeva Michael Saguto Kim Zhou

Hannah Louise Jones Thomas Nagata

Run Crew Swing

production

administration

Production Manager

A.J. Roy

Eugenio Sáenz Flores Associate Production Manager

Jason Dixon

Assistant Technical Directors

Shannon Dodson Steph Lo

Production Electrician

Steven Blasberg

Lightboard Programmer

Ankit Pandey

Properties Manager

Sydney Raine Garick Stage Carpenter

Alex Theisen

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Scenic Charge

Daria Kerschenbaum Associate Managing Director Assistant Managing Director

Ramona Li

Management Assistant

Victoria McNaughton House Manager

Anne Ciarlone

special thanks Garrett Allen, Bobbin Ramsey, Mithra Seyedi, Karoline Vielemeyer, Ella Pennington

drama.yale.edu

David Geffen School of Drama Staff Elizabeth Parker Ware Dean James Bundy Associate Dean Florie Seery Associate Dean Chantal Rodriguez Assistant Dean Carla L. Jackson

academic programs Chair, Acting Program Tamilla Woodard

Co-Chairs, Design Program Riccardo Hernández Toni-Leslie James Chair, Directing Program Liz Diamond Chair, Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism Program Catherine Sheehy Co-Chairs, Playwriting Program Anne Erbe Marcus Gardley Chair, Stage Management Program Narda E. Alcorn Chair, Technical Design and Production Program Shaminda Amarakoon Chair, Theater Management Program Joan Channick

Senior Administrative Assistant to the Dean and Associate Dean Josie Brown Senior Administrative Assistant for Directing, Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism, Playwriting, and Stage Management Laurie Coppola Senior Administrative Assistant for Design Kate Begley Baker Senior Administrative Assistant for the Acting Program Krista DeVellis Library Services Erin Carney

production Production Management Director of Production Shaminda Amarakoon Production Manager Jonathan Reed Production Manager for Studio Projects and Special Events C. Nikki Mills

Scenery

Technical Director for Yale Rep Neil Mulligan

Lead Carpenters Ryan Gardner Doug Kester Kat McCarthey Sharon Reinhart Carpentry Intern Isaac Lau

Painting

Paint Shop Supervisor Ru-Jun Wang Scenic Artists Lia Akkerhuis Nathan Jasunas Kathleen Kennan Paint Interns Nicole Goldstein Laam Tsang

Properties

Properties Supervisor Jennifer McClure Properties Craftsperson David P. Schrader Properties Associate Zach Faber Properties Stock Manager Mark Dionne Properties Intern Destany Langfield

Costumes

Costume Shop Manager Christine Szczepanski Senior Drapers Clarissa Wylie Youngberg Mary Zihal

Production Stage Manager James Mountcastle

Technical Directors for David Geffen School of Drama Latiana “LT” Gourzong Matt Welander

Senior Artistic Producer, Yale Repertory Theatre Amy Boratko

Electro Mechanical Laboratory Supervisor Eric Lin

Associate Producer, Yale Repertory Theatre Kay Perdue Meadows

Scene Shop Supervisor Eric Sparks

Costume Project Coordinator Linda Kelley-Dodd

Senior Lead Carpenter Matt Gaffney

Costume Stock Manager Jamie Farkas

artistic management

Artistic Fellows Jisun Kim Madeline Pages

Interim Senior Draper Susan Aziz Senior First Hands Deborah Bloch Patricia Van Horn

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David Geffen School of Drama Staff Costume Interns Amani Jaramoga Annie Wang

Electrics

Lighting Supervisor Donald W. Titus Senior House Electricians Jennifer Carlson Linda-Cristal Young Electricians Katie Brown Alary Sutherland Ryan White

Sound

Sound Supervisor Mike Backhaus Senior Lead Sound Engineer Stephanie Smith Sound Intern Robert Salerno

Projections

Projection Supervisor Anja Powell

Stage Operations Stage Carpenter Janet Cunningham

Lead Wardrobe Supervisor Elizabeth Bolster Lead Properties Runner William Ordynowicz Lead Light Board Programmer Sabrina Idom Front of House Mix Engineer Abe Joyner-Meyers

administration

General Management Associate Managing Directors Jake Hurwitz Chloe Knight A.J. Roy

Assistant Managing Director Ramona Li

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Senior Administrative Assistant to the Managing Director and General Manager Sarah Masotta Management Assistant Victoria McNaughton

Finance, Human Resources, and Digital Technology Director of Finance and Business Administration/ Lead Administrator Nicola Blake

Company Manager Fanny Abib-Rozenberg

Human Resources Business Partner Trinh DiNoto

Assistant Company Managers Kavya Shetty Mithra Seyedi

Director, Yale Tessitura Consortium and Web Technology Janna J. Ellis

Development and Alumni Affairs

Manager, Business Operations Martha Boateng

Senior Director of Development and Alumni Affairs Deborah S. Berman

Deputy Director of Operations for Development and Alumni Affairs Susan C. Clark Senior Associate Director of Development Casey Grambo Associate Director of Development and Alumni Affairs Jacob Santos Assistant Director of Development and Alumni Affairs Maya Louise Shed Senior Writer and Development and Alumni Affairs Officer Robert DiGioia Senior Administrative Assistant to Development and Alumni Affairs Jennifer E. Alzona Development Associate Delaney Kelley

Business Office Analyst Shainn Reaves Digital Communications Associate George Tinari Business Office Specialists Moriah Clarke Karem Orellana-Flores Business Office Assistant Asberry Thomas Digital Technology Associates Edison Dule Garry Heyward Senior Administrative Assistant to Finance, Web Technology, Tessituria, and Human Resources Monique Moore Database Application Consultants Ben Silvert Erich Bolton Bo Du

Financial Aid and Admissions

Financial Aid Officer Andre Messiah Registrar/Admissions Administrator Ariel Yan

Assistant to Financial Aid and Admissions Laura Torino

Marketing, Communications, and Audience Services Director of Marketing Daniel Cress

Production Photographer T. Charles Erickson Videographer David Kane Director of Audience Services Laura Kirk

Director of Communications Steven Padla

Assistant Director of Audience Services Shane Quinn

Senior Associate Director of Marketing and Communications Caitlin Griffin

Subscriptions Coordinator Tracy Baldini

Associate Director of Marketing and Communications Samanta Cubias Assistant Director of Marketing and Communications Andrew Aaron Valdez Community Engagement Associate a.k. payne Senior Administrative Assistant for Marketing and Communications Mishelle Raza—on leave Interim Senior Administrative Assistant for Marketing and Communications Rachel Zwick

Audience Services Associate Molly Leona Customer Service and Safety Officers Ralph Black, Jr. Kevin Delaney Ed Jooss Box Office Assistants Pilar Bylinsky Jordi Bertrán Ramírez Emma Fusco Sydney Raine Garick Jordan Graf Elliot Lee Kenneth Murray Accessibility Assistant Prentiss Patrick-Carter

theater safety and occupational health

Marketing and Communications Assistant Mithra Seyedi

Director of Theater Safety and Occupational Health Anna Glover

Publications Manager Marguerite Elliott

Assistant Director of Theater Safety Kelly O’Loughlin

Associate Safety Advisors Steph Burke Joy Chen Luanne Jubsee

operations

Director of Facility Operations Nadir Balan Associate Director of Operations Brandon Fuller Operations Assistant Kelvin Essilfie Arts and Graduate Studies Superintendents Jennifer Draughn Francisco Eduardo Pimentel Custodial Team Leaders Andrew Mastriano Sherry Stanley Facility Stewards Ronald Douglas Marcia Riley Custodians Tylon Frost Willia Grant Cassandra Hobby Melloney Lucas Shanna Ramos Jerome Sonia

David Geffen School of Drama students are supported and advised by more than 200 faculty members. For a full list, please visit drama.yale.edu/about-us/who-we-are Uncle Vanya, December 9–15, 2023.

Iseman Theater, 1156 Chapel Street, New Haven, Connecticut.

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