YSD Annual Magazine 2006 by David Geffen School of Drama at Yale

Annual Magazine of the Yale School of Drama Fall 2006

Yale school of Drama

Remembering Lloyd Making Their Voices Heard Farewell, Wendy Wasserstein

Dear Alumni/ae, To work in the theatre is to embrace and explore the great and conflicting forces of our lives in order to reveal the truth and beauty of human experience in ways that subvert our prejudices, and call us to a higher plane of purpose. At Yale School of Drama and at Yale Repertory Theatre, as well as in your lives across the world, we pursue such artistic and personal fulfillment in an infinite number of ways. The passion that infuses the work of students, faculty, staff and alumni of the School of Drama deserves our best efforts in these pages, and I am delighted to introduce a magazine with a new look. Our Director of Development and Alumni Affairs, Deborah Berman, has stewarded this effort; and we are pleased to welcome Mark Blankenship dra ’05 as Contributing Editor. With this magazine, they hope to evoke the richness of our environment here in New Haven and to shed light on the wonderful contributions you are making to the imaginative life of our nation. We look forward to your feedback and suggestions for future issues. I will consider myself particularly fortunate to hear from you—recovering from my life-threatening illness of the past spring makes me feel lucky, indeed. And that recovery was vigorously aided by the many cards, calls, flowers, letters, e-mails, books, DVDs and plays that I received from so many of you during my illness. Thank you for the uplifting kindness you have shown me. One of the kind calls that came during my illness was from my predecessor, Professor Emeritus Lloyd Richards, Dean and Artistic Director from Photo by Joan Marcus 1979 to 1991. In our conversations over the years, Lloyd was unfailingly gracious and supportive of me and the School of Drama, imparting sage advice on many occasions, and merry witticisms on others. He last appeared at the School in September, 2005, to speak at the memorial service of our dear colleague, Ben Mordecai. All of us who were in the University Theatre with him then can remember how inspirationally he connected the work we do in the theatre today to the work of every great artist who has gone before us, the deepest and most spiritual expressions of our diverse theatre culture. Lloyd Richards’ death on June 29, his 87th birthday, is cause for profound sadness, and the condolences of our entire community go out to his family. But his passing also occasions a contradictory impulse: the urge to celebrate a giant of the American theatre, a pioneer and visionary leader whose influence will be felt not just here at the School and Rep, but also in the field, for generations to come. Many of his close friends and colleagues have contributed to his remembrance in these pages. It is with gratitude for his life and work, and with humility in the face of his accomplishments, that we dedicate this issue of the alumni magazine to his memory.

Sincerely,

ALUMNI MAGAZINE YALE SCHOOL OF DRAMA Fall 2006, Vol. LI Yale School of Drama/Yale Repertory Theatre James Bundy ’95 Dean/Artistic Director Victoria Nolan Deputy Dean/Managing Director

Yale School of Drama Leadership Council Neil A. Mazzella dra ’78, Council Chair John Badham yc ’61, dra ’63 John Lee Beatty dra ’73 John Beinecke yc ’69 Kate Burton dra ’82 Patricia Clarkson dra ’85 Tony Converse yc ’57 Sue Ann Gilfillan Converse dra ’55 Peggy Cowles dra ’65 Trip M. Cullman III yc ’97, dra ’02 Scott Delman yc ’82 Michael Diamond dra ’90 Polly Draper yc ’77, dra ’80 Charles S. Dutton dra ’83 Heidi Ettinger dra ’76 Marc Flanagan dra ’70 Donald P. Granger, Jr. yc ’85 Ruth Hendel Asaad Kelada dra ’64 Sasha Emerson Levin dra ’84 Mark Linn-Baker yc ’76, dra ’79 Sarah Long yc ’85, dra ’92 Elizabeth Margid yc ’82, dra ’91 David Milch yc ’66 Sheila Nevins dra ’63 Carol Ostrow dra ’80 Amy Povich, dra ’92 Liev Schreiber dra ’92 Tony Shalhoub dra ’80 Michael Sheehan dra ’76 Ed Trach dra ’58 Courtney B. Vance dra ’86 Henry Winkler dra ’70, Chair, Drama Alumni Fund

Yale School of Drama Alumni Association Asaad Kelada ’64 Co-Chair Elizabeth Margid ’91 Co-Chair

Alumni Magazine Editorial Staff Deborah S. Berman Editor Mark Blankenship ’05 Contributing Editor Sarah K. Bartlo ’04 Managing Editor Arthur Nacht ‘06 Assistant Editor

Editorial Contributors Rick Berube Staff Susan Clark Staff Sean Cunningham ’01 Heide Janssen,’08 Liv Nilssen ’06 Roberta Pereira ’08 Rebecca Rindler ’08 David J. Roberts ’08 Rachel Smith ’08

Design

James Bundy

Jack Design

Contents

Fall 2006 Features

Supporting Cast

Remembering Lloyd

Making Their Voices Heard by Mark Blankenship ’05

There’s More Than One Way to be a Dramaturg by Joseph Cermatori ’08

All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in... by Michael Sheehan ’76

On York Street 2.... New faculty 3.... Farewell, Wendy Wasserstein 4.... Profile: Madame Librarian by Lydia Garcia ’08

6.... Yale School of Drama 2005–2006 Season 8.... First Annual Carlotta Festival of New Plays

In the Wings

27.... Graduation 2006

28.... Graduation Prizes, Fellowships, and Scholarships

Around the World

30.... Alumni Connection 32.... Alumni and Faculty Honors and Awards 35.... In Memoriam 36.... Alumni Notes and News 58.... Contributors

Mark Blankenship ’05, Contributing Editor, is a freelance theatre critic and arts journalist based in New York City (photo above). He frequently contributes to Variety and Back Stage, and he has been selected as a participant in the 2006–2007 TCG/American Theatre Affiliated Writers Program. His work has also appeared in such publications as The New York Times, The Advocate, and The New York Sun. Recently, Mark created an on-line platform for his pop music criticism called “I Totally Hear That,” which is accessible through his website at markgblankenship.com. In addition to his work as a writer, he has also served as the literary manager of Atlanta’s Horizon Theatre Company and as a dramaturg for New York’s Here! Arts Festival, Alliance Theater, Arena Stage, and Yale Rep. Joseph Cermatori ’08 is a second-year student in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism. A 2005 graduate of Princeton University, Joe also serves as Managing Editor of Theater magazine and as a Teaching Fellow in the Yale College Department of Theater Studies. Lydia Garcia ’08 is a second-year student in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism. Michael Sheehan ’76 heads Sheehan Associates, a strategic communications firm in Washington, D.C. that celebrated its 25th anniversary this summer. Michael specializes in message strategy and spokesperson training for major corporations and trade associations, but he is best known for his work with the Democratic Party and its candidates across the country. Since 1988, Michael has coached every Democratic presidential and vice-presidential debate as well as rehearsed all the major speakers at the national nominating conventions. After graduation from YSD, he was associate producer at the Folger Theatre Group (now the Shakespeare Theatre) from 1976–1981. On the cover: Former Dean and Artistic Director Lloyd Richards in his office at 222 York Street in 1987. Photo by Gerry Goodstein.

On York Street

News from the Yale School of Drama

NEW FACULTY

Teaching here for the last six years, I am delighted to accept this appointment, and to work alongside its talented students, faculty, and staff full-time,” says Martenson. “It is my hope to elevate the ability of management students to think in sophisticated ways about the most complex problems that challenge any leader, and thereby raise the bar for management practice in the theatre field.”

Edward A. Martenson Chair of the Theater Management Department “Edward Martenson is a proven leader in the field and has been a valued teacher at the School of Drama since 2000. He is nationally distinguished for his development and delivery of executive education for nonprofit arts managers,” says Dean James Bundy ’95. “Ed’s vision for the training of managers at the School of Drama, and his three decades of devotion to the highest standards of theatre artistry, serve as a wonderful point of departure for the next chapter in his distinguished career—the training and mentoring of a new generation of leaders in the American theatre, and we are pleased and proud to welcome him to the distinguished faculty of the School.” Edward A. Martenson received an AB in Music Theory from Princeton University in 1971. Two years later, he joined the McCarter Theatre as General Manager, and was later named its Managing Director. From 1979-1982, he served as Managing Director of Yale Repertory Theatre and Associate Professor (Adjunct) and Co-Chair of Theater Administration at Yale School of Drama. Mr. Martenson was appointed the Theatre Program Director by the National Endowment for the Arts, where he served from 1982–1986. During his decade-long tenure as Executive Director of the Guthrie Theater, 1986–1996, Mr. Martenson oversaw the rebirth of the theatre’s resident acting company, a record-breaking endowment campaign, and a major facilities renovation. Since 1996, Mr. Martenson has served as Program Director and Vice President, Education at National Arts Strategies, where he developed and directs executive seminars on Strategy, Managing Change, and Governance with faculty members drawn from Stanford Graduate School of Business, Harvard Business School, Columbia Business School, and the Kellogg School of Northwestern University. He also developed

Edward Martenson, Chair, Theater Management. Photo by Jonathan Ferrugia. and teaches Leadership for Artistic Directors (in conjunction with DanceUSA and TCG), and Improving the Environment. Also for NAS, Mr. Martenson co-directs the Executive Program for Nonprofit Leaders in the Arts, a two-week residential program with the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Through 2003, these programs have been presented in more than thirty locations, for more than 2000 executives and board members representing over 800 arts and cultural organizations. He is a freelance consultant to nonprofit arts leaders in the areas of leadership and governance, including the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, La Jolla Playhouse, Lied Center for the Performing Arts, Opera Omaha, San Jose Repertory Theatre, the Shakespeare Theatre, and (through NAS) the Tucson Symphony Orchestra. “Yale School of Drama was one of my first professional homes, nearly thirty years ago.

Yale School Of Drama 2006 –2007 Season Zero Hour By Tea Alagic ’07 and Jennifer Tuckett ’08 Directed by Tea Alagic ’07 December 12 – 16, 2006 Marat/Sade By Peter Weiss Directed by Nelson Eusebio III ’07 January 23 – 27, 2007 Venus By Suzan-Lori Parks Directed by Jessi D. Hill ’07 February 27 to March 3, 2007

The Carlotta Festival of New Plays New works by graduating playwrights: Amy Herzog ’07, Tarell Alvin McCraney ’07, and Justin Sherin ’07 May 11 – 19, 2007

Ming Cho Lee, Co-Chair Design Department, received a Distinguished Achievement Award at the 2006 USITT Annual Conference & Stage Expo. He was honored for his continuing extraordinary career in theatrical design and for the training of future theatre set designers.

YSD 2006

News from the Yale School of Drama

Yale School of Drama Upcoming Alumni Events

Holiday Party

Yale Club of New York Monday, December 4, 2006 6:00pm

Farewell, Wendy Wasserstein

Winter Party

Los Angeles, CA March, 2007 – exact date to be announced

Yale Repertory Theatre 2006–2007 Season Eurydice By Sarah Ruhl Directed by Les Waters September 22 to October 14, 2006 The Mistakes Madeline Made By Elizabeth Meriwether Directed by Mark Rucker October 27 to November 18, 2006 Black Snow Adapted by Keith Reddin From the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov Directed by Evan Yionoulis December 1 – 23, 2006 In the Continuum Written and Performed by Danai Gurira and Nikkole Salter Directed by Robert O’Hara January 12 to February 10, 2007 Lulu By Frank Wedekind Directed by Mark Lamos March 30 to April 21, 2007 The sixth play of the season will soon be announced.

Photo by Jill Krementz

The American theatre lost an irreplaceable artist when Wendy Wasserstein ‘76 died of lymphoma at age 55 on January 30, 2006. She won generations of fans and inspired a legion of writers with witty, socially conscious plays like The Heidi Chronicles (winner of the 1989 Tony and Pulitzer Prize), The Sisters Rosenzweig, and Uncommon Women and Others. Wasserstein’s last play, Third, staged in 2005 at Lincoln Center, was widely praised for investigating the generational and ideological tensions between a liberal female professor and her conservative male student. Third is a fitting capstone to her career not only because it continues her effort

to account for America’s political and social identity, but also because it suggests her lifelong connection to the process of learning. Wasserstein once described herself as “a perpetual graduate student, who just gets older and older,” a statement that reflected her sense of humor and her boundless intellectual curiosity. She also took that enthusiasm into college classrooms. Wasserstein taught playwriting at Cornell and Princeton, and she was a regular inspiration to her students. In the following letter, playwright Sean Cunningham ’01 describes his experience with a playwright, teacher, and friend whom we all continue to remember.

If not for Wendy Wasserstein, I never would have attended Yale. Wendy was my playwriting instructor as an undergrad at Princeton. I still remember the first time I saw her. She was twenty minutes late for her initial class. We were all waiting, wondering if her debut had been postponed and we should call it a day. Suddenly, the door opened and she rushed inside. Then she dramatically flung herself down on a table to recover from her exhaustion. We were already laughing when the joke got better; the table—wobbly in the best of times—collapsed, dropping her to the ground. Unscathed, Wendy giggled as if she had planned the whole thing (maybe she had). Wendy was a wonderful teacher, always supportive of our work and generous enough to write me a recommendation for the School of Drama’s playwriting program, which did the trick and got me admitted. I can’t express how important her encouragement was, particularly back then, and still is even now during times of doubt. On behalf of countless other Yalies whose lives she touched, Wendy will be missed. Sean Cunningham ’01

YSD 2006

On York Street PROFILE

Madame Librarian: Pamela Jordan Climb the stairs to the third floor of the University Theatre and you’ll find it: Yale’s most boisterous library. No one shushes the students hanging around the Drama Library, relaxing on the mustard-yellow couches, checking e-mail, or catching a quick lunch before rehearsal. The place could be mistaken for a green room or student lounge. And that’s just the way librarian Pamela Jordan likes it. Jordan has presided over the Drama Library for thirty years. For the many who have been fortunate enough to know it during her tenure, the library—or the “day room of the mental institution,” as she affectionately terms it—is a sanctuary characterized by its keeper’s passion for purple, a bottomless candy dish, and an infectious laugh. The youngest of three children, Jordan was born, raised, and educated in New Haven. As a child, she developed a love for reading. “I used to hang out in the New Haven Public Library right on the Green. That’s where I would stay after school,” she recalls. “I read all the fairy tale books. Started at ’A’ and went through the whole [shelf]. Then I decided I would read the how-to books.” Theatre was another early influence. “The first Shakespeare I ever saw was Hamlet at American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut,” she remembers. “With my mother, I used to go to musicals in New York like Oliver!—middle-class blockbuster things.” Did she go to the Yale Rep? “I went to the Rep off and on,” she chuckles “Actually, at one point after seeing Edward Bond’s Saved… I vowed never to go back to the Rep again because I hated it so much. Of course, I was 19 at the time. I was overwhelmed.” In 1966, as Jordan began studying English literature at Albertus Magnus College and working part-time in Yale’s economics department, the country was in the throes of social and political turbulence. Like many other young people, she was eventually caught up in the revolutionary zeitgeist and dropped out of college in 1969, opting to work at Yale full-time. She rose quickly through the ranks, rising from clerk typist to senior coder for the department’s early computer systems.

Pam Jordan, Drama Librarian If you need proof of her legendary steel-trap memory, ask her to recall the name of the computer system; she’ll answer without hesitation: “SIPPS: System of Information Processing for Professional Societies.” Although she ultimately returned to Albertus Magnus to complete her bachelor’s degree, Pam continued in Yale’s economics department until she transferred to Sterling Memorial Library in 1973. The little girl who read her way through the storybooks had come full circle. The position at the Drama Library soon caught Jordan’s attention, and she was determined it would be hers. “I applied for this job three times before I got it,” she notes, cocking an eyebrow. “My two immediate predecessors were only here six months apiece. After that I was a little leery about applying, wondering, ‘What’s wrong with this job if people only last six months?’” When she finally attained the position in 1976, she promised to stay at least a year. Thirty years later, Jordan still finds her work with Drama School students rewarding. “I enjoy the kids, what they do, what they try to do,” she declares. “The faces and the names change, but the types remain the same.” Yet while the students may remain the same, the Drama Library will not. As part of the university’s master expansion plan, the Drama Library will merge with the Art

YSD 2006

and Architecture Library by the summer of 2008, forming a new, comprehensive Arts Library housed in the renovated School of Art building. After years of facility studies and alumni protests over the proposed merger, Pam is resigned to the inevitable but still worries about what the library’s loss will mean to YSD. “The whole character of the place is going to change. It’s not going to be the same kind of place at all. There [won’t] be impromptu meetings, rehearsals, and whatnot happening here in the library. One of the catchphrases of Yale is ‘the library is the heart of the University.’ I’ve always said this library is the heart of the Drama School. When it ceases to exist, it’s going to be a shame.” If the library walls could talk, what would they say? Doesn’t Jordan have enough dirt on students’ past peccadilloes to guarantee a substantial income from alumni hush money? Asked to divulge her information, she smiles enigmatically but doesn’t give an inch. “There are some things,” she says, “that I wouldn’t want to put into print.” Breathe easy, alums. Pam won’t give away your secrets. Or will she? “When I retire, that’s when I’ll write my tell-all book,” she laughs. Lydia Garcia, ’08

Yale School of Drama Alumni Events

Holiday Party Yale Club of New York Monday, December 4, 2005

Winter Party Los Angeles, CA Ben Sammler ’74, Chair, Technical Design & ProducMarch, 2006 – TBA tion, celebrating his 60th birthday at a surprise party thrown for him by his TD&Ps in September 2005.

News from the Yale School of Drama

REUNION WEEKEND 2006 Rocco Landesman DFA ’76 delivered the keynote address at the Reunion Weekend held on May 12–14, 2006, setting the stage for provocative discussions about the future of theatre. Robert Brustein ’51, HON ’66, David Chambers ’71, Joan Channick ’89, and Gerald Schoenfeld, chairman of the Shubert Organization, led panels discussing non-traditional, commercial, and non-profit theatres and the future of playwriting with panelists Elise Bernhardt, Walter Dallas ’71, Rinde Eckert, Teresa Eyring ’89, Jules Feiffer, Marcus Gardley ’04, Rocco Landesman DFA ’76, Abel Lopez, Elizabeth Ireland McCann, Diane Paulus, Judith O. Rubin, Mark Russell, and Alex Timbers YC ’01. Returning alumni also enjoyed the Yale Rep production of All’s Well That Ends Well directed by Dean James Bundy ’95 and Mark Rucker ’92, as well as the student work featured in the Carlotta Festival of New Plays.

(clockwise, from top left) Rocco Landesman, DFA ’76, giving the keynote address at Reunion Weekend 2006; Michael Banta ’03, Sandra Goldmark ’04, Greg Copeland ’04, Jodi Locker Berger ’66, Daniel Chace ’87, Martin Caan ’72; Teresa Eyring ’89, Walter Dallas ’71, and Joan Channick ’89 on “The Edifice Complex: Non-Profit Theatre in a Changing World”; Robert Brustein ’51, HON ’66, former Dean, leading a panel on the future of playwriting. Photos by Rick Berube.

Our thanks to the following generous sponsors who made Reunion Weekend 2006 possible: Hudson Scenic Studio, Inc. Rose Brand Bill Conner Associates, LLC Barbizon Lighting Company Robert Juliat

This season at Yale Rep

eurydice

by sarah ruhl directed by les waters september 22 to october 14, 2006

in the continuum

the mistakes madeline made

2006-07 SEASON

written and performed by danai gurira and nikkole salter directed by robert o’hara a primary stages / perry street theatre production january 12 to february 10, 2007

by elizabeth meriwether directed by mark rucker october 27 to november 18, 2006

black snow

lulu

adapted by keith reddin from the novel by mikhail bulgakov directed by evan yionoulis december 1 to 23, 2006

by frank wedekind directed by mark lamos march 30 to april 21, 2007

for tickets and information

www.yalerep.org

a final play will be announced.

Yale Alumni Ad B 091806.indd 1

9/20/2006 12:23:27 PM YSD 2006

This year the public was given an uprecedented opportunity to see work by YSD students. The School’s public presentations expanded with the inaugural season of the Carlotta Festival of New Plays. Named after Carlotta Monterey, late wife of Eugene O’Neill and generous School of Drama patron, the festival featured fully-staged productions of new work by student playwrights. The following reflections from directors, playwrights, and dramaturgs suggest the excitement and commitment of the many students who brought these six plays to life.

Yale School of Drama

2005–2006

Season

Attempts on Her Life By Martin Crimp Directed by Anna G. Jones ’06 “I wanted to direct Attempts on Her Life,” Jones explains, “because it is about our present world in form as well as theme. One of its key concerns is globalization, and the form echoes this as it sprawls out and coils in on itself through the seventeen different scenarios. A smaller example—the scenario entitled ‘The Threat of International Terrorism ™’—is full of indignant and surprising questions. No one understands why someone from their home wants to blow up that home. The battery of questions and hammering rhythms of the language evoke this point as strongly as the words themselves.”

6 YSD 2006

(clockwise from top) Attempts On Her Life by Martin Crimp, directed by Anna Jones ’06, set design by Dustin Eshenroder ’07, light design by Cat Tate ’06; Michael Braun ’07 and Sarita Covington ’07; Braun and Kathleen McElfresh ’06.

The Duchess of Malfi By John Webster Directed by Susanna Gellert ’06 Discussing the relevance of Webster’s masterpiece, production dramaturg Alex Grennan ’06 says, “The Duchess of Malfi gave me the opportunity to engage ideas of personal responsibility and the power of dissidence. In the nadir of her torment, the Duchess still finds the strength to assert, ‘I am Duchess of Malfi still,’ a stark reminder that no matter the circumstance, one forever is presented with the duty to affirm human dignity and answer the invitation to love.” (from top) Richard Gallagher ’06 and Corena Chase ’06 in The Duchess of Malfi; David Matranga ’06 and Erin Buckley ’06; Eric Gilde ’07, Buckley , Brad Love ’07, and Gallagher.

Hamlet By William Shakespeare Directed by May Adrales ’06 “Why do Hamlet?” Adrales asks. “To do a production of Hamlet is to acknowledge that it is my turn to investigate what it means to be a human being in this world—my turn to hold up a mirror to nature. How do we live in a world whose moral backbone has been shattered? Do we live as men with ‘god-like ’ reason? Or are we beasts and nothing more?”

(clockwise from far left) Emily Dorsch ’07 as Gertrude and Bridget Jones ’06 as Ophelia; Brian McManamon ’06 as Hamlet; McManamon (standing), Blake Hackler ’06 and Joe Gallagher ’07

Photos by Joan Marcus

YSD 2006

First Annual Carlotta Festival of New Plays

(from top) Brad Love ’07 and in the background Aubyn Dayton Philabaum ’08 and Charles Semine ’07; Philabaum and Love. Photos by Joan Marcus.

(clockwise from top left) Ashley Bryant ’08 as Oya and the cast of In the Red & Brown Water; Bryant and Gilbert Owuor ’07; Bryant and Bryan Terrell Clark ’06. Photos by Carol Rosegg.

In the Red and Brown Water By Tarell McCraney ’07 “Writing this play,” explains McCraney, “is the beginning of a conversation that I have needed to have with two important women in my life: my mother and my sister. I have questions to ask them, apologies to make, and ‘I love you’s’ to issue. So I speak in whispers to them in this play. Sometimes I yell. Hopefully, they can finally hear me singing my love, my adoration, and my true praise.”

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Layla and Majnun By Nastaran Ahmadi ’06 Ahmadi notes, “With Layla and Majnun, I’ve written a play about what it is to be a first generation Iranian-American in the month after the Twin Towers fell. My goal is to create a bold landscape of Layla’s interior, mixing symbolist values (DeTocqueville’s Democracy in America, a fictional Majnun,) with the naturalist aim that these symbols exist as integrated parts of the story.  These elements serve to illuminate Layla’s perspective, which is caught between De Tocqueville’s America and Majnun’s Iran.”

Yale Repertory Theatre Season 2005 – 2006

Philabaum, Semine, and Nicholas Carrière ’08 in Layla and Majnun. Photo by Joan Marcus.

The Cherry Orchard From Anton Chekhov As translated by Maria Amadei Ashot Directed by Bill Rauch World Premiere Adaptation by Alison Carey October 7–29, 2005 University Theatre Safe In Hell By Amy Freed Directed by Mark Wing-Davey November 12–December 3, 2005 Yale Repertory Theatre The People Next Door By Henry Adam Directed by Evan Yionoulis January 13–February 4, 2006 Yale Repertory Theatre Comedy On The Bridge and Brundibar Comedy on the Bridge Libretto by Tony Kushner Adapted from Vaclav Kliment Klicpera Music by Bohuslav Martinu Brundibar English Adaptation by Tony Kushner After Adolf Hoffmeister’s Libretto Music by Hans Krasa In collaboration with Berkeley Repertory Theatre Presented in association with The Yale School of Music February 10 –March 5, 2006 University Theatre (clockwise from above) Kristen Connolly ’07 as Lacy; Brooke Parks ’08 and Caitlin Clouthier ’08; Parks and Clouthier. Photos by Joan Marcus.

dance of the holy ghosts: a play on memory By Marcus Gardley Directed by Liz Diamond March 17–April 8, 2006 New Theater

The Lacy Project By Alena Smith ’06 Smith says, “My aim in writing this play was to dig as deeply as possible into the shadowy souls of the characters—to tell a good story—while at the same time allowing surprises to happen on the abstract level of theatrical form. The process has been both brutal and thrilling.”

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All’s Well That Ends Well By William Shakespeare Directed by James Bundy and Mark Rucker April 21–May 20, 2006 Yale Repertory Theatre

Remembering Lloyd Lloyd Richards passed away on June 29, 2006. From 1979 to 1991, he was Dean of the Yale School of Drama as well as Artistic Director of Yale Repertory Theatre. He was named professor emeritus of the school after his retirement. Lloyd was a superb teacher who gave inspiration and encouragement to his students at YSD and countless theatre artists, helping unlock their true creative talent. His illustrious career at Yale Rep included ten world premieres that went to Broadway with the work of then-emerging playwrights August Wilson, Athol Fugard, and Lee Blessing. Lloydâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s legacy will be forever felt by all who train and work on our stage. In the following pages, Lloydâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s students and colleagues pay tribute to our teacher, mentor, and friend.

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Mary Alice Actress What words can I gather to express my feelings for Lloyd Richards, an extraordinary man, who was so important in my career and, therefore, in my life? I was so fortunate to have had him as my teacher, almost forty years ago, when Douglas Turner Ward, the artistic director of the Negro Ensemble Company, had the foresight to place me in Lloyd’s advanced acting class, instead of the company. And throughout my career he was a constant —at the O’Neill Playwrights Conferences, the Yale Repertory Theatre and on Broadway in Fences. Many times through the years I told Lloyd my career was all his fault and he would smile and say, “okay.” And then, on January 30, 2001, during his introduction to my induction into the Theatre Hall of Fame, I sat and cried, uncontrollably, remembering when I met a master teacher and was given a career in the theatre. Thank you, Lloyd. And, I love you.

Lee Blessing Playwright The most fortunate writers have several fathers.  In my development as an artist, I’ve had my share.  From each I took a priceless contribution.  My natural father looked at my intention to be an impecunious writer (poetry at that stage) and gave me permission to be a writer.  My college poetry instructor showed me how to be a writer.  In graduate school I learned how to be a playwright from yet another “father”.  All three of these men gave me something both intangible and crucial.  By the time I left school I was a playwright, but I still didn’t know why.  Lloyd Richards was my father, and he was my last one in this respect.  It wasn’t until I met Lloyd at the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference that I developed the most crucial thing a playwright

needs—a vocation.  It was Lloyd’s voice that called me to write about what was most important.  His voice invited me to fulfill whatever potential I had in craft and use it in the service of stories that had more than just the appearance of significance.  In six different summers I heard Lloyd’s voice give his seemingly-endless welcoming speech to the O’Neill participants.  Same speech every year.  It was hours long, and it covered each detail of conference life.  Most important, and in every syllable, it contained Lloyd’s philosophy of theater as the place where our society’s most important stories are confronted and told for the simple reason that they need to be. I have no idea how many hours I spent listening to that speech.  Sadly, it was not endless.  Still it was the speech which gave me my vocation.  I wish I could hear Lloyd speak it—every summer—for the rest of my life.  For who is there to speak it now?  Who is there to listen?

Charles S. Dutton ’83 Actor Quiet was his personality and style.  Direct, forthright and honest was his manner.  But honorable.  That word describes Lloyd Richards more than anything else.  He was the most honorable man I ever met.  Ever!  To say that Lloyd was the person most responsible for launching my career (accepting me, an ex-con, into the Yale School of Drama, convincing me to work at the Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference in the summer of 1982, casting me in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and The Piano Lesson) is not enough.  I owe the change in my life to this man.  I rediscovered my own humanity because of my relationship with Lloyd Richards.  And as far as my life is concerned,

YSD 2006

wherever I go or become in this world, having him in my life for twenty-six years was the most powerful thing that ever happened to me.

Athol Fugard Playwright My first image of Lloyd will unquestionably outlast all the others I have of him and it will do that because for me personally it captures an essential quality of this remarkable and beautiful man. I had just arrived in New Haven and Lloyd had invited me to have breakfast with him in his house in New Haven. Thanks to James Earl Jones who had somehow got hold of a copy of my latest play, A lesson from Aloes, Lloyd had read it, liked it and contacted me in South Africa to come over and direct a production of it in his first season as the new Artistic Director of Yale Rep. I remember the voice at the other end of the telephone as being quiet, careful and considerate. He said the front door would be unlocked and that I should make myself at home. I was very hesitantly trying to do that in the lounge area when through the open doubledoors leading to a patio garden, Lloyd entered the room—a small man, smiling quizzically at me, with half a dozen white and red roses in one hand and a pair of garden shears in the other. It was pure Chekhov! We followed that first season with three others as we staged “Master Harold” . . . and the boys, The Road to Mecca and A Place with the Pigs. My next memory of him comes from a meeting in a Manhattan coffee shop. By then we had established our personal tradition of me wordlessly sharing with him the news that a new play was in the offing . . . I wrote out the title on a paper napkin and pushed it across the table to him. He read it and then with matching

wordlessness pocketed it while we continued talking about other things. On this occasion the title on the napkin was The Road to Mecca. I was also into the first stages of my withdrawal from alcohol. The hand pushing the napkin across the table was trembling. He noticed it. I noticed that he noticed it. He reached out and held that trembling hand. I smothered a few sobs and we went on talking about nothing in particular. So then what is it about that man with the roses that makes the memory of him one the most precious of my life in American theatre? The only word I can think of is ‘love’ and Lloyd had one of the biggest measures of it that I have ever encountered. I know what I am talking about because I have been on the receiving end of it.

John Guare ’63 Playwright Whenever I think of Lloyd, it’s not the O’Neill, it’s not Yale, it’s Lloyd and Woody King and me, in the year 2000, lost in Alaska, on a 6 hour drive from Anchorage to Valdez to participate in Edward Albee’s Last Frontier Playwrights Festival. It started to snow.  It was June so it wasn’t ever going to get dark but where the hell were we?  The gas was getting low. No towns. No gas stations. Snow.  Mountains. Woody and I took turns driving, Lloyd sat in the passenger seat, navigating. ‘Lloyd, how can you navigate? We have no map!  We’re in Alaska!’  Lloyd replied calmly: ‘How many roads can there be?’  Of course we got to Valdez safe and sound.  Lloyd with that golden compass built firmly into his heart always knew the most direct route anywhere.

Gitta Honegger Dramaturg and Director A snapshot always on my mind: A simple platform arched over by a beautiful copper beech tree, Lloyd sitting in its glistening shade on a perfect New England summer morning flanked by a playwright, a director and a dramaturg for their post-performance discussion with an audience of colleagues in residence.

Lloyd Richards, Benjamin Mordecai, and August Wilson during a rehearsal break at Yale Repertory Theatre.

The scene: The Instant Theatre during the annual Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights’ Conference. No matter how far reaching the author’s imagination, how tentative still the fledgling writer’s understanding of craft, Lloyd could nail the intention and scope of a play, in a few words, always with deep respect for the creative effort—a Prospero on his magic midsummer island before returning every fall to the harsher climes of academia. Lloyd was not the hugging, cuddling kind of mentor. Endearing show biz terminology such as “sweety” or “darling,” “fabulous,” or “marvelous,” were not in his vocabulary. His was more the tough love approach. His gentleness was deeper, less demonstrative and all the more enduring: an unspoken commitment to his artistic staff that withstood the failures that come with the profession as much as it shielded against the slings and arrows of success. His most precious gift to his dramaturgical team: time. Time for our weekly meetings with Barbara Davenport Richards, Joel Schechter and myself to think through and talk about plays, artists and seasons, always in the context of current events and people’s concerns, close to home and around the world. These sessions never felt rushed. They ended when our conversations came to a natural conclusion, rather than being dictated YSD 2006

by a crowded schedule. These were the times the dean’s office became a sanctuary from the pressing dictates of budgets and policies—another island amidst the rocky horrors of academic gothic. Lloyd’s lasting, most invaluable gift of leadership: integrity, loyalty and trust.

James Earl Jones Actor I knew Lloyd Richards to understand more about the theatre than any other director, actor or writer. I rank him, of men of the theatre, along with Stanislavski—not because of style or culture, but because he transcends culture and styles with an overall knowledge of what makes Theatre work. And when I speak of “theatre”, I use the capital “T” because I mean for it to encompass all forms of theatre, including movies, television and radio. Perhaps it was because of his Canadian beginnings that he was never mired in one culture or another. My awareness of Lloyd began when I had the honor of being his understudy in my first Broadway experience. It was a play called The Egghead written by Molly Kazan, directed by Hume Cronyn, and starring Lloyd, Karl Malden and Phyllis Love. It was my first opportunity to witness professionals preparing to stage a production on Broadway. I think I learned a lot beginning with Lloyd’s aside to me (his understudy): he said, “You better learn

your lines, but I’m gonna make sure you never get up there and replace me.” I watched Lloyd bring the whole array of professional actors, including Sydney Poitier and Diana Sands to the launching of the landmark African-American production of Lorraine Hansbury’s play, Raisin in the Sun. I’ve encountered many students that he trained at NYU and Yale, actors like Charlie Dutton and Courtney Vance, for whom Lloyd seems to have been not only a master director, but a mentor as well. He made the Yale Repertory Theatre program into a safe haven for the South African playwright Athol Fugard, the American playwright August Wilson, a British playwright named William Shakespeare, and a Swede, August Strindberg. Surely his greatest contribution and legacy were his vision and reach over a vast array of cultures. And I will miss him.

Ming Cho Lee Donald M. Oenslager Professor (Adjunct) of Design, Yale School of Drama Lloyd was a small, compact man, his manner gentle, his speech quiet and intimate. He laughed easily, often, and with a wicked sense of humor, accompanied by a slight glint in his eye. Yet on public occasions, his voice took on a fullness and resonance that carried him to the very last row; and he spoke with insight and eloquence. Others will tell of his extraordinary gifts to the theatre, to African Americans, and to the world; and he did it without anger, bombast, or self-aggrandizement. Lloyd was my friend, our children shared their earliest birthdays, and our lives crossed and re-crossed. I first met Lloyd in the fall of 1961, when he interviewed me, a virtually unknown designer, for my first Broadway show. I arrived on the redeye from San Francisco, probably incoherent from exhaustion and nervousness, but he hired me. The show opened and closed in one week during a newspaper strike, but it began a friendship and professional relationship of fortyfive years. Our paths merged again when

for twelve years he was our Dean. We shared committees and award ceremonies.  Every Memorial Day weekend from 1990 through 2006, regardless of weather or physical difficulties, Lloyd honored us at the Clambake, talking to students and holding court. Betsy and I had the privilege of spending this past first June weekend with him, first at the Kennedy Center at an award ceremony in his honor, then at Williams College where we both received honorary degrees. It must have been exhausting, but he was Lloyd at his very best. Two weeks later he entered the hospital. This remarkable man of theatre, recipient of the National Medal of Arts among countless others, left us on June 29, 2006, as quietly as if he had just slipped out of the room.

Delroy Lindo Actor It was a note session, after a performance of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone: after, either a preview, in New York, before opening on Broadway, or we were in San Diego, immediately before moving to New York; I don’t remember which. All of the actors were gathered onstage, and Lloyd was sitting down left, giving the notes. They were simple, scalpel sharp, deeply considered and accurate. “On Point.” And it occurred to me in that moment that, what made the notes so, were this brilliant and potent mix of wisdom; mother wit; awareness of craft, technique, and their application; and historical knowledge. And Lloyd was effortlessly applying all of these: all rolled up into his experience and technique, in the service of aiding this ensemble of actors more keenly and acutely realize their performances. And that was Lloyd Richards: the ultimate Lover of, and Servant to, the Theatre. Simultaneously, in the simplest and deepest of ways. And intermittently, over the years, since Joe Turner, Lloyd has been, at times, my Father Confessor. The one to whom I could bare certain parts of my Soul that were hurting, or in turmoil. He never let me down. Always there with considered and YSD 2006

wise words of encouragement. I remember the day he referred to me as ‘a true friend.’ I was touched and moved, beyond measure. He knew and was known by, a multitude, of individuals. I’d like to believe he didn’t use the word ‘friend’ lightly. Lloyd Richards: Teacher; Father Confessor; Friend.

Neil Mazzella ’78 Chief Executive Officer, Hudson Scenic Studio, Inc. by definition Magnetism has been defined as a universal energy that gathers all. That is a perfect description of Lloyd Richards. A couple of weeks before Lloyd passed away he walked into the West Bank Café and I found myself jumping out of the banquette and running over to welcome him. I was immediately drawn back into the same orbit, as I was in the late 80’s and early 90’s, that everyone found themselves in when Lloyd was around. I worked for Lloyd as head of the Drama School Alumni Association and as technical director on the Broadway productions of The Piano Lesson and Two Trains Running. When I greeted Lloyd this last time he gave me that big smile that always came at the beginning of any conversation. A smile that drew you in and held you long after the conversation was over. Twenty years ago Lloyd gave the mandate to get the alumni together so he could begin enlisting their help to carry out his mission at the school. Over 200 alumni gathered at the West Bank to hear Lloyd outline the direction he was taking the school and its students. He explained his concept on how he was going to develop the playwriting, directing and acting programs at the Drama School while at the same time bringing the Yale Rep into a more commercial market. We were going to Broadway. Part of his legacy is how faithfully and magnificently he fulfilled that mission by the time he finished his tenure as Dean. Whenever I got the call to tech one of Lloyd’s shows heading for Broadway my immediate response was a shrug. I knew 13

Richards and Athol Fugard during production of A Place with the Pigs, 1987. Photos by Gerry Goodstein.

that on all his shows we would be working during the school break at Christmas and New Years. After the shrug I would always agree. Lloyd’s tug was much stronger than being home for the holidays. Lloyd’s magnetic impact on Yale and the American theatre goes beyond measure. As for myself, I will be forever grateful to Lloyd for including me in that force field.

Mary F. McCabe ’94 Former Managing Director of the National Playwrights Conference and Lloyd Richards’ long-time personal assistant Lloyd Richards, artist, professor emeritus, educator, innovator and administrator. These are just some of the titles attributed to Lloyd. For me, Lloyd was my teacher, my friend, my mentor, my touchstone and my adopted father. The way he led his life is an excellent example of a life well-lived. Lloyd was generous with his time. I was fortunate enough to have received the gift of endless hours sitting at the feet of the master teacher and learning about life. He was always at the ready to advise and guide me whenever it was needed. His wisdom was limitless. His economy in words was extraordinary. One of Lloyd’s treasured qualities was his brilliance of summation. While I would struggle with an explanation of something I had seen or heard, going on until I found myself out of breath and embarrassed for having gone on so long, he would take my long-winded explanation and sum it up in five words or less. Lloyd’s presence will resonate for me throughout my life. His example will continue to influence and guide me, and for that I am eternally grateful.

Constanza Romero ’88 Costume Designer and wife of August Wilson In the fall of 1993 August and I received an elegantly addressed envelope from the White House, inviting us to a ceremony in the Rose Garden for Lloyd Richards, who would be presented with the National Medal of the Arts.  We immediately RSVP’d. It was a humid afternoon as we passed the huddle of reporters poring over the roped area and took our seats, surrounded by those famous roses.  How many US presidents, world figures and news correspondents had smelled these same roses? President and Mrs. Clinton walked on the platform, along with Lloyd and the other Medal recipients, among them, Cab Calloway, Arthur Miller, Robert Rauschenberg and Paul Taylor. As President Clinton placed the medal around Lloyd’s neck, he stood straight and proud, in August’s descriptive words a “compact giant.” Later that afternoon, August and I returned to our hotel room, to find an urgent message.  Evidently, when Mrs. Clinton heard that Lloyd’s long-time collaborator had come for the ceremony, she immediately had her assistant invite us to attend the gala dinner later that evening, also at the White House. With the imposing life-size portraits of Martha and George Washington hanging above us, Lloyd, his wife Barbara, wearing a flowing white dress that made her dancer’s grace come alive, August and I found ourselves standing nervously at the back of the Presidential receiving line. Admittedly, we were all a bit apprehensive about how one greets a President without resorting to all the stereotypical forms of salutations, how to make it “mean something.” Lloyd, however, being the YSD 2006

more confident of all went first. His regal presence and the experience of being “one who goes before” paved the way for the rest of us, both for that magical evening, and for all time.

Ben Sammler ’74 Professor (Adjunct) of Technical Design and Production, Yale School of Drama Lloyd took on the reigns as the Dean of the Yale School of Drama in 1979. He followed the dynamic Dean Robert Brustein, who had conceived the Yale Repertory Theatre and the conservatory style of training that the juxtaposition of the theater and school so easily afforded. I was then a young and eager Technical Director trying desperately to bring some order to the chaos that theatre so easily contrives. Lloyd’s management style was at first disconcerting. But I quickly learned that what I perceived from this quiet man with perceptive questions was deceptive. He took full measure of those around him, understood their goals, and how they might best achieve them. In the most gentle and thoughtful manner, he somehow allowed everyone to be the absolute best that they could be. And in so doing, he transformed the vision of the YSD/YRT into a true company of professionals and students accomplishing great theatre and even greater training. Not unlike his play selection or the artists he chose to foster or the projects he allowed his faculty and staff to pursue— his every choice bespoke an unseen hand and unheard voice of a man completely in touch with a profound universal truth. He could have been a minister, he could have been a statesman, but fortunately for many of us, he was a man of the theatre.

His delicate hand that helped to shape the myriad of plays that moved so many audiences enlightened us all. But I also know that the same hand moved by the same understanding of the best of human nature moved all of us behind the scenes, in our offices, and in our classrooms— enlightening us and enlivening us as well. He was a truly rare man of insightful intellect, even greater compassion, and tremendous stature. Very early in our relationship he described the difficulty of theatre as art which wants no constraints, and the real world which demands them. His solution was “to be creative within a frame” —and I still marvel at how that never once diminished his art. It is one of his many lessons that have shaped my life and my professionalism. It was an honor to know him and a privilege to work with him. And while he is sadly missed, I hope that the many lessons that he has allowed me to carry forward continue in some small way to pay respect to this paragon of a man.

Jennifer Tipton Professor (Adjunct) of Design, Yale School of Drama Soon after I moved to New York City from college, all my theater friends were talking about A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway.  I never dreamed at the time that I would be teaching at the Yale School of Drama some years later and lighting a production of A Raisin in the Sun being produced by the very man who directed the original production.  The life of that man, Lloyd Richards, spanned and influenced the lives of many theater professionals.  He was a quiet, gentle man with a core of steel.  He was a small man but his contributions as a director, as a teacher, as the Dean of the Yale School of Drama, as the Director of the Eugene O’Neill Center program for emerging playwrights, to name only a very few, made him a giant of the theater.  He often brought out the best in actors and designers by his quiet support of what was good in their work without castigating what he did not like.  It was clear to anyone working with him that his belief in what he and they were doing was very deep.

His quiet sense of confidence made even the most difficult tasks seem supremely easy.   As a director his sense of music and rhythm was profound and unequaled.  He could let an actor work slowly to begin a “solo” which gradually over time accumulated rhythms and textures eventually growing into an “orchestra” of sound involving the entire cast of the play. Lloyd Richards touched the lives of hundreds of actors, students and teachers with grace and passion.  There are so many of us who are thrilled to have shared this earth with him but who will ache from the hole that his absence leaves in our hearts.  The theater has lost an irreplaceable artist with a unique vision.

was that artists create most truthfully by constantly asking themselves the necessary questions, not by doing everything “right”. He also showed me that the sharing of our humanity with one another is the essential reason we go to the theatre, something I first understood intuitively on that night in 1959 watching A Raisin in the Sun. I am now 65 and have the great honor to be named the Lloyd Richards Professor of Acting at the Yale School of Drama. Lloyd is gone, but like all great teachers he has left a piece of himself lodged deep inside my artistic soul from which I can feed a new generation of theatre artists.

Ron Van Lieu Lloyd Richards Professor

Courtney B. Vance ’86 and Angela Bassett-Vance ’83 Actors

(Adjunct) of Acting, Yale School of Drama In the summer of 1959, when I was 17, I took a bus from Wooster, Ohio—where I grew up—to New York City to see five Broadway plays. I had ordered balcony tickets through the mail using a copy of The New York Times in our local library. I stayed in New York for a week, my 17 year old heart pounding with excitement, and two evenings on Broadway exploded to give birth to the artist in me —Geraldine Page’s fiercely embodied performance in Sweet Bird of Youth and every second of Lloyd Richard’s achingly human and exuberant production of A Raisin in the Sun. It was my extraordinary luck in 1966, when I was 26, to have Lloyd Richards as my first acting teacher when I studied at NYU. I was hypnotized by his voice and commanding physical presence (I will always think of him as HUGE), astounded by the ease and gentleness with which he was able to penetrate and release the truth and imagination of the actor in front of him, mesmerized by the elegant way he slipped a Kool cigarette from its pack and lit it without losing one second of his intense concentration on the student whose creative life he was shaping with such intelligence. I immediately took up the practice of smoking Kools. The great lesson I got from Lloyd

Lloyd Richards was a master teacher and director who taught or mentored some of the most recognizable actors, directors, writers, producers, and creators in our industry.  A truly gifted man, Mr. Richards always said ‘the right thing at just the right time.’ Mr. Richards was a black man born in Jamaica.  However, he spent his formative years in Detroit, Michigan where he overcame many obstacles, and rose to the pinnacle of the New York theatrical world in 1959 when he became the first black man to direct a major play on Broadway with Sidney Poitier starring in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. He then continued teaching and running major institutions around the New York area until 1979 when he was appointed Dean of the Yale School of Drama.  He again reached the pinnacle of the theatrical world when he received a Tony Award for directing August Wilson’s Fences on Broadway, cementing his place in American theater history. Mr. Richards was the consummate ‘behind the scenes man’.  From actors Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis, Michael Douglas and Cicely Tyson; to producers George White and Benjamin Mordecai; to designers Ming Cho Lee and Jennifer Tipton; to playwrights John Guare, Edward Albee, Lee Blessing, Athol Fugard, and everyone

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in between, the reach and scope of Mr. Richard’s influence cannot be measured. As the Artistic Director at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center for 35 years, he influenced hundreds of playwrights’ careers, which in turn impacted the lives of countless theaters, actors, and communities.  He alone had the vision to create a network of regional theaters whereby August Wilson’s plays could be ‘work-shopped’ before coming into New York, allowing all of the theaters on that journey to become participants in the bounty of a Broadway opening and run.  James Earl Jones, who won the Tony Award for creating the role of Troy Maxon in Fences, once said that “. . . Lloyd Richards has more theatrical knowledge than anyone living. . .” Here was a man who influenced an entire generation of actors, producers, playwrights, and directors; yet he remained humbly and quietly in the background.  Here was a man who was so good at bringing out the best in other people, arguably one of the most influential men of our times, who may have slipped out of this world almost unnoticed, unless his story is recorded and told to future generations.

William Warfel ’57 and Phyllis Warfel ’55 William: Professor Emeritus of Theatre Design, Yale School of Drama Phyllis: Composer While seeming curious at first that memorial gifts to Doctors Without Borders was to be Lloyd Richards final dramatic and humanitarian statement, upon reflection it was obvious that nothing could have been more appropriate. Lloyd did not believe in borders, whether they were social, political, ethnic, linguistic, or artistic. He loved to tell the story of an elderly African-American woman he encountered in the theater lobby during pre-Broadway tryouts for A Raisin in the Sun. She was obviously not at home in a theater lobby, but someone had told her that something was going on there which had to do with her and she thought she should see what it was all about.

While attending an international theater conference, Lloyd saw a production of a play, An Attempt at Flying, directed by Mladen Kiselov, at that time resident director of the Bulgarian National Theater. Lloyd wanted to bring the play to the Yale Rep, but his staff said they couldn’t start negotiations because Mr. Kiselov did not speak English. Lloyd replied “Nonsense! I spoke with him backstage after the performance; we discussed the play at length.” The play, which dealt with borders between earth and sky and boundaries between people and their governments, was performed at the Rep; and Kiselov, who no longer needs a translator, has continued to direct in America and teaches at Carnegie Mellon. At a time in theater when often style was more important than content, Lloyd nurtured playwrights who dealt with humanity with all its foibles and sometimes heroics, resulting in extraordinary collaborations with Athol Fugard, Lee Blessing, and August Wilson, among others, both at Yale and at the Eugene O’Neill Center. We remember, with gratitude, the plays and playwrights he brought to the Yale Rep and may we also follow his example of ignoring borders wherever we find them.

George C. White yc ’57 dra ’61 Founder of The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center and Former Co-Chair of the Theater Management Department, Yale School of Drama It seems inconceivable to think of Lloyd in the past tense. He was and is an ever present force in our theater. His theatrical wisdom, sage leadership and steady guidance informs so much of our contemporary stage. He whetted and increased the appetite for new and innovative work and taught us that a dramatist’s role was to “provoke” as the avenue to a greater understanding of the human condition. As an artistic director, dean, national council member, foundation official and partner he was always the consummate teacher. He developed, changed or YSD 2006

enhanced countless careers of actors, directors, critics, and most of all playwrights. I am proud of the fact that my old undergraduate friend Bart Giamatti sought my suggestion for a dean to replace Robert Brustein, and that all of us on the search committee pressured Lloyd to take the job. As my friend and partner at the O’Neill Center we never had a “discouraging word;” we fought battles with the Russians, Chinese, town officials, and critics. He was always the strong right arm and the voice of reason and calm in a sea of chaos. For all this, it did not keep us from enjoying the famous 29-29 tie game at Harvard Stadium or catching big blue fish or bass in The Race! His love of life and people informed his art and makes him an immortal contributor to the world’s theater. He is greatly to be missed but his spirit will always be with us. Lloyd Richards will always be present wherever a new playwright aspires, whenever an actor treads the boards, or at rehearsals as a director marshals his forces.

Dianne Wiest Actress notes from a journal: “The character is going from someplace to someplace to do something.” “There is something the student is trying to communicate. A teacher must figure out what this is, who she is, what she is trying to say. This requires patience, not jumping down the kid’s throat.” “You must take pleasure from their flight.” “What an eye Lloyd has, how he gets to the core of a problem so gently.” “Lloyd suspends judgment. He accords equal respect to each of us, regardless of talent, experience or status.” These are notes from my journal taken in Lloyd Richard’s acting classes over the last two years. I first met him in the midseventies at the Playwrights Conference at the O’Neill Center and then some ten years later he directed me in Hedda Gabler

and Doll House at the Yale Rep and finally, just recently, I was sitting in the bright airy room at The Actors Center listening to him say that he wished for each of us “to become passionate, compassionate, knowledgeable, sensitive members of the theatrical community of story tellers.” I was looking for a workout as an actor and he gave me that and he also gave me the idea that I might want to teach. Lloyd had such insight and he led people so gently to a solution, their own solution to an acting problem. He understood that the actor must go through the process and find her own way. And that is how he was as a director. I remember being shocked that he collaborated with me. He didn’t dictate to me. He was going to allow me to own Hedda and not parade his interpretation on stage. I was so grateful not to be used as a day laborer. He gave me confidence and permission to be outrageous, to take risks, to fall or to fly. He was teaching me to tell my own Ibsen story. I was becoming a storyteller, and it was so stunning to discover that I had a story to tell. Precious little has matched that time. What I’d give to be back in the rehearsal room with gentle man. I’m remembering a telegram he sent me. It must have been a couple of years before Hedda. I was doing Othello and the telegram came, not on opening night but two days later, after the critics had lambasted me. It said: I applaud you. I praise you. I honor you. I celebrate you. Lloyd Richards. Oh, my dear absent friend, may I return the compliment?

Max Wilk ’41 Screenwriter and author Working with and for Lloyd Richards for more than a quarter of a century was a daily learning process. It began on a soundstage where talented playwrights could see their screenplays transferred to film. Then came a change of plan to be called “Screenwriters’ Seminar.” There, screenwriters could assist our story editors and dramaturgs in working

Richards and Jacob (“Jake”) Thompson in 2005

on their plays. One such script was written by a talented young writer, Jacob Estes, and it was titled Mean Creek. After three hypertensive days of rewrites and changes with our director and myself and the cast, young Estes emerged with a script that enthralled that audience. Once … that was all it was allowed to Estes. But this story of youngsters who had accidentally punished a loud-mouthed kid on a river trip and ended causing him to drown . . . and their ghastly after story . . . whether to confess or not? . . . was a hit with that evening’s audience. And it never left me, or Casey Childs, the director, as a powerful potential work. Seven years later, Jacob Estes was still working hard to bring Mean Creek to the screen. Eureka! It happened. Jacob had made the sufficient changes in his original script to attract backing for a production. With a cast and a crew he directed, he made a remarkably successful film! Mean Creek has since won awards all over the film world. It is on DVD and will remain successful for years to come; it should especially find audiences of the young. It was with great pleasure that I called Lloyd, to inform him that one of our scripts, which had been in the O’Neill process, for one audience, had just been accepted for the Cannes Film Festival some seven years after that night at the O’Neill! There was silence at Lloyd’s end, and then Lloyd sighed. “Max,” he finally said, “You have made my day.” “Delighted to have done so, Lloyd,” I told him.

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“But I don’t know why I should be at all surprised,” said the man who had taken me on as one of his dramaturgs all those twenty-five odd years back . . .“You have been helping me out with successes for a long, long time.” “I am so glad you think so,” I said, for I was truly amazed at such a compliment. “You didn’t know that?” he asked. “Not until now,” I replied. “Then all I can say,” Lloyd said, “was that you weren’t paying much attention all those years.” “Well might that be because you were keeping me so damned busy?” I demanded. “Quite possibly,” said Lloyd, which gave us both a laugh. Our last, in fact. But when I look back on all those summers that I spent working for Lloyd, whether it be on sound stage, or in a frenzied three-day wrestle with Jacob Estes, to bring forth his award-winning film, I can only think how fortunate I was that Lloyd made me part of that postgraduate course with such a thoughtful and brilliant teacher . . . and friend.

Michael Yeargan ’73 Professor (Adjunct) of Design, Yale School of Drama When Lloyd Richards first came to Yale, he asked me to design Timon of Athens for him at the Rep. He asked that I come down to the O’Neill to meet with him and discuss the play. I hardly knew him and was a bit nervous, as he seemed such a shy man. Expecting to be sandwiched in between other meetings, I was surprised when he took me to the front porch of his cottage and we spent an entire afternoon discussing Shakespeare, Timon of Athens and life in general. Though I only designed two shows for him (Uncle Vanya was the other), that meeting on his front porch became the core of our friendship and collaboration. The last time I saw Lloyd was at the opening night of the recent production of Awake and Sing, which I had designed. To my great surprise, he actually referenced that meeting and said in his own succinct way, “Michael, you’ve come a long way since that meeting on my porch and the work is good.” Y

Making Their Voices Heard Three Recent Playwriting Grads Examine Their Burgeoning Careers

By Mark Blankenship â&#x20AC;&#x2122;05

Everyone expects playwrights to have a voice. From grad school class discussions to Broadway marketing campaigns, it’s taken for granted that a good writer’s work will possess characteristics that make it instantly recognizable. And in the business of theatre, writers who can define their styles are much easier for administrators, critics, and audiences to grasp. It can be difficult for writers to define their voices at any stage of their artistic lives, but perhaps never more so than at the beginning. Trying to start careers as they solidify an artistic sensibility, emerging scribes are left to strike a balance between who they are and who they see themselves becoming. In its last three seasons, Yale Rep has produced plays by three recent alums who are in just such a formative stage. All the productions—2004’s The Mystery Plays by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa ’03, 2004’s The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow by Rolin Jones ’04, and 2006’s dance of the holy ghosts: a play on memory by Marcus Gardley ’04— now seem prescient choices, as each writer has received a remarkable amount of national attention. The playwrights, meanwhile, are in the midst of deciding what their voices will be as they enter their next professional phase. For Aguirre-Sacasa, the next step will likely involve keeping monsters at bay. Thus far, he has gained a reputation as a master of sci-fi and fantasy fare like the alienabduction drama Dark Matters (coming soon to New York’s Rattlestick Theater) and the gay occult romance Say You Love Satan (an award winner at the 2003 New York Fringe Festival). Given his day job writing Fantastic Four and Spider Man titles for Marvel Comics, this type of material is clearly in his blood. Aguirre-Sacasa is happy to be known for his eerie side. “The sci-fi stuff,” he notes, “seems to get the best reviews.” However, with recent work he has kept the themes from his older plays without transporting their genres. He feels a move toward more naturalistic writing has given him a new way to explore the emotional content that ultimately defines his work. “The idea of

forgiveness is something that comes up in my plays, and almost all my plays are about family,” he says, and those are certainly the cornerstones of recent efforts like Based on a Totally True Story, an autobiographical comedy that premiered this spring at Manhattan Theater Club (and which features a character based on this writer). Asked if he thinks his voice is moving away from its creature-laden beginnings—or its frequent focus on gay characters—Aguirre-Sacasa jokes, “I don’t think I’ll ever get away from that. I’ll sit down and say, ‘No gay characters in this play,’ and then, oops, suddenly the prep school boys are gay [in Good Boys and True, commissioned by Manhattan Theater Club] or a character is watching Invasion of the Body Snatchers on TV. Those things just creep in.” Aguirre-Sacasa seems content that he can’t entirely control his writing, or his career. He muses, “At Yale I used to have a lot of specific goals, but careers take very strange paths. There’s no way you can prepare.”

These days, Marcus Gardley would agree with that sentiment, though he had different ideas immediately after leaving the Drama School. “I was hell-bent on selling out,” he claims. His work tends toward poetic language, symbolic imagery, and heated topics like race and religion, but he tried to bury those instincts in pursuit of what he imagined to be success. He explains, “I was obsessed with making a name for myself as an emerging writer. I was writing what I thought people wanted me to write … the ‘safe’ play with one set and no more than five characters, where you’re not talking about anything that makes people uncomfortable.” All his efforts produced, however, was frustration. “I realized I couldn’t write that way if I tried,” he laughs. And eventually he noticed that all the enthusiasm he was hearing was centered on his more lyrical work. The Sundance Theater Laboratory, for instance, has invited Gardley to develop …and Jesus moonwalks on the Mississsipi, a time-bending drama in which Jesus

Gavin Creel and Scott Ferrara in The Mystery Plays, Yale Repertory Theatre, 2004. Photo by Joan Marcus.

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Keiko Yamamoto ’04 and Seema Sueko in The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow by Rolin Jones ’04. Photo by T. Charles Erickson.

Left to right La Tonya Borsay, Pascale Armand, Brian Henry’ 07, and Harriett D. Foy in dance of the holy ghosts: a play on memory by Marcus Gardley, ’04. Photo by Joan Marcus.

becomes the imaginary friend of an African-American girl living on a white-owned plantation. Meanwhile, companies like South Coast Repertory and Arena Stage have commissioned him to develop massive projects like a dramatization of the founding of Wewoka, Oklahoma by Seminoles. Gardley says this institutional support has helped him clarify his voice. “It’s poetic, steeped in history, and epic in scope,” he asserts, “I’m interested in telling stories that have not been told in a way that has not been used.” He also cites his experience at Yale Rep this past season—dance of the holy ghosts: a play on memory was his first professional production—as a clarification of how he wants to approach his career. With that project, he says, “I realized that plays are living things, and that this play is not yet as perfect as I want it to be…but there’s no rush.” In other words, he is trying to let his work and his place in the playwriting world develop “in their own time,” content with the fact that he knows how he wants to approach both.

Rolin Jones, meanwhile, is learning how to develop a voice in two media at once. The last two years have seen him ascend through the ranks of both theatre and television. His good fortune began with The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow, his first year playwriting project at Yale. Since premiering at South Coast Rep in 2003 and then moving to Yale Rep in 2004, the fable about a brilliant young woman who builds her robot clone has had almost a dozen regional productions, appeared at New York’s Atlantic Theatre Company, won a 2006 Obie award, and been nominated for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize. “It goes to show that it only takes one,” he chuckles. That play also led him to a writing gig for the

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Showtime comedy “Weeds.” Jones says the job has altered his perspective on his artistic identity. “At Yale I was Mr. Goofball who wrote the robot play. Now I’m the touchy-feely playwright,” he explains. In a room full of seasoned sitcom writers, Jones is seen as the one who understands character relationships and delicate moments. Ironically enough, his time on “Weeds” has inspired him to start writing just those kinds of smaller, character-focused plays. He says, “I have the opportunity where, if I write something that’s big and giant, I can get it done on TV.” But the small screen’s demand for realism has also made him hungry for the imaginative possibilities of theatre. “I never see myself writing a ‘realistic’ drama,” he muses, “[Plays] should be deeper than what we’re doing on TV. They should be thoughtful and beautiful. I write a musical and physical theatre, and that’s never going to change.” What has changed, however, is how often he writes for the stage. Though he’s aware of the playwriting voice he wants to cultivate, Jones has not finished a full-length play since leaving Yale. He sighs, “The only thing that hangs across me like an albatross is not having a full-length play… but I’m getting back to it. In the last two years, I just don’t think I’ve had anything to say that’s worth a damn.” Now, however, he’s crafting what he calls a “dark, serious drama,” while also preparing a television pilot, a film pitch, and the next season of “Weeds.” As he looks to solidify his voice in multiple formats, Jones credits his time with his fellow Drama School playwrights—particularly Aguirre-Sacasa and Gardley—for helping him know how to be a writer at all. He claims, “I don’t think I’d be in the place I’m in without either one of them.” Y

“I was obsessed with making a name for myself as an emerging writer. I was writing what I thought people wanted me to write … the ‘safe’ play with one set and no more than five characters, where you’re not talking about anything that makes people uncomfortable.” Marcus Gardley ’04

“I’ll sit down and say, ‘No gay characters in this play,’ and then, oops, suddenly the prep school boys are gay or a character is watching ‘ Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ on TV. Those things just creep in.” Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa ’03

“[Plays] should be deeper than what we’re doing on TV. They should be thoughtful and beautiful. I write a musical and physical theatre, and that’s never going to change.” Rolin Jones ‘04

there’s more than one way to be a dramaturg

Catherine Sheehy ’92, DFA ’99, resident dramaturg for Yale Rep and chair of the Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism Department, once quipped, “Being a dramaturg means always being met with blank stares whenever you try to answer the question ‘What do you do?’” At YSD, the confusion peaks around commencement: What does a dramaturg do after graduation? Anyone can look at the alumni roll and pick out famous actors, directors, designers, and playwrights, but a dramaturgy student’s course is harder to chart. For one thing, while a class of, say, actors may all end up acting, no two people in a class of dramaturgs are likely to pursue the same career. After all, the program prepares them to be everything from critics to teachers to literary managers, and “dramaturgy” is a term that can accurately encompass all those professions. But as the work of the following graduates attests, a variety of pursuits does not mean the department’s alums are totally dissimilar. They may have different answers for the question “What do you do?”, but these three pursue their work with the same clarity of purpose. Michael Cadden ’76, DFA ’79 came to YSD after graduating from Yale College in 1971, studying English and Drama at the University of Bristol, and spending a year at Yale Law School. Upon receiving his MFA, he worked as a dramaturg at Yale Rep and taught at the School of Drama until 1983, when he joined the English Department at Princeton University. He has been Princeton’s Director of Theater and Dance for the past thirteen years. Like Cadden, Charles McNulty ’93, DFA ’95 also took an indirect route to dramaturgy. While studying for an MBA at New York University’s Stern School of Business, he found himself writing plays and hungering for a deeper understanding of dramatic literature. NYU professor—and occasional School of Drama adjunct professor—Una Chaudhuri fueled his interest in theatre, which led him to apply to Yale. After commencement, McNulty served as literary manager for Princeton’s McCarter Theater; taught at Yale, NYU, the New School, and Brooklyn College; and worked as theatre editor for The Village Voice. He is currently chief theatre critic for the L.A. Times. Christie Evangelisto ’03 came to YSD after earning a bachelor’s degree in Dramatic Literature and

By Joseph Cermatori, ’08

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Theatre History at NYU, where she studied with both McNulty and Chaudhuri. After leaving Yale, she dramaturged for several Washington, D.C. theatres before returning to New York in 2004 as the Director of Musical Theater, Associate Literary Manager, and Dramaturg at Playwrights Horizons. Though their careers are disparate, all three alums share a passionate belief in the relevance of theatre to society, and, in turn, of dramaturgs and dramaturgical thought to the theatre. McNulty feels dramaturgs play a particularly important role in our current culture: “At a time uncannily similar to the blindly consumerist ’80s,” he says, “to be a dramaturg is to engage in an act of cultural resistance and dissent that should be roundly applauded. This epoch of ours is in dire need of critical sensibilities… Dramaturgs, of course, are nothing if not critical—lovingly so, for the most part.” Cadden finds his work with undergraduates equally vital: “This semester, I’ve had Janice Paran ’80—until recently the dramaturg at the McCarter—teaching a course [on dramaturgy]. The students have found it lifechanging, in part because it lets them see how people with their particular passions might fit into a wider theatrical landscape.” According to Evangelisto, dramaturgs and literary managers remain the theatre’s conscience by virtue of their connections with new work: “I hope that dramaturgs, via our intimate, essential relationships with new plays and playwrights, can remind people of the value of good writing and keep those writers writing plays … Bold, forward-thinking season planning, commissioning, and the recommending of writers for festivals or awards are the dramaturg’s weapons against bad theatre.” This investment in their works’ purpose also helps these alums love their daily grind. “My job is divine,” says Evangelisto, “and I go to work every day realizing how fortunate I am. I get to instigate and contribute to the development of new plays and musicals from tiny amoebic ideas to big, beautiful full productions. That is eminently satisfying.” Of her plans for the future, she says, “[I hope] to keep producing important theatrical work either as a producer or artistic director and per-

haps to make an occasional foray into the sunny world of LA-based film and TV.” With regard to his current post, McNulty says, “There’s nothing that gives me more satisfaction than writing. I can’t think of a better stage for a critic than the arts pages of the Los Angeles Times…[the dialogue] I’m having with one of the great urban readerships is something I treasure.” Cadden finds it difficult to say which is more stimulating, his work—he’s currently preparing courses on Samuel Beckett, Tony Kushner, and Paula Vogel, and a production season featuring Shakespeare, Aleksandr Pushkin, and Wendy Wasserstein ’76—or his community of students and colleagues. He especially lauds YSD alums Bob Sandberg ’77, Darryl Waskow ’86, and

“

Being a dramaturg means always being met with blank stares whenever you try to answer the question ‘What do you do?’

”

Catherine Sheehy

Tim Vasen ’93. “I love the company I keep,” he asserts, “I’m in this for the long haul.” As for the students who will some day join their professional ranks, the alums offer matching advice. “Read, read, read,” says Cadden, “Reading allows the past to break the stranglehold that the present invariably has on our sense of the possible.” Evangelisto echoes him, suggesting young dramaturgs should “read everything you get your hands on.” Charles McNulty simply states, “Read and think and argue and care.” Y

YSD 2006

feature 2

Larry Blyden (center) in The Frogs by Aristophanes in 1974. Freely adapted and directed by Burt Shevelove, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Photo by William Baker.

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All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

By Michael Sheehan ’76 When my firm works with politi-

cal and corporate leaders, they often reference my theatre background and my training at Yale School of Drama. “You must have learned a lot at Yale,” they’ll remark, thinking that I studied to be an actor. They’re half right. Though I did learn a lot at the School of Drama, the education was nothing like what they imagine. No one ever suspects my teachers were frogs. As a first year theatre administration student, I was assigned—along with the wonderful Marian Godfrey ’75—to be co-company manager of the world premiere of the 1974 musical The Frogs, adapted and directed by Burt Shevelove and composed by Stephen Sondheim. Depending on your point of view, this production was either legendary or infamous. Presented in the Yale swimming pool, it featured seventeen actors, fifteen musicians, twenty-two singers, eight dancers, and a chorus of sixteen swimming frogs (all Yale undergrad athletes). We opened on a day that I subsequently dubbed “Black Monday,” and on every anniversary, John Reardon (the late, legendary house manager), Marian, and I celebrated with a very strong drink. None of us forgot what it took to get The Frogs going, and the lessons of that production are still guiding my career. Take the rewrites. Shevelove, Sondheim, et al. were used to working in a Broadway rhythm that welcomed working until curtain up. That method didn’t quite mesh, however, with performers who had to balance the demands of Yale Rep and the School of Drama. On Black Monday, for instance, one overwhelmed student actor got rewrites minutes before going onstage and (understandably) went up on his lines. Lesson learned: Working toward the same goal is only possible when you work the same way. I’ve seen what happens when you do (as in the Democrats’ victories in the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections) and what happens when you don’t (as in their losses in 2000 and 2004.)

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Lessons Learned 1 Working toward the same goal is only possible when you work the same way. 2 It’s tough to expect the unexpected, since by definition you don’t expect it. 3 If you stay calm, the people around you are less likely to panic. 4 Keep your priorities straight, like defending your stance on controversial campaign issues even if it means losing votes.

Before the last minute rewrites there was also a last chance fire inspection. The primary set element was hundreds of yards of flowing material that hung from the rafters of the pool. As required, we had soaked the fabric in fire-retardant solution, but where to dry it? Why, there in the pool of course! But we didn’t know the pool’s humidity would prevent drying and cause the solution to drip off. When the fire marshal flametested the fabric, it went up like crêpe paper. He gave us until Monday at 11 AM to fix it. We re-treated it and could think of only one place to hang it—the Dramat, which smelled of chemical for weeks thereafter. But the next morning, the set didn’t burn and the show went on. Lesson learned: It’s tough to expect the unexpected, since by definition you don’t expect it. Like hanging chads in Florida in 2000. Thinking it was time to celebrate opening night, I got called to the box office just five minutes before curtain. There stood Leonard Bernstein, his agent, and at least five of Sondheim’s colleagues, all saying they had been promised prime seats. It turned out their reservations were for the following night, but that was not an answer. All those important faces had a look that said, “We’ll kill you if you can’t fix this.” I somehow managed to declare, “No problem!”, and then I went to beg six YRT staff in the front row to relocate. To this day, I’m grateful they did. Lesson learned: If you stay

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calm, the people around you are less likely to panic. Like the night President Clinton ad-libbed his health care reform speech in prime time from the floor of the House of Representatives until we replaced the wrong text on the teleprompter with the right one. No one realized the error because he didn’t let it show. The show began. Half way through, our relief was interrupted by a phone call from the local hospital. A young boy was in the E.R. with a fishhook in his eye, and the ophthalmologist on call was at the performance. They needed him ASAP. What to do? I had started asking if it could wait until intermission when John Reardon hit me with a withering stare that said keeping people safe overrides keeping them entertained. With no loudspeaker in the auditorium, I got one of the actors to march on stage and, in character, ask the doctor to report to the lobby. Lesson learned: Keep your priorities straight, like defending your stance on controversial campaign issues even if it means losing votes. Or, if you’re a Democrat discussing social issues, losing Ohio in 2004. The Frogs was still with me as I worked with President Clinton on one of his last Oval Office addresses. During a break, we reminisced about our experiences at Yale, his at the Law School and mine at the School of Drama. “I bet you learned a lot there,” he said. “Yes,” I replied, “I did. But not what you might think.” Y

In the Wings

The Class of 2006

Graduation 2006

Photos by Rick BerubĂŠ

Headdress worn by May Adrales, Directing

In front: Aaron Bollinger, Standing l-r: Benjamin Merrick, Andrew Farrow, Daniel Lisowski, Lily Twining, Arielle Edwards, and Janann Eldredge

David Byrd and Liz Alsina, Theater Management

2006 Technical Interns: Nathaniel Hare, Deborah Bloch, Derek Stratton, and Jessica Stanley

Moshe Peterson and Ben Sammler â&#x20AC;&#x2122;72, Chair of Technical Design & Production, leading the way back to the University Theatre

YSD 2006

In the Wings

Congratulations to our newest alumni— the Class of 2006! Doctor of Fine Arts Catherine Jane Bredeson Shawn-Marie Garrett Amy Strahler Holzapfel

Master of Fine Arts/ Certificate in Drama Acting Erin Colleen Buckley Corena Suzanne Underwood Chase Bryan Terrell Clark Daniel Colman Richard Gallagher Sofia Jean Gomez Jon Blake Hackler Bridget M. Jones David Matranga Kathleen McElfresh Alexis Marie McGuinness Brian James McManamon James Michael Noonan, Jr. Alex Neal Organ Ryan Allen Quinn Joseph John Tapper Directing Jocelyn May Adrales Susanna Caroline Gellert Anna Gabriella Jones Design Katherine Mary Cusack Michael David Floyd Kanae Heike Tamar Klausner Aleksandra Ma´slik Jennifer Yejin Moeller Zane Rich Pihlstrom Emily Elizabeth Rebholz Gina Marie Scherr Catherine Anne Tate Sound Design Arielle B. Edwards Andrew M. Nagel Sharath H. Patel

Dramaturgy Monica K. Achen Amy Michelle Boratko Gordon Anthony Carver Michael Francis D’Alessandro Alexander Downing Grennan Yana Ross Michael C. Walkup Playwriting Nastaran Ahmadi Alena Marion Smith Stage Management Adam Caleb Ganderson Shawn Brian Senavinin* Glenn Jason Sturgis Theater Management Liz Susana Alsina Shira D. Beckerman David Bryant Byrd Emily Gresh Arthur F. Nacht Liv E. Nilssen Brigid Grant Slipka Carrie Elizabeth Van Deest

The dramaturgs of 2006 (l-r): Yana Ross, Alex Grennan, Michael D’Alessandro, Michael Walkup, Monica Achen, Chair Catherine Sheehy ’92, DFA ’99, Amy Boratko, and Gordon Carver

GRADUATION PRIZES Prizes are given each year to members of the graduating class as designated by the faculty.

The ASCAP Cole Porter Prize Nastaran Ahmadi and Alena Smith The Edward C. Cole Memorial Award Aaron Bollinger and Lillian Twining

Technical Design & Production Aaron Chase Bollinger Sean Louis Culligan Adam J. Dahl Janann Bateson Eldredge Andrew Stephen Farrow Daniel T. Lisowski Benjamin W. Merrick Moshe Hotseaynu Ben-Yehudah Peterson John Barrett Starmer Lillian Martha Twining

The John W. Gassner Memorial Prize Yana Ross

Technical Internship Certificate Deborah H. Bloch Nathaniel James Hare Jessica P. Stanley Derek Randell Stratton

The Leo Lerman Graduate Fellowship in Design Jennifer Moeller and Emily Rebholz

*Certificate recipient

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The Bert Gruver Memorial Prize Shawn Senavinin The Allen M. and Hildred L. Harvey Prize Daniel Lisowski The Morris J. Kaplan Award Arthur Nacht The Julian Milton Kaufman Memorial Prize Susanna Gellert

The Dexter Wood Luke Memorial Prize John Starmer

The Donald and Zorka Oenslager Travel Fellowship Kanae Heike, Aleksandra Ma´slik, and Zane Pihlstrom The Oliver Thorndike Acting Award Bryan Clark The Herschel Williams Prize Corena Chase and Kathleen McElfresh

YALE UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT’S PUBLIC SERVICE FELLOWSHIPS Fellowships awarded on a competitive basis to Yale students to provide opportunities to work on behalf of economic development, human development, and neighborhood revitalization with public sector and nonprofit organizations in the City of New Haven. Bec Rindler ’08 Artspace New Haven

The Class of 2006

YALE SCHOOL OF DRAMA FELLOWSHIPS AND SCHOLARSHIPS

The Virginia Brown Martin Scholarship Erin Felgar ’07

The recipients for the 2005-2006 Academic Year were:

The Benjamin Mordecai Memorial Scholarship Liz Alsina ’06

The Stanley R. McCandless Scholarship Thomas Weaver ’07

The John Badham Scholarship May Adrales ’06

The Kenneth D. Moxley Memorial Scholarship Tea Alagic ’07 Daniel Lisowski ’06

The George Pierce Baker Memorial Scholarship Amy Boratko ’06 Alena Smith ’06

The Donald M. Oenslager Scholarship in Stage Design Zane Pihlstrom ’06

The Herbert H. and Patricia M. Brodkin Scholarship Corena Chase ’06 Elliot Villar ’07

Liz Alsina ’06

The Benjamin Mordecai Scholarship was established in 2006 by his wife Sherry, many alumni, faculty, staff and friends to honor the life and work of Ben Mordecai, former Associate Dean and Chair of the Theater Management Program. It is given to a theater management student at the School of Drama. The first recipient was Liz Alsina ’06. Prior to arriving at Yale, Liz studied vocal performance at the Manhattan School of Music. She was also a Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program Fellow at Washington National Opera and worked in Development at INTAR Theatre. Liz made exemplary contributions to the life of the School of Drama during her training. As Managing Director of Yale Cabaret, Liz produced the work of nearly 200 students eager to use the Cabaret as a vehicle for exploration and creativity. Liz’s unflagging support for artists, her personal warmth and her professionalism are all qualities that remind one of Ben Mordecai’s presence at Yale and in the field. Liz was recently named Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations at Florida Grand Opera in Miami.

The Donald and Zorka Oenslager Scholarship in Stage Design Dustin Eshenroder ’07 Rumiko Ishii ’07 Jennifer Moeller ’06

The Patricia M. Brodkin Memorial Scholarship Derek DiGregorio ’07 Katrina Olson ’07

The Eugene O’Neill Memorial Scholarship Tarell McCraney ’07

The Paul Carter Scholarship John Starmer ’06

The Mary Jean Parson Scholarship Jessica Hill ’07

The Cheryl Crawford Scholarship Nastaran Ahmadi ’06

The Richard Harrison Senie Scholarship Christina Bullard ’07 Mike Floyd ’06

The Holmes Easley Scholarship Arielle Edwards ’06 Dustin Eshenroder ’07 Rachel Myers ’07

The Leon Brooks Walker Scholarship Ryan Quinn ’06 The Richard Ward Scholarship Malcolm Darrell ’07

The Eldon Elder Fellowship Deeksha Gaur ’07 Anna Jones ’06 Aleksandra Ma´slik ’06 Gilbert Owuor ’07

The Constance Welch Memorial Scholarship Emily Dorsch ’07 David Matranga ’06 Alex Organ ’06

The Foster Family Graduate Fellowship Michael Braun ’07 Amy Herzog ’07

The Rebecca West Scholarship Brad Love ’07 Tiffany Stewart ’07

The Annie G. K. Garland Memorial Scholarship Shawn Senavinin ’06 The Ray Klausen Design Scholarship Catherine Cusack ’06 The Gordon F. Knight Scholarship Arielle Edwards ’06 The Lotte Lenya Scholarship Joseph Gallagher ’06 Blake Hackler ’06 The Lord Memorial Scholarship Shira Beckerman ’06

YSD 2006

The Audrey Wood Scholarship Amy Herzog ’07 Justin Sherin ’07

Around On Yorkthe Street World

Alumni Connection Holiday Party This December alumni once again gathered to celebrate the season with good cheer at the annual Holiday Party at the Yale Club in New York. The highlight of the festivities was the presentation of the Phyllis Warfel Award for Outstanding Alumni Service to Edward Trach ’58 for his commitment and generosity to the Drama School.

Photos by Anita and Steve Shevett

1 Lisa Carling ’72 and Anne

Washburn ’45

2 Sabrina McGuigan ’04 and James

Reynolds ’04

3 Alec Tok ’03, Susan Barber ’61, and Jean

Randich ’94

4 Brent Langdon, Kristine Nielsen ’80,

Timothy Douglas ’86, and Vincent Olivieri ’01

5 David Conte ’72 and Suzy Gooch ’77, SOM ’79 6 Michael Rogers ’85, Kimberly Ellis, and

Campbell Dalglish ’86

7 Deputy Dean Victoria Nolan, Edward Trach ’58,

Phyllis Warfel ’55, Bill Warfel ’57, YC ’55, Dean James Bundy ’95 with the award, the print by Vladimir Shpitalnik ’92

The Phyllis Warfel Award for Outstanding Alumni Service The award is named for Phyllis Warfel ’55, editor of the Drama Alumni Newsletter for 15 years. Its purpose is to “honor individuals who have contributed to the well-being of the entire Yale Drama Alumni community.” Previous recipients are: 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997

YSD 2006

Phyllis Warfel ’55 Sally Bullock ’48 Neil Mazzella ’78 John Badham ’63 Talia Shire Schwartzmann ’69 Arthur Pepine, former Financial Aid Officer at YSD Fran Kumin ’77

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

Asaad Kelada ’64 Dick ’42 and Mickey ’44 Fleischer Richard Maltby ’62, YC ’59 Philip Isaacs ’70 Henry Winkler ’70 Bronislaw “Ben” Sammler ’74 Marc Flanagan ’70 Edward Trach ’58

Alumni Events

News from the Yale School of Drama

Winter Party In March, Jane Kaczmarek ’82 and Bradley Whitford graciously opened their home for the annual Los Angeles Winter Party. More than 300 alumni attended. Photos by Silvia Mautner

8 David Bardeen ’05, Bridget Jones ’06, and Thai Douglas 9 Elza Bergeron, Michael Gross ’73, Deputy Dean Victoria Nolan, and Susan Solt ’82 10 Joe Grifasi ’75 and Neil Mazzella ’78 11 Barnett Kellman ’72, Dean James Bundy ’95,

and Nancy Mette

12 JJ Hickey ’95, Stephanie Nash ’88, and Asaad Kelada ’64 13 Alumni and guests converse 14 Peter Katona ’01, Jeff Barry ’05, hosts

Jane Kaczmarek ’82 and Bradley Whitford, Mozhan Navabi ’05, and Jordan Mahome ’05

14 YSD 2006

Around the World

Alumni and Faculty Honors and Awards 2005 Barrymore Award October 2005

2005 Audio Publishers Association Audie® Awards May 2005

Excellence in Theatre Education and Community Outreach

Stefan Rudnicki ’05 Narrator & Producer Winner, Lost Boys

Glen Knapp ’97, Executive Director Philadelphia Young Playwrights

57th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards® September 2005 Outstanding Costumes for a Series

Chrisi Karvonides-Dunshenko ’90 Nominee, Carnivale,“Road to Damascus” Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series

James Burrows ’65 Nominee, Will & Grace, “It’s A Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad World”

2005 Princess Grace Award November 2005

Sheila Nevins ‘63

Lifetime Achievement Award for the Art of Documentary

Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

Outstanding Children’s Program

James Keach ’70, Producer Nominee, Walk the Line

Sheila Nevins ’63 Executive Producer, Winner, Classical Baby

Anthony Shalhoub ’80 as Adrian Monk, Winner, Monk

Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking

Jane Kaczmarek ’82 as Lois, Nominee, Malcolm in the Middle Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie

Paul Newman ’54

63rd Annual Golden Globe Awards® January 2006

Sheila Nevins ’63

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series

Kenneth Lin ’05 Playwriting

Sheila Nevins ’63 Executive Producer Nominee, America Undercover:

Last Letters Home Sheila Nevins ’63 Executive Producer Winner, Death in Gaza

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture

Frances McDormand ’82 Nominee, North Country Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture

Paul Giamatti ’94 Nominee, Cinderella Man Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made For Television

as Max Roby, Winner, Empire Falls

Paul Newman ’54

Outstanding Comedy Series

Producer Winner, Empire Falls

James Burrows ’65

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

Executive Producer, Nominee, Will & Grace Outstanding Miniseries

Paul Newman ’54 Executive Producer, Nominee, Empire Falls

Paul Newman ’54 Winner, Empire Falls

YSD 2006

12th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards® January 2006 Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role

Paul Giamatti ’94 Winner, Cinderella Man Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role

Frances McDormand ’82 Nominee, North Country Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture

Patricia Clarkson ’85 Nominee as a member of the cast,

Good Night, and Good Luck Tom McCarthy ’95 Nominee as a member of the cast,

Good Night, and Good Luck Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries

Paul Newman ’54 Winner, Empire Falls

Awards

33nd Annual Daytime Emmy Awards® April 2006 Outstanding Achievement in Costume Design for a Drama Series

Katherine Roth ’93 Nominee, All My Children Outstanding Drama Series Directing Team

William Ludel ’73 Winner, General Hospital

Paul Giamatti ’94

2006 Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Awards February 2006 Best Music Editing – Television Short Form

Robert Cotnoir ’94 Medium

78th Annual Academy Awards® March 2006 Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role

Paul Giamatti ’94 Nominee, Cinderella Man Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

Frances McDormand ’82 Nominee, North Country

Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction/Set Decoration/ Scenic Design

Pam Peterson ’86 Winner, Martha

2006 Helen Hayes Awards April 2006 Outstanding Director, Resident Play

Kirk Jackson ’88 The Studio Theatre Nominee, Take Me Out

David Muse ’03 The Studio Theatre Secondstage Nominee,

The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow Rebecca Bayla Taichman ’01 Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Nominee, The Clean House

Outstanding Costume Design, Resident Production

Zack Brown ’75 Shakespeare Theatre Company Nominee, Comedy of Errors

2006 Costume Designers Guild Awards May 2006 Robert Blackman ’70

Jess Goldstein ’78, Faculty Shakespeare Theatre Company, Nominee,

Spotlight Career Achievement Award in Television

Othello James Schuette ’89 Arena Stage Nominee, Imitations for Saxophone Outstanding Sound Design, Resident Play or Musical

Martin Desjardins ’94

2006 Drama Desk Awards May 2006 Outstanding Set Design of a Play

Eugene Lee ’86 Nominee, The Ruby Sunrise Derek McLane ’84

Shakespeare Theatre Company Nominee, Othello

Nominee, Abigail’s Party

Martin Desjardins ’94

Winner, Awake and Sing!

Michael Yeargan ’73, Faculty

Round House Theatre, Perseverance Theatre, and United States Theatre Project Winner, columbinus (World Premiere)

Michael Yeargan ’73, Faculty Nominee, Edward Albee’s Seascape

Outstanding Lead Actor, Resident Play

Outstanding Set Design of a Musical

Ted van Griethuysen ’60

Nominee, See What I Wanna See

Thomas Lynch ’79

Folger Theatre Nominee, The Clandestine Marriage Outstanding Resident Play

Rolin Jones ’04 The Studio Theatre Secondstage Nominee,

The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow

Scott Pask ’97 Nominee, The Wedding Singer Outstanding Costume Design

William Ivey Long ’75 Nominee, Grey Gardens Anita Yavich ’95 Nominee, The Wooden Breaks Outstanding Lighting Design

Outstanding Set Design, Resident Production

Christopher Akerlind ’89 Nominee, Awake and Sing!

Scott Bradley ’86 Arena Stage Nominee,

Passion Play, A Cycle (World Premiere)

YSD 2006

Around the World 2006 Lucille Lortel Awards May 2006

Connecticut Critics Circle Awards June 2006

Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series

Outstanding Musical

Outstanding Production of a Play

as Ellis Grey, Nominee, Grey’s Anatomy

Words & Music Nominee, Bernarda Alba

The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow by Rolin Jones ’04 Yale Repertory Theatre

Michael John LaChiusa (Faculty)

Outstanding Set Design

Michael John LaChiusa (Faculty)

Lee Savage ’05 The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow

Outstanding Scenic Design

Outstanding Sound Design

Eugene Lee ’86 Winner, The Ruby Sunrise

Hillary Charnas ’05 The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow

Derek McLane ’84 Outstanding Costume Design

60th Annual Tony Awards June 2006

Anita Yavich ’95 Nominee, The Wooden Breeks

Manhattan Theatre Club, Producer Nominee, Rabbit Hole

Outstanding Lighting Design

Lynne Meadow ’71

Stephen Strawbridge ’83 Nominee, Bernarda Alba

Manhattan Theatre Club, Producer Nominee, Shining City

Outstanding Sound Design

Best Musical

Wendy Wasserstein ’76

2006 OBIES Awards May 2006 Performance

Peter Francis James (Faculty) Winner, Stuff Happens Playwriting

Rolin Jones ’04 Winner, The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow Design

Anita Yavich ’95 Winner, Sustained Excellence in Costume Design

Michael David ’68 Dodger Theatricals, Producer Winner, Jersey Boys

Rocco Landesman ’76 Jujamcyn Theatres, Producer Nominee, The Wedding Singer Best Performance by a Leadng Actress in a Play

Kate Burton ’82 Nominee, The Constant Wife Best Scenic Design of a Play

Santo Loquasto ’72 Distinguished Arts Award

Sheila Nevins ’63 Executive Producer, Nominee,

Classical Baby 2 Anthony Shalhoub ’80

Best Costume Design of a Play

Santo Loquasto ’72 Nominee, A Touch of the Poet Catherine Zuber ’84 Winner, Awake and Sing! Catherine Zuber ’84 Nominee, Edward Albee’s Seascape Best Costume Design of a Musical

Susan Hilferty ’75 Nominee, Lestat Chris Akerlind ’89 Nominee, Awake and Sing! Paul Gallo ’77 Nominee, Three Days of Rain

58th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards® September 2006 Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series

Santo Loquasto ’72

Anthony Shalhoub ’80 as Adrian Monk, Winner, Monk

Nominee, Three Days of Rain

Michael Yeargan ’73, Faculty Nominee, Awake and Sing!

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series

Jane Kaczmarek ’82 as Lois, Nominee, Malcolm in the Middle

John Lee Beatty ’73 Nominee, The Color Purple

Derek McLane ’84 Nominee, The Pajama Game

Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series

Christian Clemenson ’84 as Jerry “Hands” Espenson, Winner, Boston Legal

YSD 2006

Sheila Nevins ’63 Winner, I Have Tourette’s But Tourettes Doesn’t Have Me Outstanding Nonfiction Special

Sheila Nevins ’63 Executive Producer, Nominee, All Aboard!

Rosie’s Family Cruise Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking

Sheila Nevins ’63 Executive Producer, Winner, Baghdad ER

Best Lighting Design of a Play

John Lee Beatty ’73 Nominee, Rabbit Hole

Best Scenic Design of a Musical

2006 Pennsylvania Governor’s Awards for the Arts May 2006

Outstanding Children’s Program

Best Play

Lifetime Achievement Award

as Aunt Sarah, Winner, Six Feet Under

William Ivey Long ’75 Winner, Grey Gardens

Ken Travis ’97 Nominee, Abigail’s Party

Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series

Patricia Clarkson ’85

Words & Music Nominee, See What I Wanna See

Nominee, Abigail’s Party

Kate Burton ’82

Our apologies for the following corrections to the previous Yale School of Drama Magazine:

33nd Annual Daytime Emmy Awards® The following honor was omitted: Outstanding Writing in a Children’s Series

Billy Aronson ’83 Nominee, Postcards From Buster A nomination for a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Directing in a Children’s Series was incorrectly attributed to John Ludwig ’63.

In Memoriam Goodloe R. Stuck ’32 4.2.2006

Bert W. Stimmel Jr. ’48 6.15.2005

Jean N. West ’36 3.31.2006

Ralph K. Holmes ’49 9.13.2005

Lawrence Carra ’37 3.30.2006

Dr. Robin Thurlow Lacy ’49 2.4.2006

T. Edward Hambleton ’37 12.17.2005

Georgia A. Boughton ’50 12.17.2005

Charles LeRoy Turner Jr. ’37 6.1.2005

Margaret Laurent ’50 5.6.2006

Janet I. Frey ’38 2.12.2006

Samuel Good ’53 5.9.2005

Mary Cosgrove ’40 8.30.2005

Dr. Fritz Andre Kracht ’53 10.2005

Eleanore (Edwards) Devine ’40 4.25.2005

Carl M. Michel ’54 11.12.2004

George E. Nichols III ’41, yc ’38 12.29.2005

Bob I. Jillson ’55 9.11.2005

Richard O. Fleischer ’42 3.25.2006

Barry Knower ’59 5.20.2005

Barbara B. Montgomery ’44 2.2.2006

James H. Hopkins ’60 3.19.2006

Nina S. Fischer ’46 11.26.2004

Ella Smith/Clare Cameron ’61 8.11.2005

Robert H. Hivnor ’46 9.8.2005

Arthur N. Athanason ’62 9.5.2005

Gloria Fitzpatrick ’47 3.10.2006

Leslie C. McAneny ’63 7.26.2005

Barbara W. Jacks ’47 9.15.2005

Dorothy L. Chace ’64 5.15.2006

Anne Meacham ’47 1.12.2006

Fred Goldsmith ’72 1.10.2006

Martine Bartlett ’48 4.5.2006

Wendy J. Wasserstein ’76 1.30.2006

Sarah S. Bullock ’48 3.1.2006

Kerry Kennedy ’91 2.7.2006

Richard O. “Dick” Fleischer ’42, a film director who worked with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars on hits like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Tora! Tora! Tora!, and Fantastic Voyage, died March 25, 2006. After directing a string of B-movie thrillers and The Happy Time, a 1952 comedy about coming of age in Quebec, Dick was asked by Walt Disney to direct a big-budget movie based on Jules Verne’s novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The decision was not a simple one. His father, Max Fleischer, and Max’s siblings were pioneers in the early days of animation, gaining fame with their Betty Boop and Popeye the Sailor shorts in the 1930’s. Disney, their main rival, was not a popular name in the Fleischer household, and Dick told Disney he would have to ask his father’s permission first. His father told him that he should, of course, take the job. After the success of 20,000 Leagues, Dick began working with major stars on The Vikings, with Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis; Barabbas, with Anthony Quinn; and Tora! Tora! Tora!, a dramatization of the Pearl Harbor attack told from both the American and the Japanese perspective. (He directed the American half.) His other movies include: Che!, starring Omar Sharif as Guevara; Doctor Dolittle, with Rex Harrison talking to the animals; and Soylent Green, named for a futuristic foodstuff; the remake of The Jazz Singer starring Neil Diamond; Amityville 3-D; and Conan the Destroyer. He later told entertaining, often lacerating anecdotes about the actors, producers and other “greats, near-greats and ingrates of Hollywood” in his 1993 memoir, Just Tell Me When to Cry. The title was the actress Sylvia Sidney’s response when Mr. Fleischer, then a young, enthusiastic director, gave a prolonged explanation of her character’s motivation. Though he grew up in a show-business household, Dick intended to become a psychiatrist when he enrolled at Brown University. But after graduation, instead of medical school, he went to Yale School of Drama where he met his future wife, Mary “Mickey” Dickson ’44, who acted in plays that he was directing. While traveling with a theatre troupe after Yale, Dick was spotted by an RKO talent scout and invited to New York to write scripts for newsreels. Then after, a few months in the Army, he moved to Hollywood and began directing noirish B-movies like Trapped, Follow Me Quietly, and Narrow Margin, a cat-and-mouse thriller that takes places almost entirely on a train. Throughout his career, he was attracted to true crime, directing The Boston Strangler, 10 Rillington Place, and Compulsion, about the Leopold and Loeb case. “You cannot be interested in the theatrical world and not be interested in criminology,” Dick said in a 1970 interview with Women’s Wear Daily. “But I’m also interested in fantasy and drama, whatever makes theatre. I’m interested in everything.” Y

YSD 2006

Around the World

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Asa Zatz ’37 writes “I doubt that there are more than a few other specimens of the class of 1937 around and still functioning. I continue to treasure memories of my life at the School of Drama and now, at long last, report that I worked at the trade in Mexico for some 33 years, teaching drama at a University of Mexico experimental theatre school (into which I incorporated four years of study as a doctoral candidate at the School of Anthropology under the GI Bill), lighting the Mexican Folklore Ballet for many years (had a scholarship for a year as an assistant to the great professor of lighting Stanley McCandless), etc., etc. Am pleased herewith to notify that I am still decently alive and functional, have been back in my native land, Manhattan, for over 22 years, have not been associated with theatre now except tangentially, and continue earning my keep with modest success as a translator for 50 years or so. Cordial wishes to all.”

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Ward Costello ’49 writes “Helped with a staging of An Enemy Of The People, at University of Redlands, played Stockman in New York, 1958. Also gave a lecture on Ibsen and Strindberg at U of R. Played The Father in New York, 1949. Circles come round. I was very sad to learn Tunc Yalman ’50 died in Istanbul in March ’06. A good friend, he will be missed. Spending lots of time at Claremont using the library. Reading and writing and drawing. Miss Yale, but life is happy.” Richard Eastman ’40 reports that a volume of his short stories, The Eastman Tales, is being published this spring by North Central College, the Illinois school where he served for 36 years as professor and academic dean. Alfred Golding ’49 writes “In my 81st year, I am enjoying my so-called retirement furiously writing books and banjo-playing, the latter with the Gulf Coast Banjo Society

Alumni Notes and News here on the west coast of sunny Florida. In my writing, I have ventured away from the theatre for the last couple of works to another major interest, the Middle East, its culture, and its recent impact upon the West. All this a consequence of my studying Arabic and, subsequently anthropology, the first before Yale, and the second, after. “My last book, It’s The Culture: Why We Don’t Understand The Middle East And Its Terror, provided an explanation of an atavistic tribalism which survived and still pervades the region. My current work, now undergoing final revision, is Multiculturalism A La Mode: An Indictment. It was written when I became intrigued by the fact that so many people of good will, themselves decent and non-aggressive, would yet sympathize with terrorists and suicide bombers and their cause. Research brought me to the conclusion that it was a moral relativism induced by the insidious belief in multiculturalism that was responsible for a good part of this phenomenon. According to this doctrine, sprung from a mistaken anthropology, all cultures have equal value and hence their morality, no matter how different from ours, has the same value in the scheme of things. Thus, the ethical culture of the Mafia, or of the terrorists now attacking us, according to this relative point-of-view, is equal in its moral quality with that of JudaismChristianity. Why and how they came to this conclusion constitute the content of the book. Cheers to the survivors of the class of ’49!” Mildred Kuner ’47 writes “I’m still working with our drama group here (“Icarus”) reading plays and trying to finish writing a book on three authors. In May I’m joining a Cornell Group that will spend two weeks in London (Art & Theatre), after which I’ll head for Vienna to visit friends and catch up on the “Mozart Year”, which seems inescapable. In August, I go to Canada with the Yale group for a week of theatre in Stratford and Niagara-on-the-Lake. It shouldn’t be hard to guess from which Yale school I graduated so long ago!” Julia Meade Rudd ’47 writes “I pretty much retired in 1993. Didn’t want to work all ....continued on next page

YSD 2006

Jack Jacobs ’47 Long before coming to YSD as a playwright, Jack Jacobs got a remarkable education on how to be a writer. Two years after being drafted into the Army during WWII, he was assigned to Special Services and charged with producing shows to entertain his fellow soldiers. “The morale was so bad that the boys were committing suicide,” he says, and it was his job to help turn them around. Building on his experience in the service, Jacobs entered Yale School of Drama directly after being discharged from the Army. “Being at Yale was the best part of my life,” he recalls. “We were brothers and sisters at arms.” He felt so at home, in fact, that after earning a certificate in playwriting in 1947, he went back the next year for post-grad work in directing. His training prepared him for life in the newly emerging world of television, where he built his career writing made-for-TV movies and episodes of series like “Dragnet” and “U.S. Marshal.” Jacobs slowed down a bit after undergoing triple bypass surgery in 1980, but that doesn’t mean he has stopped working. Asked how he passes his time, he announces, “Still writing! What else does a writer do when retired?” Liv Nilssen ’06

Photo by Sylvia Mautner

Alumni Notes and News love, sex, and compassion. We’re pretty sure the York Theatre in Manhattan will (well maybe…we’ll see…I don’t know…hope for the best) give it a reading.” Robert Brustein ’51, hon ’66, Former Dean writes “I published Letters to a Young Actor (Basic Books) last year, and I am preparing to publish Millennial Stages: Essays and Reviews 2001-2005 (Yale University Press) in October. My play, The Face Lift, is being published by Smith and Krause, and I have another book scheduled for 2007 with Yale University Press called Shakespeare Matters. My play, Spring Forward, Fall Back, will be produced by the Vineyard Playhouse in July and by Theatre J in Washington next October. My new play about Shakespeare and Marlowe, The English Channel, is receiving a reading at the Players Julia Meade Rudd ’47 Club, sponsored by the Shakespeare Society, and there will be another reading at the .... continued from previous page American Repertory Theatre Institute.” over the US. Also, wanted to be able to Peter Donat ’53 writes “At this point in sleep in my own bed. I live in NYC and my life I find myself writing both poetry and have a house in Pound Ridge, NY. I go to the plays, the latest of the latter concerning the theatre here in NY a lot, and belong to the great Sherlock Holmes who, at the outbreak Metropolitan Opera. One daughter lives in of World War I while successfully tracking Rome, Italy, and the other in Burlington, VT. down a brilliant German scientist, finds I visit them and the grandchildren a lot— himself unexpectedly involved not only also here in New York I have friends who in a search for the true identity of William went to the School of Drama.” Shakespeare, but also, and quite surprisingly, that of Sherlock Holmes!” Eugene Gurlitz ’57 writes “Here is the news from Fearrington Village, North Carolina. ............................ The YSD contingent is now three. Charles Rosen ’55 relocated from Los Angeles. Bob Herbert Appleman’s ’58 new version of Barr ’52 is still delighting audiences from HMS Pinafore, subtitled Dauntless Dick DC south, while I busy myself with lighting Deadeye, was nominated for an Olivier Award local productions. Marvin March ’55 and his in the category of Outstanding Musical wife Rita visited from LA a couple of months Production. The play, which expands on the ago and we hosted a lox and bagel brunch role of Deadeye as more than just a villain, was recreating our memories of Flexer’s Pharmacy well received by audiences and critics alike, and Julie Feldman’s lunch counter. We are all receiving 4 stars from London’s Sunday Times. feeling well and Charlie and I are considering Bob Barr ’52 writes “In 2005, I did two plays pooling our 100 years of design expertise and in Washington DC—Black Milk at Studio forming a mini local of USA 829.” Theatre and Humble Boy at Washington Stage Guild, then returned to NC to do Cat on a Herbert Hot Tin Roof for Hot Summer Nights at the Appleman ’58 Kennedy and Taming of the Shrew for Burning Coal Theatre Co. Then, to start 2006, back to DC to do Measure for Measure at the Folger and now again back in NC to do Cyrano de Bergerac for Playmakers Repertory Co. Just finishing up draft of a new play, as well. Glad to be able to still do it at 81 and happy to hear from old friends and classmates.” Ronald Bazarini ’55 writes “Corinna Manetto and I have just finished our new musical: Oliver’s Idea—a comic, dark tale of

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YSD 2006

Robert Brustein ’51, HON ’66, former Dean

Carol Thompson Hemingway ’55 writes “My adaptation of Hemingway’s short stories, It Just Catches, which played at the Cherry Lane in New York in 2003, toured 44 Montana communities in a production sponsored by the Montana Repertory Company. Now the Rep’s director, Greg Johnson, and I received an NEA grant to further develop the play with Melvin Bernhardt ’55 as consultant. The first step was a March reading at the Abingdon Theatre in New York.” Geoffrey Johnson ’55 The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts hosted “Geoffrey Johnson and Friends” including Geoff, Melvin Bernhardt ’55, Nancy Piccione ’73 and others in a presentation of “The Right Audition to Get the Part” in January, 2006. Romulus Linney’s ’58 new play, Klonsky And Schwartz premiered at the Ensemble Studio Theatre in NYC in December. A memoir, Over Martinis, In Bed, Driving Somewhere, appears in the spring issue of The Yale Review. Edgar R. Loessin ’54 writes “Since 1993 I have been reviewing the arts scene in the greater Norfolk area of Virginia for WHROFM. My commentaries are now being pod cast. If you wish to pay a visit, go to www.WHRO. org. On the left side of your screen you will see “Loessin at Large.” Click that to reach my web site, where you can read or hear my reviews.” Gordon Micunis ’59, and his partner, Jay Kobrin ’61 will again be in residence at their hacienda in Santa Fe. So any alumni in the area please call and visit. Gordon and Jay are, after 26 years in Stamford, CT, presently

Around the World living in New York City, actively designing in the interior design field. Gordon’s installation: THE 500 MONA LISAS will open at El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe on June 9th, and be on view for the rest of the month. This collection of 500 original monoprints commemorates Leonardo’s completion of the Mona Lisa portrait, 500 years ago, in 1506. George Morfogen ’57 writes “During February and March 2006, I played the King of France in All’s Well That Ends Well at The David Pomeran ’55 and wife, Joan McCall Duke on 42nd Street Theatre. The Theatre for a New Audience production was directed by Darko Tresnjak; the dramaturg was Michael Feingold ’72. I am also featured in the short therapist as well as a physical therapist. He film, Shiner, written and directed by Mike was speaking carefully but distinctly at Doyle which was a Tribeca Film Festival Christmas in 2004, and this past December selection.” he reported that he still ‘worked out’ but felt Viriginia Pils ’52 writes “The following secure enough to audition for 3 Broadway are reports on two of my classmates: D. parts and 2 commercials. According to Bill, William “Billy” Duell ’52 has been part of ‘I’m still waiting to hear about the auditions, the acting scene in New York since 1953. In but I don’t care. I did it!! I actually did the 2004 he suffered a stroke, but being a tough auditions.’ As a classmate and old friend, guy, he went to work with a vocal and speech I’m so proud of him.

Edward Trach ’58 Ed Trach, a current member of the Yale School of Drama Leadership Council, arrived in New Haven as a directing student and burgeoning playwright, expecting to go into the theatre upon graduation. But when offered a chance to join Procter & Gamble Productions, a major producer of daytime serials, he accepted, thinking he might stay for a year to learn television. Instead, he remained for thirty-six years, first as Supervising Producer of series like “As the World Turns” and “Guiding Light,” and then as Vice President, Executive in Charge of Production of six shows. “My creative and production training at Yale proved invaluable in television,” Trach says. “On a typical show, our challenge was to manage six story lines, thirty characters, a dozen writers, a large producing and administrative staff, directors, designers, technicians, and 60 to 80 recurring sets. We produced 250 original episodes each year—with no repeats.” A highlight of Trach’s career came just before retirement when he accepted the Lifetime Achievement Emmy awarded to Procter & Gamble Productions, the first Emmy ever presented to a production organization. “It was the best kind of Emmy because it honored the dedication, talent, and hard work of all our creative and technical people that had made it possible.” Years later, Trach returned to what he started out to do—write musicals and plays. His musical adaptation of Wuthering Heights was produced by the Olney Theater Center. His chamber opera, a musical setting of Love Letters, the play by longtime friend and YSD classmate, A.R. Gurney ’58, was performed at the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music and at Carnegie Mellon University in 2005. And a new musical that draws on Trach’s experiences in the soaps has just won a grant from the Playwrights Initiative in Cincinnati, where it will be developed this year. “I feel so fortunate to have enjoyed a long career in television, and to have the opportunity now to work on my own projects for the theatre. I’ll always be grateful to Yale—where it all began.” Rebecca Rindler ’08

YSD 2006

“Now I’ve heard another nerve-wracking story of a survivor from New Orleans, I must tell you I’m very proud of my acting classmate, Doris Payne Williams ’52. Now in a wheelchair, she suffered a harrowing experience during Hurricane Katrina. She apologized to me for not writing earlier (she hadn’t her address book)!! I had just written in December saying that she must be all right, because the ground was higher in the French Quarter district. At home, only the washer and dryer had to be replaced, and she was relieved that her cats were in the garden and the adult pythons were still in her daughter’s bathtub, unaware of all the commotion. I hope sincerely that she’s been returned by now (January they said) and is having some security and peace.” David Sheldon Pomeran ’55 writes “Between producing and directing movies I have been operating the Hollywood Writers Studio with my wife Joan McCall and doing a lot of script doctoring and ghostwriting. Joan and I write a minimum of four screenplays a year each. Our book When I Knew Al: The Untold Story of Al Pacino was just published by Harbor House, rated by Publishers Weekly as one of America’s top 15 small publishing houses. We are always on the move doing interviews and book signings. Our website is www.WhenIKnewAl.com.” Philip Rosenberg ’59 will design Accordion, a film written by John Patrick Shanley which will be directed by Norman Jewison. The movie is expected to begin filming in June, and will reunite the production team responsible for Moonstruck. Ruth Wolff ’57 writes “My play Beyond Gravity, which premiered at the New Jersey Repertory Company and was subsequently produced at Barter Theatre, the State Theatre of Virginia, has been published by Broadway Play Publishing. It’s a three character play about a crisis in the professional and private lives of a couple. One reviewer described it this way: “Compelling...High art...a play about life’s seemingly neurotic nuances that challenges the viewer to admit that we all have to fool ourselves sometimes in order to deal with life.” Since I find it difficult to describe my work myself, I’m happy with this description, which comes as close as any has to characterizing this highly complex work. Best wishes to all.”

Alumni Notes and News the New York Encore! series. We have a highly motivated Board of Directors consisting of ............................ local community leaders who are determined to make northwestern Montana a cultural David Ackroyd ’68 writes “Whoever would as well as a recreational destination and a have expected—and certainly I didn’t—that distinguished Honorary Board made up of shortly before reaching an age at which the YSD alumni James Naughton ’70 and Henry vagaries of Medicare Plan D would Winkler ’70 as well as John Lithgow, Harry figure prominently in my plans for the future Groener, Dawn Didawick, Robert Goulet, Jim I would find myself embarking on a brand Nabors, Olympia Dukakis and Louis Zorich. new theatrical adventure, one which I had Little did I expect that at this point in my life never, ever seriously considered undertaking, I would be working so hard for so little money. and, in fact, had been warned against by no Of course, the personal rewards are immense less than Bob Brustein ’51, hon ’66, Former so all I can say is, “Thank you Equity, SAG and Dean—that of establishing a regional theatre, AFTRA Health and Retirement Funds! albeit a small one? I have always found my “So if you ever get to this gorgeous part of life to be touched by strokes of extraordinary the world, let me know. I’d love to introduce good luck (not the least of which was to have you to our natural wonders such as Glacier been accepted by YSD all those years ago.) In National Park and our new cultural wonder, 2003, close upon the heels of a short run at The Alpine Theatre Project. You can reach me Manhattan’s Cherry Lane Theatre in a play by at david@alpinetheatreproject.org.” YSD alumna (and fellow Montana resident) Stephen Arnold ’60 writes “Jane and I Carol Hemingway ’55 based on the writings spend the coldest months of the winter in of her late father-in-law Ernest, good fortune Palm Beach, FL. By the time you read this, once again changed the course of my life in we’ll be in our home in East Goshen, PA the form of an opportunity to put together a about 45 minutes northwest of Philadelphia. professional summer season with two fellow We’ve been there 4 years. In Palm Beach, expatriates from the New York theatre scene. the community is trying to save the Royal “Aspiring to nothing more than not taking Poinciana Playhouse. We are trying to reach a financial bath, we put together a modest anyone who worked there. If you worked or budget of $19,000 to fund a production of performed there at any time, kindly drop me the perennial off-Broadway musical review a note at: Stephen Arnold, 338 Applebrook I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, which Drive, Malvern, PA 19335.” I directed, starring my partners and two Bob Auletta ’69 writes “Dear Friends, I local non-professionals. To make a long, thought you might like to know that my and sometimes difficult, story short, not play The Persians, a Gulf War adaptation only did we make money but we now find of Aeschylus’ great play, concerning the ourselves a completely independent nondestruction of the Persian fleet at the battle profit called The Alpine Theatre Project (www. of Salamis, is going to be performed in alpinetheatreproject.org), an Equity Small Washington, DC, opening July 16. It was Professional Theatre about to present our first performed in 1993, directed by Peter fourth season with a budget approaching Sellars, and produced in many European cities $300,000. including Paris, Salzburg, Edinburgh and “Our past two seasons were made up of Berlin, to both accolades and controversy. But productions of Jason Robert Brown’s Songs for the strongest reaction came in Los Angeles, a New World, Art, My Fair Lady and K2 and the at the Mark Taper Forum, where each night summer of 2006 will bring Camelot and Steve hundreds of people fled the theatre in an Martin’s Picasso at the Lapin Agile to Whitefish. uproar, angry at the graphic description of the We have employed Equity actors from effect of American weaponry on the people Montana, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and of Iraq, not to mention, disturbed by the Nashville with cumulative Broadway credits sometimes terrifying sound score that Peter that number well over 50. We will move into and his design team had created. Personally, a new $3 million theatre in 2007 and by 2008 I feel that the metaphorical structure of become a year-round operation with three the play goes beyond simply critiquing the summer productions, two spring productions devastating effect of American fire power on (perhaps including new plays), an original a lesser enemy, but is ultimately concerned holiday production (we’ve already done two of with the similarities of both of these empires, these) and a concert version of a well-known and the dangers that unchecked hubris musical with the local symphony styled after and insularity can bring to them and their

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YSD 2006

people. The play is a production of the Scena Theater, directed by Robert McNamara. It will be performed at the Tivoli Theatre in Washington DC. I hope you are all well, thriving and exuberant. Best wishes.” John Badham ’63, yc ’61 writes “My new book I’ll Be In My Trailer, The Creative War Between Directors and Actors will be published by Focal Press in the late summer. The book deals with directors working with “difficult” actors based on my 35 years of experience in theatre, film and television.” Elaine Berman ’64 writes “After a lifetime of corporate, educational and theatre writing, in which I also loved being a writing workshop participant for a number of years, I am now a teacher. For the past two years, I have led two writing workshops at the New York Society for Ethical Culture called “The Joy of Personal Writing.” The adults in the workshops are smart and talented, and I am having a wonderful time helping toe-in-thewater writers go for the deep end.” William Boardman ’64 writes (from the wilderness of Vermont) “Currently I’m part of “Shabby’s History Hour,” a weekly radio show (WCFR, Springfield, Vermont, 1480 AM, Saturdays at 9 a.m.) that might be gone by the time this is read. I appear as a different Dead Guest associated with the history topic of the week, such as today it was Iran and I was Asha Khurda Ormuz, the bastard son of Cyrus the Great, taking the long view of my dad’s empire and its emphasis on human rights, as compared to and contrasted with our own beloved American empire and its impending (as I write) attack on another ancient civilization. Last fall I directed a reading of Guantanamo: ‘Honor Bound To Defend Freedom’ and I’ve produced a couple of political comedy CDs available from www.cdbaby.com —Please Rise Against OUR NATIONAL ANATHEMA and the earlier NOT EXTINCT—Just Blacklisted By Vermont Public Radio (which is

Alumni Services Questions regarding the School of Drama, your classmates, alumni events? We are always available via email at ysd.alumni@yale.edu and phone at (800) YSD CUES (973 2837) or (203) 432 1536. Many other alumni services are also available through the Association of Yale Alumni website at www.aya.yale.edu including the Online Alumni Directory and the Yale Career Network.

Around the World a true fact). And this is an election year for my long-running (since 1991) performance as Assistant Judge in the Superior, Family, Small Claims, and Traffic Courts of Windsor County.” Robin Carey ’64 writes “My latest book, Upstream: Sons, Fathers & Rivers, has just been released by Oregon State University Press.”

Ann Farris ’63 Ann Farris is proof that we cannot always predict how our careers will unfold. To begin, she studied technical/design/ lighting at YSD. Her career began as a stage manager and completed as Producer of the World Festival at the1986 World Exposition. Then at age forty-five, Farris was diagnosed with severe dyslexia. She moved away from her arts career to explore her condition, and turned her discoveries into her 2004 book The Other Side of Dyslexia. Farris is one of those who strongly believes that dyslexics have unique talents which can bring great success. Since they experience life spatially, she asserts, they are able to think differently, meaning it is easier for them to see the big picture and not get bogged down with details. She feels this skill has helped her immensely in her career. For more information on Farris’ work which also includes a DVD titled Dyslexia: Taking Control of Your Confusion please visit www.dyslexiadiscovery.com/. Roberta Pereira ’08

Lonnie Carter ’69 writes “My play Organizing Abraham Lincoln, written with union organizer Rich Klimmer, will be performed for the American Federation of Teachers’ Convention this July in Boston. It was originally commissioned by the Guthrie Theater and the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis. My play The Lost Boys of Sudan will be produced by the Children’s Theatre Company in early 2007. Wheatley, my play about the African-American poet Phillis Wheatley was done last fall at Victory Gardens in Chicago and was named one of the ten best productions of 2005 by the Chicago SunTimes. The Romance of Magno Rubio, which won 8 Obies in 2003, continues to be produced around the country, last seen at Long Wharf in the spring of 2005. I have a commission from The Sloane Foundation through Ensemble Studio Theater and Victory Gardens to do a play about Stephen Hawking, called Hawking.” Robert Cohen ’64 writes “To my astonishment, I found myself back in the chair of the UCI Drama Department I helped found and first chaired 41 years ago! I also directed Twelfth Night at the Colorado Shakespeare last summer, Kiss Me, Kate on my campus this March, and will be directing a brilliant new play, Railroad, for the Sibiu Theatre Festival in Romania this spring. In summer, I will be directing my own play, The Prince (about guess which Renaissance Florentine political writer and playwright) at the Victory Theatre in Los Angeles in August.”

Elaine Berman ’64 Dr. Ramon Delgado ’67 was recently awarded the title Professor Emeritus after teaching and directing at Montclair State University for twenty-five years. His one-act play Waiting for the Bus, which appears in two anthologies and an acting edition, will be presented at his undergraduate alma mater Stetson University in March as part of Stetson’s 100th year of theatre on campus and the 75th anniversary of Stover Theatre, where he spent most of his undergraduate years building and painting sets, hanging lights, stage managing, and acting in numerous productions. Clark Duncan ’60 writes “I had a ‘semi’ (sold half of the paintings) successful exhibit of oil paintings this fall. I’m retiring after 18 years of teaching at the Greer Garson Theatre Center. Asked by the Santa Fe Opera to design lunchtime and cabaret setting for brown bagging and cocktails. Will also be designing the opening show at the GGTC

Kiss Me Kate directed by Robert Cohen ’64 at UC Irvine

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Alumni Notes and News as well as a production of Desk Set at the Montergomeryville Theatre in Pennsylvania. My original plan was to retire and paint, period. I’ve made a slight adjustment....” Leslie Epstein ’67 writes “I wrote a number of plays after graduating from Yale and one of them won the Samuel Goldwyn Award at UCLA back in 1963. This was real money and a big deal in those days. But neither that play nor the others I wrote at the time got full productions. On the other hand, a short story was published in a very good place, and so was another, and I let inertia (or is it momentum?) carry me into fiction. My tenth novel, The Eighth Wonder of the World, will be out in October. But here is the real news: an adaptation of one of those novels, King of the Jews, will at last be given a serious production in Boston next February, and, encouraged by that, I recently adapted another novel, San Remo Drive, for the stage and have some realistic hope of that being done as well. It is beginning to dawn on me that I made a 40year detour away from what I was meant to do. The San Remo Drive adaptation took five weeks to write: the novel, five years. If one reads any of those books, he’d find plenty of evidence of nostalgia for the stage. That is, a play is built into most of the books—in King of the Jews, the children of the Ghetto put on Macbeth; The Seagull is at the center of Regina; Pandaemonium is built entirely around Antigone. I didn’t give up without a kind of fight. Now we shall see if I can return to what John Gassner taught me so well in New Haven. I look forward to the adventure.” Richard Foreman ’62 was recently awarded the rank of Officier in the Order of Arts and Letters of the French Government. His new play Zomboid played at Ontological Theater at St. Mark’s Church in NYC from January to mid-April 2006. He goes next to Portugal, England, Japan and Germany to film material for a 2007 production. This summer, he will direct and design an opera, What to Wear with music by Michael Gordon, which will be produced for a three week run by CalArts at the RedCat Theater in the Gehry/Disney Concert Hall in LA, in September. His newest collection of plays, Bad Boy Nietzsche and Other Plays, was published this spring. Carolyn Gaiser ’60 writes “Since the beginning of my 8 year romance with my companion, Roger Williams, I’ve been experiencing a remarkable new wave of creativity. Not only in my writing, but in what I jokingly call my “outsider art”: whimsical cards made, over the years, to mark special moments, and my annual hand-made

Valentines to the VILLAGE VANGUARD. Large heart-shaped collages illustrating romantic jazz ballads—a tradition that began with a tribute I wrote (published in February ’91) to the VANGUARD on its 57th birthday. Roger’s zany humor has sparked my own; like sunshine dancing on water, laughter lights up our days.” Robert Greenwood ’67 of Canadian-based Sun.Ergos, A Company of Theatre and Dance, celebrated sixty years in theatre this March. Robert, who went to Canada in 1973 to chair the Acting-Directing Program at the University of Calgary after chairing the Acting Program at the University of Oklahoma, began in community theatre in New Hampshire at the age of five.With Sun.Ergos, he has traveled to seventeen countries on four continents, representing Alberta and Canada to the international performing arts community. He is one of the Founding Directors of Sun. Ergos, and has been its Artistic and Managing Director since 1977. Vern Hinkle ’61 writes “Work with one-acts continues tenaciously. Two were recently presented in festival productions: Another Ship by N.E.A.T. in New Haven, and Since Day One by Gettysburg College, PA.” Susan Horowitz ’69 writes “I now host an Internet Radio Show: Creative Conversations with Dr. Sue. The program includes interviews with creative, exciting people behind the hot shows, books, films, recordings…with smart, savvy advice to help you ‘Create the life you want!’ Also great music to uplift your spirit! Guests include: Julie Gold—Grammy Award Winner and Kwan Foye—best-selling urban novelist! Go to: www.tribecaradio.net. Click on Hosts and scroll down! Regular Broadcast Times: Tuesday at 11 am, Thursday at 9 pm, Sunday at 1 pm. Permanent archives of shows are on www.creativeconversations.com. Stay tuned! My web site: www.drsue.com.” Carol Soucek King ’67 writes “For decades, I have been writing about interior Robert Greenwood ’67

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design instead of pursuing the acting/drama criticism/theatre history with which I had been involved. My twelfth book on design/ gardens/architecture will be published this summer 2006 by HarperCollins’ Collins Design. It is titled Unique Homes: Personalize Your Home through Good Design. It reflects part of an idea I have been writing about ever since my days at Yale School of Drama when I became interested in the spirit of the forms all around us—whether in art or life or the environment. Ever since, I have observed how the design of our own homes doesn’t just stimulate others, but also profoundly affects our own personal experience; it reverberates back to us on a daily basis and tells us how we want to live, who we truly are, and who we wish to be. “Throughout, Unique Homes shows how people in vastly different circumstances use form, color, texture, light, proportion, and material to create living spaces that truly express who they are. They have constructed their home and, ultimately, their universe using truly unique design.” Ray Klausen ’67 writes “I have been busy designing sets for Debbie Allen’s Dancing in the Wings for the Kennedy Center and later for the Freud Playhouse in Los Angeles. My Broadway shows Brooklyn the Musical and On Golden Pond with James Earl Jones both closed on the same day (not a good day!) but are going out on tour this summer. On Golden Pond will star Richard Chamberlain and Hayley Mills. I also designed a large IBM industrial out in San Diego and am currently working on a concert for Sting here in New York City and a new musical based on Cole Porter’s The Pirate at the Prince Music Theater in Philadelphia. Upcoming projects are: Boy Meets Boy Off-Broadway and three musicals which are still in the early stages of getting to Broadway and we all know what the odds of that are.” Allen Klein’s ’62 The Wise and Witty Quote Book: 2,000 Quotations to Enlighten, Encourage, and Enjoy, was just published by Gramercy Books, a division of Random House. Allan Knee ’69 writes “Little Women—the musical—has been on a highly successful National Tour with Maureen McGovern. I am currently writing a musical adaptation of Finding Neverland for the Weinstein Company—and doing a workshop of my play, The Jazz Age, a three-character drama dealing with the lives of Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Zelda Sayre. Syncopation, a play which won an American Theater Critics award, has just had an option taken for a New York production.”

Around the World Stephen Keep Mills ’69 has just completed A Cigar at the Beach, a 15-min short which marks his debut as a writer/director of film. Shot in 35mm, Cigar boasts the talents of Svetlana Efremova ’97 and Stephanie Nash ’88, and has six fests lined up so far, two of them in Europe, one in New Haven. Come visit: www.triskelionent.com. Tom Moore ’68 writes “Directed a new play The Lady With All The Answers at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, and directed the Showtime Television Series “Huff.” And I continue with my work on the flying trapeze.” Joseph Nassif ’63 writes “Having retired as Chair/Producing Director of the Annie Russell Theatre—Rollins College (24 years)— I am sharing half the year in Winter Park, FL, and my favorite domicile in Iowa. Recently guest directed an Equity production at the Annie Russell. Keeping active as Class Agent ’63—and a member of Yale Alumni Schools Committee (ASC). The National Theatre Conference is a great time to reunite with fellow School of Drama alums.” Richard Olson ’69 writes that he completed 365, a set of poems written every day for a year. He did a solo performance piece, Over My Dead Body, at HERE Arts Center and was in a trio with the Department of Correctional Dance at Dance Theater Workshop, in Manhattan. He also facilitated the Yale Drama Tightcircle, an online discussion group. Michael Posnick ’69 completes his twelfth year as Director of the Department of Dance & Theatre at Manhattanvile College, Purchase, NY, and is co-editor with Ellen Schiff of Nine Contemporary Jewish Plays, a recent publication by University of Texas Press, featuring Pulitzer Prize winner Donald Margulies’ adaptation of God of Vengeance and Elise Thoron’s klezmer fantasy Green Violin. Robert Rosenblum ’61 After leaving John Gassner’s playwriting seminar, he found himself living in England for 8 years, where somewhat to his own surprise he did not Stephen Keep Mills CDR ’69, MFA ’89

try to emulate Shakespeare...but started writing and publishing novels—of various genre, all under various pseudonyms—over 30 published to date, some movie-ized...and sales in the millions. He writes now because, at long last, he has returned to the riskier pastime (profession?) of playwriting, and has just this March completed a thriller-murder play, which can only be done on Broadway... and will try ANY route to possible production. He lives in New York (under his own name) and can be found in the phonebook...the one on 11th Street. Stefan Rudnicki ’68 writes “I’m still working in the audiobook industry (it’ll soon be twelve years), as producer, director, narrator and publisher, operating out of my little recording facility in Studio City, California. Last May I received an Audie Award (the audio equivalent to an Oscar) for Orson Scott Card’s Lost Boys, which I narrated and produced. My finalist for this year’s award is Shadow of the Giant, also by Card. Also, my production of Mercury by Ben Bova was named one of the best audiobooks of 2005 by Publishers Weekly. Other critically acclaimed productions in recent months have included Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes; Card’s Magic Street (winner of AudioFile Magazine’s Earphones Award); King Kong, the novelization of the original motion picture featuring commentary by Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Ray Harryhausen and others; and Meeting Across The River, a collection of stories inspired by the Bruce Springsteen song. Next step…utilizing the resources with which I’ve been blessed to make a couple of movies.” Michael Rutenberg (’60, dfa ’65) writes “I was in Israel in 2005 on a Fulbright grant as an Artist/Writer-in-Residence at Haifa University where I taught a master class in acting, and directed a very successful production of my published adaptation of Seneca’s Oedipus translated into Hebrew. Hearing the play in a language that was spoken at the same time Latin was a living language brought a new sense of dramatic authenticity to the production even though I set the play in a futuristic military regime in the near future, where the plague was thought at first to be a bio-terrorist attack. The setting was an underground command-andcontrol center part of which also included a bedroom for Oedipus and Jocasta. Everyone who came and went either took off or donned decontamination suits.” Clarence “Beeb” Salzar ’60, yc ’55 writes “I am, at my advanced age, still teaching at San Diego State University in a department with

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Michael Rutenberg’s ’60, DFA ’65 production of Seneca’s Oedipus in Israel 550 theatre, television, and film students. This past summer I returned to Vladivostok for the fifth time and designed sets, costumes, and lights for the Maxim Gorky Dramatic Theatre’s production of Romeo and Juliet. Two graduate students went with me as assistants. And I am, still writing a column, “The Subtext,” for every issue of Theatre Design and Technology.” Russ Treyz ’65 writes “In January, I directed Cat on a Hot Tin Roof for Arts Center of Coastal Carolina. In March I directed a new version of Around the World in 80 Days by Mark Brown for Florida Studio Theater in Sarasota, FL. This version has been making the rounds of regional theatres. I stage it with 5 actors, a table, and four chairs. The production has already played at the Utah Shakespearean Festival, Orlando Shakespeare Festival, Arts Center of Coastal Carolina, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, and the Cape Playhouse. It’s scheduled to appear at Syracuse Stage in the fall. Later this spring, I’ll be directing As You Like It for the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival.” Joan Van Ark ’64 returned to the stage in Tennessee Williams’ A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur at the Hartford Stage this past spring. She also recently appeared in a “Knots Landing” Reunion with the other cast members of the long running CBS Television

Stefan Rudnicki ’69

Alumni Notes and News hit. For more information, please visit www. knotslanding.net. Last year, she performed in the world premier of Mark O’Donnell’s new adaptation of Private Fittings by Georges Feydeau at La Jolla Playhouse. Steve Van Benschoten ’69 has been working for WJFF (90.5 FM & online at www. wjffradio.org), a public radio station in the Catskill Mountains. His show “RetroRadio” airs every Friday morning from 11:00 to 12:00. He features excerpts from classic comedy programs of the golden age of radio, as well as lots of big band swing music. Steve claims his commentary and witty observations are pretty near priceless. Also, his daughter Elizabeth is to be married in June. Susan Yankowitz ’68 has been selected as a HERE resident artist (HARP) in the theatre’s Dream Music Program, along with her collaborator Ralph Lee, for a new puppet drama, The Ludicrous Trial of Mr. P. For updated reports, consult the website, www.here.org. Excerpts from Chéri, an opera with libretto by Susan and music by Michael Dellaira, were selected for performance by artists from Portland Opera and Tacoma Opera as part of OPERA America’s New Works Sampler this past May. Chéri was also a finalist for the Richard Rogers Award. Slain In The Spirit, a gospel-and-blues opera with composer Taj Mahal and the Lafayette Inspirational Choir is scheduled for a workshop in November 2006, and Foreign Bodies, will be given a workshop/ performance at Sanctuary Theatre in Brattleboro, VT, from August 20 – September 3, 2006. It has also reached the semi-finals in the 2006 O’Neill Playwrights Conference. More information can be obtained through http://sanctuarytheatre.home.pipeline.com. A monologue from the play is included in the forthcoming anthology, Scenes and Monologues from the Best New Plays II, edited by Roger Ellis. Twelve plays written by Susan will soon be available through the Women’s Drama collection of Alexander Street Press at www. alexanderstreetpress.com. And a new play will be workshopped in early 2007 at Vox Nova, a collaborative company in San Diego, directed by Kirsten Brandt.

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Robert Blackman ’70 writes “Recently, I designed costumes for the premiere production of David Rambo’s The Lady With

All the Answers at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre, and the reopening production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood. I am currently designing costumes for the American premiere of iWitness at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and designing the set for All My Sons at the Geffen (my first set design ever in LA!). In February, I received the Spotlight Career Achievement Award in Television from the Costume Designers Guild. Over six hundred hours of television—how did that happen?” Rich Bynum ’79 writes “I have been keeping very busy with my scenery company, Hawkeye Scenic Studios, here in Chicago. We have been doing a variety of theatre, television, opera, and industrial shows. Right now we are loading in the Chicago production of Putnam County Spelling Bee. We also recently did a beautiful gravel groundcloth for the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Orfeo. “My wife, Jennifer Stevenson, has just turned in the first book of two that will hopefully lead to a series. These are fantastical romantic comedies. The first book comes out in a year and a half, followed by the second book two months later.” Martin Caan ’72 writes “The Winter Party in Pasadena was great fun. After a bit of a lull I am gearing up to produce and finance five independent pictures in the next two years. My most recent, National Lampoons Adam & Eve was just released by New Line Cinema. I am always looking for very avant garde scripts as lower budget indie films really need to be different to stand out. I would love to see material from the School of Drama family. I can be reached by email at marty@ freecarmedia.com.” Andrew Carson ’79 writes “Five years out from the regional theatres now, and the only real change is I miss my friends. Zero to project manager for high end condo buildings in nothing flat. The audience is smaller, and the ticket prices a little higher, but there is still an ’opening night’. Biggest difference—I have nights, weekends, to call my own. Time for recycled recumbent bikes, which are my

hobby to build (www.recycledrecumbent.com) and ride!” David Chambers ’71 writes “Spring 2005: directed world premiere of Noah Haidle’s Princess Marjorie at South Coast Repertory and radical interpretation of Shakespeare’s Merchant Of Venice with much multi-media at Milwaukee Shakespeare Company; both productions ended up on numerous “Year’s Best” lists. “Fall 2005: staged several sequences for The Good Shepherd a nine-figure feature film (yes, $100,000,000+) produced and directed by Robert DeNiro and starring Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie. Best quote from Damon when I teased him about not coming to YSD from Harvard: “I really wanted to but my career got in the way.” I reminded him that we sometimes take older students and there might still be time. Also served as consultant for The New School in New York writing a lengthy report on the state of theatre training today—conclusion: dismal and irrelevant— and suggesting new approaches for renewal of The New School for Drama and the field. “Spring 2006: Directing Hell, an avant-garde opera at PS122 in NYC; also working as producer/director of Don Juan In Prague, my adaptation of Mozart’s Don Giovanni starring a Czech avant-garde singer/violinist/actress backed by digital music and media. This production will be an expansion of the one first presented at Bard Summerscape International Arts Festival in 2003. “Fall 2006: In October Don Juan In Prague will premiere on the stage of The Stavovske Theatre in Prague, site of the premiere production of Don Giovanni, conducted by Mozart. In December the production will move to The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) where it will close out the Mozart 250th jubilee year. Some former and current YSD students and faculty were/are involved in these productions.” Lani Click ’73 writes “My company, Palm Beach Purses llc, participated in Office Depot’s Success Strategies for Businesswomen in March 2006. We have been asked to design a purse for the charity, “Dress for Success,” which provides business attire for women seeking work. We will be donating a portion of the proceeds to the organization.” William Conner ’79 who has worked as a professional theatre consultant since 1982, and who specializes in comprehensive systems planning and facility design services for assembly and performing arts programs, has formed his own theatre consulting firm, Andrew Carson ’79 on his recycled recumbent bike Bill Conner Associates, based in Oak Park, IL.

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Around the World Charles Andrew Davis ’76 writes “Joe Grifasi ’75 was out here in March, then on to Steve Robman’s ’73; Howard Stein (Former Faculty) is lecturing at USC; Ken Ryan ’76, his wife Karin, Ed Gold ’76 and I had dinner with Howard at USC’s Faculty Room. My brother, John Floyd Davis (Spec. Student ’79—I think) flew to South Africa on a location scout with Danny Glover on a Toussaint film project; additionally, John is working on August Rush a film directed by Irishman Jim Sheridan’s daughter. Joel Polis ’76 produced Flags at The Odyssey Theatre out here. Ciao.” Abigail Franklin ’78 writes “I am an Assistant United States Attorney in the Criminal Division for the Central District of California, in Los Angeles.” Denise Gordon ’78 writes “Having directed three features, I now find that television is where some of the best work can still be done. I have directed episodes this season of Everybody Hates Chris, Kitchen Confidential, The Loop, and multiple episodes of The Office. My pilot for ABC Family, Beautiful People, was just picked up for a second season, and I am currently directing the FOX comedy “Big Handsome Guy” and the ABC comedy “Our Thirties”. I am also writing a screenplay based on the British best seller, A Special Relationship, set in the Middle East and London for producer Denise Di Novi.” Kathleen Gray ’70 writes “My son, Peter Stadlen, who was in The Mystery Plays at Yale Rep in 2004, just finished starring in After Ashley at the Philadelphia Theatre Company. He was fabulous—the critics said so too.” Barnet Kellman ’72 writes “I’ve spent this past season directing the NBC comedy Four Kings. Currently I’m directing a pilot for TBS whose working title is My Boys and one for CBS called The Angriest Man in Suburbia. Also my daughter, Kate, who is a senior at the Harvard-Westlake School here has been assistant directing and student directing under the brilliant tutelage of Ted Walch ’66.” Walt Klappert ’79 writes “After 20 years of living in Topanga, California, my digital painter wife, Yolanda (Music ’77), and I moved to Downtown Los Angeles. “This was prompted by the kids being out of the house—Bridget in New York City and Erika in Santa Monica—and a new job as System Architect with TV Guide in Hollywood for me. My productions as producer for readings for the Yale Cabaret Hollywood this year were: Peter Mellencamp’s Screenplay Wetware, featuring Gregory Berger-Sobeck ’98, Barbara Bragg’s ’87 American Cassandra, which was co-produced with Bob Barnett

’89, Julius Galacki’s ’98 Black Flamingos with Bridget Flanery ’02 and Graham Shiels ’99. I even took a crack at writing a one-act myself: an adaptation of Mark Twain’s Hadleyburg novella. It was read as Corrupting Topanga last May, directed by Laura Stribling ’97 with Bruce Katzman ’88 and Brian Robinson ’00 among others reading parts. Boy, in retrospect, this seems like a busy year!” Marty Lafferty ’72 writes “I serve as CEO of the Distributed Computing Industry Association (www.DCIA.info). The DCIA is a trade organization representing all sectors of this rapidly emerging industry, and is currently focused on licensed distribution of entertainment and information content via social networks and peer-to-peer (P2P) technologies. DCIA Members include content creators and rights holders, software developers and distributors, and serviceand-support companies. The trade group is engaged in supporting innovative business models and developing standards-andpractices to advance this new consumerbased distribution channel. The DCIA had its first annual conference and exposition this past June in Washington, DC. For more information, feel free to contact me directly at 888-864-3242 or marty@dcia.info.” Michael Lassell ’76 writes “In addition to my ‘day job’ as features director of Metropolitan Home magazine—for which I recently wrote a book called Decorate—I’m writing a book about the making of Disney’s Broadway version of Tarzan (Richard Rodgers Theater), much as I did for the Elton John/Tim Rice Aida. The book for the musical, a much bigger deal, is by David Henry Hwang ’83.” Craig Latrell ’78 writes “Hi—I’m still Chair of the Hamilton College Theatre Department, and I continue to do research in Southeast Asia on intercultural performance and cultural shows. Most recently, I’ve been doing field work in Sarawak and Sabah, on the island of Borneo. My partner and I completed Marty Lafferty ’72

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the adoption of our son, David, last November 3rd, from Guatemala.” Francis Levy ’73 writes “I am currently co-director of the Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of the Imagination which is located on the third floor of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute in Manhattan. I studied Sophocles’ Philoctetes as a D.F.A. candidate at the School of Drama and thus the name was chosen for this program that studies the relationship between psychic trauma and creativity. I have been a writer for many years and have contributed to The New York Times Book Review, Washington Post Book World, The Village Voice, The East Hampton Star and The New Republic. I have just completed a novel entitled Savage Kiss.” Robert Long ’76 writes “Some of our recent theatre consulting projects include the re-opening of the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, the re-birth of the Old Asolo Theatre in Sarasota, and a new community playhouse in Jackson, WY. I continue to be a theatre consultant to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation on the cultural projects at Ground Zero in Manhattan. I was thrilled to re-establish contact with my old classmate Jeff Rank ’79 after over 20 years, through the YSD Alumni Directory 2005.” Jonathan Marks ’72, dfa ’84, yc ’68 writes “I am now serving as Interim Dean of the College of Visual & Performing Arts, and continue as Director of Texas Tech’s Ethics Initiative.” Kate Mcgregor-Stewart ’74 and her 23 year old daughter Chloe are walking the 500 mile Camino Frances pilgrimage trail in Spain. They will be gone for almost 2 months, including the time for sightseeing and travel throughout the country when their walk is completed. Work-wise, Kate continues as an actress and acting teacher, adding the new field of Media Coaching to her resume. “It’s very interesting because it involves working with many diverse business people (which constitutes a whole new clientele for me) and, of course, it is a media world these days. Blessings and Love to all.” William Otterson ’76 writes “I left Yale in 1974 after completing the preliminary designs for the renovation of Yale Rep. I spent several years lighting dance and theatrical productions including a production of Oedipus the King with James Earl Jones that made the cover of Time and was featured in that magazine’s TV commercials for years. “Lighting and managing dance companies allowed me to travel world wide including Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, Russia

Alumni Notes and News and the Middle and Far East. Dance opened opportunities for me in television, lighting a dance special for Dutch National TV, among other projects. I ended up starting my own video and television production company. Some of the many projects I produced and directed through my company were a Kraft Christmas Special; a live to tape production of The Play of St. Nicholas at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine here in NYC; James Brown’s return to the Apollo; segments for European TV; numerous commercials for Ford; Broadway productions including Tango Argentina, NYC’s Central Park, and the USPS; and elaborate documentary work for the George Balanchine Foundation. “From our studio in NYC we are able to broadcast live by satellite to anywhere in the world. Within a three hour period we regularly have our client’s guest appear on as many as 30 television talk shows back to back—one after the other. We also conduct an on camera workshop for actors (www. act4camera.com).” Robin Pearson Rose ’73 writes “Received 2005 Craig Noel San Diego Drama Circle Critics Award for Best Actress, in The Old Globe’s production of Vincent In Brixon. Made Associate Artist of The Old Globe by Artistic Director Jack O’Brien. Did a recurring role on both seasons of “Grey’s Anatomy” for ABC.” David Rotenberg ’76 writes “Fifth novel in the Shanghai series is selling briskly in the bookstores and I just signed a contract to write a big book for Penguin. Son Joey is finishing 3rd year at the University of Victoria and daughter Beth is about to go to Colgate on an athletic scholarship to play hockey—ice hockey.” John Rothman ’75 writes “I keep the faith and continue my acting career based in New York, where I had the great thrill of playing Meryl Streep’s ’75 husband in the romantic comedy Prime, released last October with a location trailer one block from home. We also worked together briefly in Tribeca on The Devil Wears Prada. This past fall I was at Pinewood outside London working on United 93 directed by Paul Greengrass. Last summer I was in The Argument at The Vineyard Theatre. I also report that I had the privilege of reading and talking with three playwrights at the School of Drama—in a program initiated by the great Richard Nelson (Chair, Playwriting). And did I mention that my daughter Lily is a sophomore at Yale and writing plays!!!” Robert Sandberg ’77 writes “My play Can’t Believe It was a winner of the 2005 Bonderman

own English translation in theatres, schools and universities in North America, and in Greek in ancient amphitheatres in Greece, for the last two years, and is now poised to tour England, Germany, Cyprus, Turkey, Australia, and again Greece this summer. And if Socrates, from his perch somewhere in Hades deigns, this lively look at his life and death may indeed enjoy soon a New York run. Yannis has served as head of Undergraduate Drama at Tisch School of the Arts NYU, founder of Yannis Simonides ’72 in his one-man show of the Greek Theatre of New York, executive Plato’s Apology producer of GOTelecom, a documentary production company, head of Hellenic Public Playwriting Award and had a week of Radio in NYC, and now, as he faces with glee development at Indiana Rep. In Between is still and terror his sixtieth birthday, while looking being toured by George Street Playhouse and back at a textured life of rich marriages and will be published by Playscripts. A scene from extraordinary children, he has resigned from it will be in Smith & Kraus’ Best Stage Scenes all day jobs and is embarking on a traveling 2006.” troubadour jaunt, writing, producing and Susan Schwab ’76 recently married Charles performing. Columbia University will see his Goetsch in a ceremony on High Island in Apology in early fall, and his solo piece on the Branford, Connecticut. Alexandrine poet C.P. Cavafy may soon see the John Shea ’73 writes “I have just completed light of day. His email is ysimonides@hotmail. shooting three films: Framed, an English com and he’d be ever so grateful to hear from psychological thriller set in the art world of classmates and old friends. Oxford University; The Broken Shoe Trilogy, Charles Steckler ’71 was married on the an ensemble romantic comedy set in post winter solstice (December 21st, 2004) at 9/11 New York; and The Insurgents, a political the Vermont Studio Center, in Johnson, VT thriller about a CIA operative who turns to Ginger Ertz, sculptor and educational against the government. My wife, Melissa programs coordinator for The Tang MacLeod, and I have also had a son, Caiden, Teaching Museum at Skidmore College in now just over a year old and live in Santa Saratoga Springs, NY. Charles and Ginger Monica.” honeymooned at the American Academy in Charles Siegel ’70 writes “A few years ago Rome in July where Charles made drawings I took early retirement from my position and dioramas on Italian themes. of 25 years, including a stint as Chair of “I have been designing and teaching at the Theatre Program, in the Department Union College (Schenectady, NY) since 1971. of Theatre, Film & Creative Writing at the In January I had a retrospective exhibition of University of British Columbia. I am now my design career in the Mandeville Gallery an Associate Professor Emeritus, believe it in the beautifully restored historic Nott or not. I had always wanted to be a full time Memorial on Union’s campus. The exhibit was theatre artist, and if not now, when? I have an overview of my theatrical work through been keeping pretty busy, actually. I have been photographs, drawings, models, props, scenic in four films, just this year (including one relics, masks and puppets. The Gallery directed by Richard Benjamin), and a while published a 60-page, full color catalog with ago I played Howard in a stage production an introduction by Arnold Aronson and an of The Designated Mourner by Wallace Shawn. essay on the evolution of stage design by Jarka Recently I played Salter in the first Canadian Burian. The exhibit is dedicated to Jarka who production of Caryl Churchill’s new play passed away suddenly in late August 2005.” about human cloning, A Number. Genome Ted Tally ’77 will co-produce Hot Plastic for BC has commissioned a remount to evaluate Focus Features, with Tobey Maguire attached the effectiveness of theatre to open a dialogue as star and co-producer. Ted’s most recent with the public on issues of science and ethics, screenplay, The Reckoning, was written for and I am directing the remount as well as Reese Witherspoon, and he also did a polish acting. So, now I am part of science as well as on Shrek 3 for Dreamworks Animation. art.” Stephen R. Woody ’76 writes “I have Yannis Simonides ’72 has been performing accepted a new teaching position with the his one-man show of Plato’s Apology in his Gyeonggi English Culture Foundation in

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Around the World South Korea, located outside of Seoul. English Village—Paju will be the world’s first English education theme park. The layout is based on an English Village with shops, post office, bank, pharmacy and other typical facilities. It is envisioned to be like The Disney World of English Education. It is designed as an English-only environment where children and families visit for the day or stay for short periods of time (one to two weeks) to practice their English. The goal of the village is to motivate children and help them gain confidence in the English language. English Village has an official partnership with UNICEF. UNICEF’s approach to teaching global citizenship, multicultural education and service-learning is an integral part of the English Village curriculum. EV-Paju is the second Village to open (March, 2005) and a third Village is scheduled to open in 2008. My work will be teaching and in the development of the use of Drama as a tool for teaching English as a Second Language. I will be abroad for at least one year. I have been smiling for over a week.” Scott Yuille ’77 writes “I am still alive and well in the frozen north. Splitting time between being a one-on-one special education aide and freelancing with IA locals 195 and 919. Of course there are moose, deer, boar, and turkey seasons to consider. Did I mention snowshoeing? Anytime come on up, but right now I’m busy boiling maple sap.” Dick Zigun ’78 writes “I am proud to announce big changes after 25 years

running an arts organization at Brooklyn’s famed Coney Island: With support from the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York City/Dept of Cultural Affairs, my company, Zigun’s Coney Island USA, will kick-off of a capital campaign to purchase and renovate real estate within the amusement park to expand and institutionalize the programs of this unusual but highly regarded non-profit. Please browse the website: www. coneyisland.com. “I am planning a Manhattan cocktail party for old schoolmates who were there at the beginning and would be pleased to hear from interested friends not yet too old to party. My email is: dzigun@coneyisland.com. “On a personal note: It is true that I am engaged to a Nigerian popstar, Princess Pat Mukoro of Africa’s Urhobo tribe. It is not true, as previously reported, that we got married as planned on Valentine’s Day in Cyprus and honeymooned in Paris...because the f***in’ Europeans wouldn’t give her a visa. We are now likely to be wed around Easter or early May in Lagos. I am healthy and happy and wish you all the same.” Carol Waaser ’70 overlooking the Gorge du Nesque in France

Charles Steckler ’71 and his wife Ginger on the set of What the Butler Saw, Yulman Theater, Union College, 2002

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Architect’s Rendering of the entry to the English Village-Paju where Stephen Woody ’76 is a teacher Carol Waaser ’70 writes “I continue as Eastern Regional Director of Actors’ Equity Association, a position I’ve held since 1997. I supervise contract negotiation and administration for the Eastern Region, except for Broadway, and I serve as the chief negotiator for the Off-Broadway Contract. I’m also involved in lobbying on the city, state and federal level on such issues as affordable housing, workers’ compensation insurance and health insurance. My leisure time is spent cycling, and I am President of the New York Cycle Club. This summer I’ll be doing a 6-week cycling tour from St. Petersburg, Russia to Istanbul, Turkey, through 10 eastern European countries.”

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Phillip Baldwin ’87 writes “Hi gang: Still at my day job as associate professor of design, digital media, and scenography at Stony Brook University. . . I live in Brooklyn. We are working on combining installation and interactive art with performance and even blog-culture as writing . . . keeping the grant engine churning. For five months of the year I conduct two programs in Rome with ‘media without walls’ for Stony Brook . . . we have four star digs ten blocks behind the Vatican for July and January. . . you are all invited. Setting one up in Rio, Istanbul, and Tanzania for a month each to get performance culture out. Still have work in Korea where I am working with performance and pervasive computing . . . consulted with Samsung R & D . . . things you can do with cell phones and WiFi and all that . . . designed a rock concert for 15,000 in Olympic Stadium with projections . . . will be off to Singapore for a year consulting in the same stuff on culture telematics and performance . . . it is hot in Asia . . . hope to collaborate with any of you on combining

Alumni Notes and News webcam space around the world real time with this medium . . . on my third book on the subject. See you in Rome for camparis! www. eventology.net” Bob Barnett ’89 writes “My 2005-2006 has been a packed year both for me as a playwright and as Managing Director of Yale Cabaret Hollywood (YCH). Towne Street Theatre gave my play Olympic Notions & Supply a staged reading in April of last year…and is making rumblings about producing it once they get a new home. My play The Hiroshima Daughter got a pair of readings—first by Yale Cabaret Hollywood in July with Stephanie Nash ’88, Paul Tigue ’99, Eric Strickland ’95, and Fred Sanders YC ’77 in the cast—and by the Road Theatre Sheryl Arenson ’98 in Oedipussy, directed in March of this year. Besides producing our by Bob Barnett ’89 site-specific production of BAAL with Elijah Alexander ’96 and YCH Board member Brian Basement—whose co-artistic director is Yalie Robinson ’00 in the cast, I also produced our Wade McIntyre ’98. We continue to produce abbreviated The Taming of the Shrew, directed at the MBar, owned and operated by YCH by Laura Stribling ’97 with YCB board member Amy Morse ’00 and Sheryl Arenson board member Joe Reynolds ’97 while also using the Abbot Kinney Art Gallery in Venice ’98. Sheryl also starred as James Bond in for some of our readings in 2005. The pace Oedipussy (previously produced at the Yale continues as YCH looks at scripts for possible Cabaret), a send-up of pop culture written readings and production later in 2006. As for and directed by Brian Robinson. We offered myself, my play Colors at Sunset is currently a workshop production of Barbara Bragg’s in rehearsal for a staged reading at The Blank ’87 one-woman American Cassandra and a Theatre Company in Hollywood, directed by “late nite” showcase of the musical score for Fred Sanders.” Dyanne Asimow’s ’67 rocksong. In addition Sharon Brady ’88 writes “Greetings from to co-producing American Cassandra, YCH Pittsburgh. I am currently on the faculty of board member Walt Kappert ’79 produced Point Park University teaching acting, voice our Screenplays@TheCabaret series which and speech. Trodding the boards when the presented Gregg Moscoe’s Armadillo Republic opportunity arises. Hopefully rising to the and Peter Mellencamp’s Wetware (with demands of parenting a teenager—Oona is 15, Gregory Berger-Sobeck ’98 in the cast). Walt beautiful, bright and bold; and am entering also produced a reading of Julius Galacki’s ’98 play Black Flamingos with Bridget Flanery the 25th year of marriage to Vic. We love to ’02 and Graham Shiels ’99. We closed the year have visitors—so if you’re ever in the Burg . . . give me a call.” with my holiday farce Ye Olde Mysterie Play of Rick Butler ’87 writes “This past year has the Nativity (also originally staged at the Yale been a busy one for me, starting with the Cabaret) in a co-production with Meadows feature film Flakes in New Orleans (before Katrina) with Christopher Lloyd (yc ’82), then moving to Baltimore for the summer to design Rocket Science. Fall brought a TV pilot at NBC/ Universal called “The Black Donnellys” for the creators of Crash and this year began with Ethan Hawke’s adaptation of The Hottest State for screen. It was great to see Bill, Phyllis, Ming and Betsy at the Xmas party, hope to do it again soon.” William Di Canzio ’85 writes “Hello, friends—the online newsletter of Haverford Stephanie Nash ’88 as the Wife in A Cigar at the College (where I’m currently teaching) just Beach, written /directed by Stephen Keep Mills published an article about my new play. Here’s the link: http://www.haverford.edu/ CDR ’69, MFA ’89

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newsletter/march06/dicanzio.htm. Let me know if it works.” Terrence Dwyer ’88 was recently named President and COO of the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Michael Giannitti ’87 writes “Recent lighting design projects include The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie, Fat Pig, and Guantanamo at the Studio Theatre in Washington, Lettice & Lovage at Portland Stage, the Emergent Dance Improvisation Project at the Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla, and remounting Everett Dance Theatre’s Home Movies at the Walker Art Center and at the Zero Arrow Theatre in Cambridge, MA. This summer I will be teaching in New Zealand for six weeks on my second Fulbright Senior Specialist Grant. I’m also approaching 15 years on the faculty at Bennington College.” May Wu Gibson ’86 writes “I’m busy prepping for the second series of Living It, my kids’ comedy-drama for the BBC. It’s a show that I co-created with a writer-friend from New Zealand and which I’m producing. We start filming in June for 15 weeks. The first series is currently airing on BBC1 and the new series will air at the end of this year. We’re featuring an American family in the new series, so if anyone knows of an American boy of 13 and girl of 10 living in London who can act, please let me have their names! If anyone finds themselves in London working Terrence Dwyer ’88

William di Canzio ’85

Around the World or playing, please feel free to get in touch. Always happy to hear from fellow YSD alumns.” Eve Gordon ’81 writes “I still live in Santa Monica with my husband, Todd Waring, and children Tessa (12) and Grace (9). Todd played the King in Andrei Belgrader’s production of King Stag at Seattle Rep this year. I shot a pilot for FX in December called “The Mikes”, and traveled to Tokyo to film a role in The Grudge 2, which premieres in October and will scare the bejeesus out of you, but which was incredible fun. My absolute favorite things in life, unfortunately, are the ones that don’t pay: writing plays for my daughters’ schools, teaching drama to children, and, least lucrative of all, playing poker with my friends. For those of you who remember our Thursday night games of yore, I play fairly regularly with Drew McCoy (without him we’d never keep the pot straight), Joe Grifasi ’75 (who knows when I’m bluffing), and Tony Shalhoub ’80 (whose naked fear gives me confidence). When the game is at Polly Draper’s ’80, yc ’77 house, we get to hear her and Michael Wolff’s astonishingly talented children play music (you’ll be hearing about them one day).” Anne Hamburger ’86 writes “Reporting in from LA: Life at Disney continues to be full of excitement. We have two new musicals on the boards: We are turning Finding Nemo into a musical and it will open in Disney’s Animal Kingdom in the fall. Bobby Lopez of Avenue Q fame and Kristen Anderson Lopez wrote the book, lyrics and music. We are also creating a new musical with Alan Menken based on the “Snow Queen” fairy tale and there are three Yalies designing: Ricardo Hernandez ’92, sets, Cathy Zuber ’84, the costumes and Don Holder ’86 is designing the lights. It’s opening July of ’07. That, along with a whole host of parades and daytime

Stephen Hendrickson ’81 as Cyrano

and nighttime spectacles around the world are keeping me very busy. My twins are 8 going on 18 and my husband Rafe is holding down the fort while I travel around the world visiting the parks.” Allan Havis ’80 writes “My wife, Julia (Julie) Fulton ’84, yc ’81 is represented in the just published anthology of essays Woman’s Best Friend : Women Writers on the Dogs in Their Lives (Seal Press) by Pam Houston (Foreword), Megan McMorris (Editor). She continues to teach acting part time at UC San Diego and vocal coaching our two preschoolers Simone (4) and Julian (2). My commissioned play Restless Spirits premiered last February at San Diego Rep and was recently published by Broadway Play Publishing. In addition, BPP also published my play The Haunting of Jim Crow. I was just appointed for a five year term as Provost of UC San Diego’s Thurgood Marshall College where I’m in my 17th year teaching MFA playwriting at UC San Diego (in anticipation of a luxurious Timex gift at the end of the long tunnel).” Steve Hendrickson ’81 writes “While still living in Minneapolis, in the last few years I’ve started taking out-of-state acting work, jobbing in San Diego, Boston, West Palm Beach and, last spring, Chicago. In September 2005 I won one of the first Twin Cities Ivey Theater Awards for Cyrano De Bergerac at the Ten Thousand Things Theater Company. I just finished the Minneapolis premiere of A Number at the Illusion Theater and the world premiere of Naomi Iizuka’s Anon(ymous) at the Children’s Theatre. This summer I will help inaugurate the new Guthrie Theater facility in the world premiere of The Falls by Jeffrey Hatcher and Bill Rauch. Come the autumn I return to Ten Thousand Things to play Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. “Lesley and I celebrated our 26th anniversary last August and our oldest son, Ivar, is looking at colleges. I need trifocals and am experiencing the first twinges of tendonitis. Cyrano announced a sad farewell to tightbuttocked swains in tights and a graduation to grouchy old gits in robes and I’m not sure how many more Minnesota winters I’ve got left in me, but I’ve been immensely fortunate to have both art in my life and a life in art. My email is stevehendrickson@mac.com and I love to hear from old classmates. Cheers!” Kirk Jackson ’88 writes “The biggest news of all: I finished paying my YSD loans this year; maybe that’s why I’m responding for the first time to an alumni news request. I’ve been teaching at Bennington College with YSD alums Michael Giannitti ’87, Jean Randich

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Kate O’Toole ’85 as Constance Constanzia in Lennox Robinson’s Drama at Inish ’94, and Gladden Schrock ’64 for five years and continue to act and direct professionally, often at Matthew Wiener’s ’88 theatre in Phoenix, AZ. In the past 18 months I directed Nickel and Dimed (which sold out and was remounted the following season) and Kiss of the Spider Woman for Matthew. Both shows featured my partner of 16 years, Oliver Wadsworth. I’ve just been nominated for a Helen Hayes Award for my direction of Take Me Out at the Studio Theatre in DC and I continue to work as a director at universities (most recently USD) and theatres (Capital Rep next year) around the country. My first year at Bennington, I had the distinct pleasure of sharing a weekly lunch in my office with Lloyd Richards (former Dean) who was teaching a weekly master class. A dear soul; I guess I kinda knew that.” Jane Kaczmarek ’82 writes “After seven wonderful exhausting years, my sitcom “Malcolm in the Middle” is ending. Having 250 Yale alums over for the spring Drama School party was a great elixir. Thanks to everyone who came. See you all next year!! “My foundation Clothes Off Our Back, which auctions celebrity red carpet attire for children’s charities has just passed the $1,000,000 mark. Next time there’s an award show, check out our website: www. clothesoffourback.org.” C. Michèle Kaplan ’89 received the Special Recognition award in the international

Alumni Notes and News competition for plays about science and technology launched by the Professional Artists Lab and the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UC Santa Barbara. Her play, Bot, is about a teenage computer genius obsessed with how technology can blur the boundary between humans and machines. Benjamin Lloyd ’88, yc ’85 writes “Hello! My book The Actor’s Way: a Journey of SelfDiscovery through Letters was published by Allworth Press in May. The book is a fictional series of “found documents” which describe the re-connection between Andy, an anguished young New York City actor, and Alice, his retired Quaker grade school acting teacher. The book explores acting, teaching, spirituality and the life of the citizen-actor. I also had an article published in the February issue of New Theatre Quarterly entitled “Stanislavsky, Spirituality and the Wounded Actor”. I just finished a run of The Crucible playing the Rev. Hale at People’s Light & Theatre in Malvern, PA, where I am a member of the artistic company. I stay in touch with Pearce Bunting and Mark Wade, class of ’88 buddies. Pearce is in Killer Joe in Philly and Mark was recently named chair of the Theatre Program at Arcadia University in Glenside PA. We all have adorable children too!—Griffen & Ella Lloyd, Milo Bunting and Jamison & Grayson Wade. Classes of ’20-’25?” Becky London ’82 writes “I’ve had an unusually YSD filled year. Frankly, I’ve thought of myself as a Yale black sheep these past 20 or so years, since I haven’t really been much of a Yale Mafioso. But all that seems to be suddenly in the past! As a member of the Artistic Board of the Unofficial New York Yale Cabaret, my life has been jam-packed and Yale-filled, and quite happily so. George Tynan Crowley ’90, Heidi Seifert ’85, Mahayana Landowne ’98, Howard Pflanzer ’68, Pun Bandhu ’01, Joseph T. Barna ’81, Adrienne Dreiss ’99, John Marean ’84, Kaye I. Neale ’91, Neal Lerner ’86 and I have managed to put together a terrific little first season of five plays, four of them already produced and very successfully so. In addition to being on the board, I directed Neal’s very funny play, Separating the Men from the Bull, written with Michael Heintzman, which we produced at the West Bank Café. This made me particularly happy as I remember sitting there very shortly after graduating from the School of Drama with Gary Basaraba ’82, John Bedford Lloyd ’82, and many others listening to Lewis Black ’77 and Mark LinnBaker ’79 talking to us about—I honestly can’t remember what —probably bringing

in some material; I know that’s what UNYYC is hocking everybody about now. Besides UNYYC, there were Yalies a-poppin’ elsewhere for me this year; I filmed United 93 in England with John Rothman ’75 and Chris Clemenson ’84. On the non-Yalie front, also shot Charles Busch’s film A Very Serious Person, Law and Order: CI, Conviction, and I’m currently in Jewtopia. And my son, Benjamin, is in first grade.” Ken Marks ’84 writes “Greetings from Brooklyn, NY. My wife Laura and I and daughter Eleanor (b.11/03) are happily ensconced in our yet to be fully renovated but nevertheless quite beautiful Victorian townhouse in the storied Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant. I’ve been the General Contractor on the site, which basically means I stand looking at ancient plumbing or wiring or collapsed plaster or impossible holes while folks who know how to fix these things tell me how much it’s going to cost. Even so, it’s been a thrilling ride and far from over. I also got back to the Rep in the fall of 2004 to do the wonderful The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow by Rolin Jones ’04 and directed by Jackson Gay ’03, which featured alums Keiko Yamamoto ’04 and Remy Auberjonois ’01 among others, and had a boatload of fun. Last year I had a great 7 month run off-Broadway as Sir Laurence Olivier in Austin Pendleton’s magnificent Orson’s Shadow and I’m currently working on David Hare’s Stuff Happens downtown at the Public Theatre. My very best to all and come visit us in Brooklyn any time.” Joan McMurtrey ’84 writes “I recently appeared in the Mark Taper Forum production of iWitness this spring.” Tina Cantu Navarro ’86 writes “I designed costumes for only one production as my father of 90 years passed away on February 5th after a six month battle with cancer. Helping care for my father left little time for anything else. Needless to say this has been a very difficult time for my family and me. My e-mail address remains the same tcnavarro@netzero. net.” Kate O’Toole ’85 writes “My latest role at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, was playing the actress Constance Constanzia in Lennox Robinson’s Drama at Inish.” Pamela Peterson ’86 received an Emmy nomination for Art Direction of MARTHA. Lori Robishaw ’88 writes “I have traded in my 20+ years of a professional arts management career to extol the virtues of a liberal arts education at a big public research university, my undergraduate alma mater,

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Ohio State, where I’m currently heading the communications office for the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences. After living in places like New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., and doing work I loved for many years, once middle age set in, I thought I could have

Patricia Clarkson ’85 To say the least, Patricia Clarkson ’85 has been busy. In 2005 she completed three films—including Good Night and Good Luck and the upcoming remake of All The King’s Men—and in 2006 she’s scheduled to make three more. Asked how she handles such a bustling career, she immediately credits her time at Yale School of Drama. Remembering the demands of YSD, she says, “You were always being pulled in several directions… I think that was great because you couldn’t be indulgent. I’d have Shakespeare class and then I might be at the Cabaret doing some crazy character like some eight-year old murderer or a two hundred-pound Cajun mama. It was calling upon every single facet within me.” Clarkson, who now serves on the YSD Leadership Council, “I honestly remember moments of extreme joy [at the School of Drama]. It was exhausting and draining and difficult but I remember it was incredibly joyous. . . . The older I get, I come back to moments at Yale that I remember and that still inform me. It truly shaped the actress that I am.”  Heide Janssen ’08

Around the World a better quality of life back in the Midwest. In the twenty years since I’ve been gone, Columbus has made great strides and has many of the good things a larger city provides and a little less of the bad things. For instance, I have a two bedroom apartment for what I was paying for a studio, and my commute is now 15 minutes instead of 50 (or more). And I might even be able to afford to buy a condo here! Also, the theatre I founded right before I came to Yale, CATCO, is now the city’s major resident theatre, and I’ve joined its play reading committee. I’m scheduled to teach a theatre management course at OSU next year so will keep my hand in that way, along with involvement with CATCO. “One of the great things about working for such a big university is that prominent people from all walks of life come through here, including recent visits from artists like Robert Redford, Anna Deavere Smith, Kurt Vonnegut, and Maxine Hong Kingston. For those who know that I have a private pilot’s license and a great interest in aviation, you can imagine how thrilled I was to have my picture taken with three other pilots, albeit those with a tad more mileage and experience than me— Kathy Sullivan, the first woman to walk in space and president of the Center for Science and Industry in Columbus; Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon; and John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth. Sometimes it’s not too bad being back in Ohio! So for those who might be living or traveling in this vicinity (and not just flying over it), I can be reached at robishaw.l@osu.edu.”

Kathy Sullivan, the first woman to walk in space; Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon; Lori Robishaw ’88; and John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth

John Gould Rubin ’80 writes “I have produced Macbeth with Stephen Dillane (playing all the roles), directed by Travis Preston ’78 at The Almeida in London, in Sydney, Australia and The Scott Theater, Adelaide. I am planning to bring it to Toronto, Boston, and New York, as well as tour to festivals around the world in the next year. “I directed the premieres of Trial by Water, by Qui Nguyen with the Ma-Yi Theater at The Culture Project and Little Willy, by Mark Kassen at The Ohio which will move off-Broadway to the 13th Street Theater in July. I will direct my first film, The Three$ Breakup this summer and the premiere of Chad Beckim’s Nami with Partial Comfort at Theater Row in September. I am on the board of LAByrinth Theater Company with whom I have directed five shows and produced three, both for LAByrinth and commercially (Jesus Hopped the ’A’ Train, Our Lady of 125th Street —both written by Stephen Adly Guirgis and directed by Phillip Seymour Hoffman—and Dirty Story—written and directed by John Patrick Shanley) and will direct Julie Marie Myatt’s My Wandering Boy at LAB’s summer intensive.” Ellen Russell ’84 writes “Jim Katen (stage carpenter, YRT 1983/84 season) and I just celebrated our 19th anniversary. We’ve been living in the country outside Portland, OR for 15 years. Our daughter, Hana, turned 16 in August—just got her driver’s license. Yikes! The twins, Ross and Nick, turned 13 (also in August), so we’ve got three teenagers now. The boys are in their third-year as members of the Performing Company at the dance studio where they study. They’re also cast in an original musical for a local children’s theatre company, so Jim and I are dusting off our theatre skills as parent volunteers! Since Jim has been a home inspector for 12 years and I’m nearing 7 years as a business intelligence/ data warehousing consultant with Perkins Technology Consulting, we’re just a bit rusty.” “Sitting on the Flagpole of the Universe” and artist Alec Scribner ’80 writes “2005 was full of great travel and work. I was invited to Alan Weiner ’83

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give a couple of presentations aboard the Disney Magic cruise ship which took us from Los Angeles to Mexico and back. Talking about Walt Disney Imagineering was a great deal of fun as I presented previous projects throughout my career there (25 years now!). I continue to thank my education at YSD for giving me the knowledge and creative acumen I use everyday in working for a company that has over the years changed immensely, but retains its devotion to a great personal experience for our audience. My recent projects include being the Creative Producer for: Tokyo Disney Seas Tower of Terror, Walt Disney World’s Mickey’s PhilharMagic, and Disney’s California Adventure’s Soarin’ Over California.” Bradford Smith ’87 writes “The year has been one of change and birth in my extended family. How will I ever negotiate another deal? Or put together another film? Without the feedback and laughter from Ben Mordecai (former Chair, Theater Management)? I miss him dearly. On the home front, I am happy to announce the birth of my fourth child, Audrey Lauren Smith, who graced us with her presence on 11 February 2006. I recently enjoyed a birthday dinner with Ivan Menchell ’87 and his lovely wife Karen, and Nicholas Rockefeller (LAW ’87). Seemed like old times...without the complaining, the drinking, the late night....At work I continue to be the President of CFP Productions on the Paramount lot. Every once in awhile I spot Henry Winkler ’70 walking by my office. We are currently making a sequel to How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, as well as a big sci-fi action picture Area 51. I have just put together a project with Julia Roberts entitled The Friday

Serge Ossorguine ’84 and children Michael and Georgia

Alumni Notes and News Chris Guest and ensemble called For Your Consideration. It’s about the Oscar season and all the madness that surrounds it. It will come out in fall 2006.”

90s

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Tessa Auberjonois ’98 and Adrian LaTourelle ’99 are pleased to announce the birth of their first child Julian Lucien Dezso Day LaTourelle this past January. Walter Allen Bennett, Jr. ’92 writes “I’ve not been in touch enough. However, I’ve just completed principal photography on my After eight years at Theatre first feature film. Interesting enough, it began Communications Group (TCG) where from my Drama 50 I wrote back in 1989 or 90, she was most recently the Managing I cannot remember. But it lives on :) Peace to all.” Director, Joan Channick ’89 has taken Donnie L. Betts ’90 writes “Music Is My Life, up the post of Managing Director at Politics My Mistress; The Story of Oscar Brown Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven.  Jr. www.musicismylife.info. The juggernaut She continues to teach “Law and the rolls on! What an incredible ride this has Arts”, a course for theater managers been. After a great time at SXSW, we have 5 and directors at the Drama School. awards in one week: Honorable Mention for the Impact of Music Award (for the film that best exemplifies the importance of music Night Knitting Club which I hope to have up in our everyday lives) at the Nashville Film and running at the end of the year. My love Festival (we won a Gibson guitar); Audience to my fellow classmates—who never write, Choice award at the Palm Beach International never call, never stop by the office—and to Film Festival; Best Documentary and The First Claire Shindler (staff), my closest tie to YSD. Annual Oscar Brown Jr. Award (presented Feel free to drop me a line! bws1phoenix@aol. to an artist who through their written, oral com.” or visual work has cultivated, inspired, and Bernardo Solano ’88 writes “All is well instigated critical thought and encouraged here in L.A. Last summer I went to Zimbabwe and modeled literacy and performance under a Fulbright and directed a communityin their profession career) both at the 7th based play with the University of Zimbabwe Annual Denver Pan African Film Festival; and (and sat 30 feet away from a heavily guarded the Circle Audience Award at FilmFest DC President Mugabe at the university’s International Film festival in Washington DC. graduation ceremony). I have a communityI also took part in the Washington rally for based play I wrote in rehearsal right now at Darfur, Sudan.” Rio Hondo College and am writing a Spanish Martin Blanco ’91 “Things are well for the adaptation of a Colombian novel for a May Blanco family. Martin is still a stay-at-home workshop. Otherwise, teaching at Cal Poly Dad and continues to enjoy participating in Pomona and loving my two kids Raphael and his children’s activities from PTA to soccer to Lena, and my wife, Paula.” Brownies. Martin has once again produced Al “Coyote” Weiner ’83 writes “For the past and directed a production of Irish Authors 3 years, I have been studying and producing Held Hostage, this time for a five week run in art. This May I had an exhibition at the Washington DC. The show is somewhat of a Independence Hall in Fairfield, my second one- sensation there and good notices and sold-out man show to date.” performances have enabled an extension. On Tyrone Wilson ’84 can currently be seen as March 31, the Yale Club of Washington DC Rogero and Shepherd in The Winter’s Tale and purchased all the tickets and had a pre-show Carl in Bus Stop at the Oregon Shakespeare and post-show reception with Martin and the Festival. company. It was great to celebrate with the Durinda Wood ’85 writes “I finished fellow Yalies, who had a wonderful time and another film as costume designer with shared many happy memories of experiences

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at Yale Rep shows, School of Drama shows, Yale Cabaret shows, and Dramat shows. We’re looking to extend the run or produce a tour so any interested collaborators should contact Martin or visit our website at www. irishauthorsheldhostage.com.” Martin Blank ’94 writes “In January 2006 my new musical comedy Perfect Fools (music and lyrics by Stephen Randoy) was given a two week workshop at the Maryland Ensemble Theatre.” Jeffrey Bledsoe ’93 writes “Last summer I returned to Manhattan Theatre Club as the Director of Finance. I had previously spent 11 years as Business Manager for MTC before leaving in 2004 to work for Symphony Space. My partner, Tim Salamandyk and I recently purchased a home in Union, NJ and are currently settling in to our new abode. (Tim was involved in several Rep shows during our years in New Haven including Ivanov and St. Joan of the Stockyards.) With my new job responsibilities, I was not able to continue to teach Accounting to the first Year Theater Managers. I really miss my regular trips back to the School and meeting all the new students.” Edward Blunt ’99 After performing on Broadway in Julius Caesar with Denzel Washington—Mr. Blunt went on to a supporting role in the recently released Inside Man again with Denzel leading a great cast including Jodie Foster, Clive Owen, Christopher Plummer and Willem Dafoe.

Class Association Does your graduating year imply you were at YSD for 4 years, 5, 10? Did your thesis drag on longer than you ever anticipated? Did your Certificate get converted to an MFA? While you cannot change your official graduation year, you can be affiliated with your classmates. For example, if you attended YSD from fall of 1991 to spring of 1994 but didn’t receive your degree until 1995, you are considered to be a part of the graduating class of ’95. However, we can change your affiliation to the Class of 1994. This way we will be sure to put the right year on your name tag at events and you will receive letters from your classmate who is acting as Class Agent. To request an affiliation change, please contact us in writing via email at ysd.alumni@yale.edu or via mail at Yale School of Drama, Alumni Affairs, P.O. Box 208244, New Haven, CT 06520-8244.

Around the World After wrapping Inside Man he performed the role of Lincoln in Suzan-Lori Parks’ TopDog UnderDog at the Beck Center in Cleveland followed by another supporting role in the soon to be released film Bernard & Doris directed by Bob Balaban with Susan Sarandon and Ralph Fiennes and a lead role in the upcoming feature Northern Kingdom directed by Dorothy Lyman. Mr. Blunt is also doing speaking engagements across the country on the power of positive living. Tiffany Ellis Butts ’96 and her husband Calvin welcomed Calvin Otis Butts V in January 2006. Esther Chae ’99 writes “I hope this finds everyone, near and far, healthy and well. I had a literal ass-kicking time on the CBS drama “N.C.I.S.” as “North Korean secret agent with a heart of gold,” popping knee caps, disarming a bomb and taking down a terrorist cell early this 2006. My Hollywood spy role finally!!! : ) I am also continuing to expand my teaching resume—I was in Korea this past winter to teach a drama intensive and this fall will be assistant teaching for my mentor Anna Deveare Smith at NYU’s TISCH Performance Studies graduate program. Woo-hoo back to NY! I was also invited to the Mark Taper’s solo performance workshop and I am trying to finish my piece which is based on a real double agent that was prosecuted by the FBI in 2003 (I know, me and espionage, what can I say. I DID work on this before my TV role though.) On the personal side of things I sponsored my parents back to the States and now they are situated in Portland, OR... uh…hating the winter weather there. I warned them.... Some updates on my website www. estherchae.com. XO EKC”

Tiffany Ellis Butts ’96 and her son Calvin Otis Butts V, born January 26, 2006

Robert Cotnoir ’94 is currently working in Los Angeles as Music Editor for the NBC TV show “Medium” starring Patricia Arquette. He is also the winner of the 2006 Motion Picture Sound Editors “Golden Reel Award for Best Music Editing – Television Short Form”. Complete details are available on the MPSE website, www.mpse.org. He can be contacted at rcotnoir@grapefruitlabs.com. “Please drop a line and say hi!” Amy Cronise-Mead ’97 (after attending her first Jivamukti Yoga class at Wesley Fata’s

instruction!) left the acting world to blissfully teach yoga full-time in 2000. She married sculptor and ceramic artisan Will Mead (see www.peacevalleytile.com) in 2003. They live in PA with her two (step)sons, Emmet (age 13) and Keenan (age 11) and their own angel, Leo (age 2!). Amy currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Yoga Studies Institute, and is on the team at Kaladanda (www.kaladanda. com). She can currently be seen in their ads on the pages of Yoga Journal, or in various airports between PA, Arizona and India with Leo on her shoulders, as they hop around the world. “I also want to express gratitude to all for my time at Yale, and in the business...would love to hear from anyone! amy.cronise-mead@ kaladanda.com” George Tynan Crowley ’90 won a prize for playing Gabe in Dinner with Friends at Florida Studio Theatre (where he also played Wilde in Gross Indecency, the father in Proof, and the Lear-like artist in Ten Unknowns). He also is proud to have played Wilde twice in Tom Stoppard’s The Invention of Love, once in its East Coast premier at the Wilma Theater appearing alongside Ben Lloyd ’88, at which time George was fortunate enough to meet and work with Mr. Stoppard. Based Svetlana Efremova ’97 as The Woman in White in in New York City, George has himself lately A Cigar at the Beach, written/directed by Stephen turned to playwriting. He’s had some success with his play Irish (which countenances Keep Mills ’69, MFA ’89 addiction, suicide, and redemption over three generations in a New York Irish-American family), which was selected for production in 2003 to open the West Side YMCA’s new plays series at Manhattan’s Little Theatre. Most Happy, his three-character play about Anne Boleyn, has had staged readings at Manhattan Theatre Source, TrueNorth Theatre in Beacon, NY, and was the October 2005 opener for the inaugural season of the Unofficial New York Yale Cabaret (UNYYC), for which George currently serves as one of two Co-Artistic Robert Cotnoir ’94 receiving the 2006 Golden Reel Directors. UNYYC was proud host (March Award for Best Music Editing - Television Short 2006) toValiant, directed by Tamilla Woodard Form from the Motion Picture Sound Editors ’02, and to Howard Pflanzer’s ’68 dark political comedy, The Terrorist. UNYYC Artistic Board members, in alphabetical order, graduates of Yale School of Drama all: Pun Bandhu ’01, Publicity Director; Joseph T. Barna ’81; George Tynan Crowley ’90, Co-Artistic Director; Adrienne Dreiss ’99; Mahayana Landowne ’98, CoArtistic Director; Neal Lerner ’86; Becky London ’82; John Marean ’84; Kay Neale ’91; Howard Pflanzer ’68, Co-Managing Director; Heidi Seifert ’85, Co-Managing Director. The website for the Unofficial New York Yale Amy Cronise-Mead ’97 Cabaret is www.unyyc.org.

YSD 2006

Alumni Notes and News its premiere as a full length in the fall of 2006 in New York, directed by Joe Brancato. Charles and Wendy plan on returning to Princeton, New Jersey next summer after several adventure filled years totting toddlers from one side of the country to the other. They also look forward to perhaps finishing a thought or two again as their amazing children, Margaret and John, will be starting school full time! Elizabeth Greer ’97 writes “This was a blessed year. I did a guest lead on Charmed for the WB and am about to shoot another James Bellavance ’00, Esther K. Chae ’99, Paul independent film. The best thing by far has Tigue ’99, Adrienne Carter ’99 and Graham Shiels been continuing to enjoy our Samantha grow ’99 at the YSD LA Winter Party up. She will be two this summer. Our little, joyous, blonde monkey has made this past year so beautiful! Also we send best wishes Chris Darland ’95 writes “I’m still here and thoughts of fast healing to James Bundy. at Artec Consultants Inc in NYC with fellow Be well all.” YSDers Patrick Barrett ’98, Geoff Zink ’99, Regina Guggenheim ’93 writes “I’ve started and Stephen Lars Klein ’99. Busy as ever at my fourth year with SHN Theatres in San Artec—I have been traveling quite a lot over Francisco, as the VP, Production & Operations. the past year—Hungary, Switzerland, Iceland, We’ve been very busy and have a very exciting and Denmark. I was promoted to Principal line-up planned for the upcoming season. We Consultant at Artec in January, and I also was bought a place last summer in Foster City and made a full member of the American Society our second child is due in May. Two kids, a dog of Theatre Consultants in February 2005. and a minivan make a complete set. I worked Cheers!” with a group of friends last fall to put together Charles Evered ’91 recently sold his pilot a massive clothing drive for hurricane Katrina “Reserve Center” to NBC. Also, his plays victims who had ended up in San Antonio (my Wilderness of Mirrors, Clouds Hill, and Celadine hometown). Over 2000 boxes of clothes and have all been published by Broadway Play supplies were distributed. We were sponsored Publishing, Inc. Celadine premiered last season by the Jewish Family & Children’s’ Services starring Academy Award nominee Amy in San Francisco, who honored us with their Irving. In addition, several monologues of 2006 FAMMY Award in March.” his have been published by Smith and Kraus. Mercedes Herrero ’95 writes “Hello to all This spring, Charles’ wife, Wendy Rolfe my fellow Yalies. I have been going through Evered ’89, will star in a staged reading of his some transitions of late. After nine years, I new play: Adopt A Sailor in California, along left my beloved Park Slope; I just came out with Joshua Fardon ’91. The play will make of a three year relationship; and, perhaps even more traumatic, I am no longer a woman in my thirties. On the bright side I still haven’t had to have another job besides acting since 1999, when a friend of mine made me put my waitressing apron on the floor, do a dance around it, thank it for it’s hard work, and tell it I didn’t need it anymore (who knew it would work?!), and am living sans roommate, sans husband or lover, for practically the first time in my life (who knew it would be so great?!). In the last year or so I’ve gotten to play Queen Elizabeth in Richard III at the Public, Honor in The Voysey Inheritance at Center Stage in Baltimore, Goneril in King Lear at Indiana Rep/Syracuse Stage, two lawyers on two ‘Law & Order’s, Chris Darland ’95 and his Artec Consulting and am currently shooting my first national colleagues at the Hungarian House of Wine in commercial for a new gum called Stride! May Budapest it run in perpetuity!! Peace, joy, love to all.”

YSD 2006

James Krouse ’98 and Martha Hostetter ’98 in Bath, England Martha Hostetter ’98 and James Krouse ’98 recently moved to London, where James is director of ABI Europe, a public relations firm, and Martha is a freelance writer and editor. They recently reconnected with Dasha Krizhanskaya ’98, now a theatre professor in Holland, and would love to meet up with other Europe-based YSD alums.“Drop us a line if you are in or around London: martha. hostetter@gmail.com.” Jennie Israel ’96 most recently played Helena in All’s Well That Ends Well for the Actors’ Shakespeare Project, of which she is also the associate artistic director. Prior to that she performed in Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Huntington Theatre, with Jeff Barry ’05 and designed by Erin Chainani ’05! Prior to that she played Goneril in King Lear with the Actors’ Shakespeare Project; the King was played by the legendary Alvin Epstein,

Mark Your Calendar!! Yale School of Drama Holiday Party Yale Club of New York City 50 Vanderbilt Avenue Monday, December 4, 2006 6:00 pm

Around the World

Alvin Epstein (former faculty, YRT acting company) as King Lear. Photo by Carolle Photography. a former member of the YSD faculty and the original Yale Rep acting company. This historic production of King Lear was produced in New York City in June ’06, at La MaMa, etc. For more information, please visit www. actorsshakespeareproject.org.” Kimberly Jannarone ’96 writes “I continue as an Assistant Professor of dramatic literature, dramaturgy, and directing at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where I recently directed Caryl Churchill’s The Kimberly Jannarone ’96

Owen and Jared, sons of Julie Fain Lawrence ’93

Skriker. Last fall, I was in residence at Emory University (Atlanta) as part of a faculty exchange program with the Emory Classics Department. I worked as both an actor and a dramaturg in Ted Hughes’s version of Alcestis in a co-production by Theater Emory and Out of Hand Theater. In academic news, I’m writing a book on Artaud, audiences, and intellectual history, and I recently published an essay on Artaud’s directing work in Theatre Survey. I’ll be in Paris this fall, writing, so please look me up if you’re in town!” Raymond Kent ’99 has been enjoying life back in Cleveland after several years of hop-scotching around the country. His son Parker is getting bigger every day and has been the best joy for him and his wife Karen. Professionally Ray recently designed the scenery and lights for the Cleveland Public Theater’s production of The Santaland Diaries, which has garnered rave reviews. He recently passed his CTS certification by InfoComm International for Audio/Visual Design and continues to work on a myriad of exciting projects nationally with Westlake Reed Leskosky, including the soon to be open Bethel Woods Performing Arts Center (the location of the original Woodstock Festival), among many others. He has even branched into healthcare design and is currently working on a multi-facility, campus wide audio system design for the Cleveland Clinic. Ray also continues to write for TD&T Magazine as the Associate Editor for Architecture. Glen Knapp ’97 continues to reside with Jeff Boyer, his partner of fifteen years, in

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Elkins Park, PA, and is in his fifth year as Executive Director of Philadelphia Young Playwrights, the 2005 Barrymore Award Winner for Excellence in Theatre Education and Community Service. Glen chairs the Board of the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia and sits on the Arts Advisory Committee of the Philadelphia Art Alliance. Glen recently received a fellowship from the Center for Social Innovation at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business to participate in the 2006 National Arts Strategies’ Executive Program for Nonprofit Arts Leaders. David Koppel ’98 was recently appointed Development Associate of Stanford University’s Lively Arts program in Palo Alto, California. David is also the Artistic Director of the ARCLIGHT Repertory Theatre of Alameda which held a staged reading of Martin Eden by Jack London last January and will present Shakespeare’s As You Like It, set prior to the French Revolution, in July at the Altarena Playhouse in Alameda. Any YSD alumni interested in participating in ARCLIGHT productions or in making a tax-deductible donation may contact David Koppel at dkoppel2003@yahoo.com. Daniel Elihu Kramer ’91 is teaching at Kenyon College. He recently developed and directed a workshop of his new piece Love Suicide in a residency at Cleveland Public Theatre. Love Suicide brings together the

Lisa Porter ’95 and Anders Wright’s daughter Daisy Thea Wright, Halloween 2005

Alumni Notes and News

Love Suicide by Daniel Elihu Kramer ’91 at Cleveland Public Theatre classical Japanese play The Love Suicides at Sonezaki with a range of found materials— from BBC reports to internet postings—on people seeking suicide partners on-line. Daniel just finished directing a production of Juvenilia by Wendy MacLeod ’88, Kenyon’s playwright-in-residence. Mahayana “Yana” Landowne ’98 writes “I have been working this year as a resident director with The Billionaires for Bush Follies (for more info on them/us check out BillionairesforBush.com.) Spring Bling....was a political musical review and a lot of fun. If you’d like to read a terrific article on B4B and the new show by Trav S. D. check out...http:// www.villagevoice.com/theater/0612,sd,72616,11. html. Cheers!” Julie Fain Lawrence ’93 writes “My most exciting news of late is the birth of my

second child (!) this past fall, Owen Lawrence Edsell —who joins his older brother, Jared Fain Edsell. I am steadily getting back into the swing of things re: acting...and I have been teaching Shakespeare Outreach and Residency programs through the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival for my fourth year now —wonderful and very rewarding work! It was great fun to see and catch up with so many Yalies at the Christmas party.” Abe Morrison ’90 writes “As Production Prop Man I suffered a critically panned fall of Lennon and In My Life, but I am now hopeful as I head into a spring that includes Three Days of Rain, designed by Santo Loquasto ’72, and Caine Mutiny Court Martial, designed by John Lee Beatty ’73.” Jon Moscone ’93 writes “In 6th Season as Artistic Director of California Shakespeare Theater, where I’ll be directing As You Like Paul Niebanck as Antonio in The Revenger’s It with Kris Stone ’98 (sets) and Katherine Tragedy at Red Bull Theater Roth ’93 (costumes). Other designers joining us this summer—Scott Bradley ’86, Scott Zielinski ’90 and Anna Oliver ’92.” schedule, pulling the costume at 20 minutes Paul Niebanck ’97 writes “In January I to curtain, having never rehearsed with the finished an extended run of The Revenger’s cast or under lights, had seen the show twice, Tragedy with Red Bull Theater, directed by and nailed it!! Mercedes Herrero ’95 can Jesse Berger. I’m currently finishing off a run attest—she was a great Goneril. Talk about in of All’s Well That Ends Well with Theatre for the moment—what a ride!” a New Audience, directed by Darko Tresnjak. Robert Perry ’99 and Cynthia Kocher Yalies Michael Feingold ’72, Linda Cho ’98, ’00 write “Our biggest news is that we had and George Morfogen ’57 were all along for a baby boy!! Jack Thomas Kocher Perry was the ride. I was asked to step in to the last week born on December 28th, 2005. Jack keeps us of the run of King Lear at Syracuse Stage, as very busy!!” In other news, Cindy still enjoys Edmund. Actually went on 6 days ahead of teaching Stage Management at the University of Miami and Rob is doing well with his Lighting Sculptures—check out his website: www.StructuresofLight.com.

Christine Dietze ’96

Though she is currently the associate producer-general manager of Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., Christine Dietze never predicted the arts would be part of her professional life. She grew up loving the theatre, but a workstudy position at Boston’s Huntington Theatre,begun while she was an undergrad at Boston University, altered her perspective on how the arts worked. “It was then that I made the connection that there was this whole business of theatre that I had never really thought about before. [I] completely fell in love with it,” she says.   Since then, Dietze has served at several companies, including Baltimore’s Center Stage, Trinity Repertory Company and D.C.’s Shakespeare Theatre Company. She jokes that she always seems to work with organizations in transition, and her time at Ford’s is no exception. A site co-managed with the National Park Service, it is evolving, with the goal of being known as much for the theatre produced on the stage as for the historic significance of the building. Dietze feels her role in this transition will be enhanced by the time she spent with the many artists at YSD. She has never worked on the creative side of the field, and her immersion in the School of Drama’s theatre culture has remained vital to her perspective.

Name, Address, or Email Address Change You can now make changes to your contact information online by visiting www.yale.edu. Click on “Alumni,” then “Online Services and Resources,” and “Online Alumni Directory.” Once you’ve registered for the Online Yale Community, you can change your personal information and use the Directory to find contact information for your classmates and other Yale alumni. You can also email us at ysd.alumni@yale.edu, fax (203) 432 2562 or call (203) 432 1536 and we will make the change in your record for you.

David J. Roberts ’08

YSD 2006

Around the World Lisa Porter ’95 writes “I have been the head of the graduate stage management program at UCSD since January, 2005 where I work with fellow faculty members and YSD alums Walt Jones ’75 and Allan Havis ’80. After ten years of freelancing in New York, I am enjoying a drastically different lifestyle in San Diego with husband Anders Wright and daughter Daisy Thea Wright (born 9/24/04). I stage managed Moonlight and Magnolias (directed by John Rando) at the Old Globe Theatre with Tom McGowan ’88 last summer and will stage manage Mother Courage, directed by Lisa Peterson ’92, at the La Jolla Playhouse this summer.” Claudia (Arenas) Rosenshield ’99 writes “Mark and I had our second baby, Ilana (which means “tree” in Hebrew) in October. We now live in Kuwait with our older daughter, Maya (3). I’m teaching ‘Introduction to Theater’ at the Gulf University here and it’s a trip—an interesting cultural experience for sure. Yale seems so far away and so long ago but still fond in my memory. Love and best wishes to all.” Jane Shaw ’98 writes “I enjoy working with several fellow alums—including Aaron Copp ’98 with the Queen’s Company, Takeshi Kata ’01 on the next Big Dance Theater piece, and Sarah Lambert ’90, set designer of NAATCO’s Ivanov. This past year I was awarded a Meet the Composer grant for my work at the Pearl Theater, and am a recipient of the 2005-2007 NEA/TCG Career Development program. Good luck to this year’s graduates.” Terry Terzakis ’94 writes “Denise and I are thrilled to announce the birth of our first child. Valerie Marie Terzakis was born May 28, 2006 at Yale-New Haven Hospital. 11 days late! That’s no way to behave for a stage manager’s daughter. On the career front, I am still working as a mortgage banker, but moved to a

Terry T. Terzakis ’94 and his daughter Valerie Marie, born May 28, 2006

new company. I now work for Family Choice Mortgage Corp. in Hamden, CT. Anyone needing a mortgage in the New England area, let me know: ttterz@cox.net.” Jeffrey Upah ’98 returned to Los Angeles to be the (Acting) Assistant General Manager for Center Theatre Group’s Ahmanson Theatre. Chris Weida ’95 writes “Parenting three active kids (Alex 6, Connor 4, and Emily 2), I don’t have time for much else! Rosanne and I are still in the Milwaukee area enjoying our family, the close proximity of grandparents (who make wonderful and reasonably priced —0$! babysitters) and our extended families. Professionally, I am still a Project Manager at the TJ Hale Company, working on large installations for national retailers. And I still find time to sing in small ensembles and choirs every now and then, too, to keep my artistic side satisfied.” Brandy Zarle ’97 writes “Last summer I got to work with Preston Lane ’96 in Das Barbecue at their theatre in NC, Triad Stage. Alex Dodge ’99 designed the wonderful sets and Richard Whittington ’97 is the managing director. I then went to CT Rep to do the world premiere of William Gibson’s latest play Jonah’s Dream. I am currently beginning rehearsals for Barefoot in the Park at the Maltz-Jupiter Theatre in FL. My biggest news this year is the announcement of my engagement to actor Tim Rush. Wedding news and photos will be in the next issue!!!”

Cindy Brizzell-Bates ’00 and Justyn Bates at their wedding

Kong Disneyland where he had the pleasure of again working with alums Matt Frey ’96 and Myung Hee Cho ’95. While in Hong Kong he met an Australian crazier than himself and had to ask her to marry him. She surprised him by saying yes. Lucia Brawley ’02 and Peter Macon ’03 were married on October 16, 2005 at the Players Club in New York. .................................. Cynthia Brizzell-Bates ’00 married Justyn P. Bates on October 16, 2004 in Loudonville, NY. Pun Bandhu ’01 was recently on “Conviction” Jason ’00 and Maureen (Dunleavy) Davis on NBC and will be in an upcoming George ’99 remain happily married and living in San Clooney/Tom Wilkinson movie called Michael Francisco, CA. “In April of 2005 we added Clayton with classmate Remy Auberjonois a third baby to our family with the birth of ’01. Pun also has a small recurring role on Kevin Christopher Davis. Our oldest, Austin, “One Life to Live.” Please come out to support is now six, and Sophia, our second, is four the Unofficial New York Yale Cabaret (www. and a half. All three are doing great and unyyc.org), which in its inaugural year has certainly keeping us busy!” Jason is working been named one of NYTheatre.com’s People as a theatre consultant for The Shalleck of the Year 2005. Its shows have been listed Collaborative and Maureen is staying home on NYTheatre.com’s top ten lists out of these days taking care of the kids. “A special everything in New York, on Broadway or off, thank you to everyone who lent (and sent) and Matthew Murray from TalkinBroadway. their support after the complete loss of our com said recently said “The Unofficial New home to a fire last year. Your kind thoughts York Yale Cabaret has, in less than a full and actions were so greatly appreciated. Please season, shown more versatility, creativity feel free to drop us a line if you are ever in the and sheer showmanship than many well San Francisco Bay Area.” established theatre troupes.” Keith Davis ’00 writes “Currently performKraig Blythe ’00 is still with Disney ing on Broadway in the London import, Festen Creative Entertainment in Los Angeles. He and finishing up film school. Also hitting just returned from opening the new Hong the festival circuit in a few weeks with my

00s

YSD 2006

Alumni Notes and News

Jason ’00 and Maureen ’99 Davis’ children: Austin, Kevin, and Sophia new short, surface of things. Would love to hear from any writers out there with short or feature film script ideas, kld210@nyu.edu.” Ann Hamada ’03 married Chad McLaughlin at a small ceremony at Kalihiwai Valley on Kaua’i, Hawai’i on March 18, 2006. Though greeted by much rain, the gathering was a joyous one. Vicki Nolan (Deputy Dean) and her family, along with Elaine Wackerly ’03 and her husband, Patrick Wackerly JD ’03, attended. Our wedding photographer, Kaua’i boy Gelston Dwight, is also the descendant of Timothy Dwight and of Jonathan Edwards! Our guest and professional wedding photos are located at http://chadandann.shutterfly.com.” Naveen Mahmoud ’00 writes “Happily working on The Color Purple in New York!”

Deputy Dean Victoria Nolan, Chad McLaughlin, Ann Hamada-McLaughlin ’03, Elaine Wackerly ’03 and Gelston Dwight

Tiziana Mazziotto ’02 writes “After Yale I was the Scenic Charge for two years at ATL, in Louisville, KY. Then I moved back to Connecticut where I am the Scenic Charge at Hartford Stage Company.” Edward O’Blenis ’01 writes “Hello fellow alumni! Things have been going great! This summer I was directed by Joanne Woodward in the Westport Country Playhouse’s production of The Member of the Wedding and I just got back from Pennsylvania where I was performing in Fabulation at The People’s Light. I have a great Verizon spot that’s being aired continually nationwide. Still living in New York and in my spare time teaching acting alongside various Arts in Education

Lori Monnier ’01 and Fred Kinney ’02 Though it was hardly love at first sight, Lori Monnier and Fred Kinney can credit their marriage to their mutual time at YSD. The pair first met during one of Ming’s Saturday morning classes and then crossed paths again working together on a Cabaret show. Yet while first-year set designer Kinney was quickly smitten, second-year management student Monnier was not so easily convinced. It took over a year of false starts and giant candy bars left in Monnier’s mailbox for the match to solidify. Fittingly, their first public date was at the Cabaret prom the year Lori graduated. At their 2003 wedding, the minister remarked that the wedding was a day “designed by Fred and managed by Lori.” After recently completing Monnier’s TCG New Generations grant at Arizona Theater Company, the pair moved to Pittsburgh where Monnier is managing director of Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre and Kinney has just begun his own tenure in the TCG/NEA Career Development Program for Designers. Rachel Smith ’08

YSD 2006

Charles Schultz ’01, Adam Richman ’03, Erik Sunderman ’05, and Chris Morris ’00 worked together on The Immigrant at San Jose Rep programs and also exploring the world with my girlfriend Hilary!” Jennifer Riker ’01 writes “Hey there! The 2006 Yale School of Drama Winter Party at Jane Kaczmarek’s house was so much fun!! I recognized more faces than I expected. I moved out of NYC after 4 years to LA since last summer. I just got my new color pictures taken (instead of the NYC black and white kind) and am living in West Hollywood. Having only booked television shows and commercials in NYC and no theatre I decided to come to LA to pursue TV/film. My email is niffuh01@aol.com and my cell phone is still the (917) area code for those who already have it.” Juan Carlos “Johnny” Salinas ’03 writes “I recently joined Ballet Hispanico as Associate Director of Education and I love it here. The company is great and the staff is wonderful. It’s a great new venture for me as I have never worked in the world of dance before. I have also finished working on the writing committee for the New York City Department of Education Blue Print for Theatre, which sets the curriculum standards for teaching theatre in the New York City public school system. I live with Elin Eggertsdottir ’04 and we constantly run into fellow alumni.” Christoper Carter Sanderson ’05 writes “Since graduating, I have directed two productions of new plays. One was titled Savior by Daniel R. O’Brien for the Midtown International Theater Festival in New York. That was last July. The other just closed at the Greenwich Street Theater and was titled Four Women—A Play in Four Monologues by Cheever Tyler. Last December, I directed a workshop of Hamlet for Gorilla Rep with fellow YSD alum Jacob Knoll ’05 in the lead role. We hope to see that go into production this summer.” Annette Worden ’02 was recently married to Nicholas Pell in a ceremony in Newport, Rhode Island. Y

Contributors Contributors to Yale School of Drama Annual Fund 2005/06 1930s Paul Baker ’39 True C. Giffen ’37 Clinton P. King Jr. ’39 Bertram N. Linder ’39 Margo F. Osherenko* ’37 Edward Padula* ’38 Louise H. Saurel ’38

1940s Lawrence D. Amick ’49 Sarah S. Bullock* ’48 Betty J. Carnahan ’45 Olive A. Chypre ’48 Norman Davidson ’48 Edith Dallas Ernst ’48 Sarah C. Ferry ’41 Patricia F. Gilchrist ’44 Alfred S. Golding ’49 Randolph G. Goodman* ’46 David Gorton ’48 Agnes B. Hood ’44 Jack Jacobs ’47 Joan Kron ’48 Mildred C. Kuner ’47 Robin T. Lacy ’49 George T. Latshaw ’45 Emma Lou K. Nielson ’43 Ruth R. Otico ’47 W. Oren Parker ’40 John W. Paul ’48 Pamela Stiles Roberts ’46 Dorothy B. Rostov ’43 Julia Meade Rudd ’47 Eugene F. Shewmaker ’49 Eugene F. Shewmaker ’49 Anne W. Shropshire ’49 Hazel W. Shuster ’48 Miriam S. Tulin ’40 Anne C. Washburn ’45 Yun C. Wu ’49

1950s William H. Allison ’52 Robert A. Baldwin ’55 Cornelia H. Barr ’58 Robert W. Barr ’53 Jack W. Belt ’53 Albert S. Bennett ’51 Ezekial H. Berlin ’53 Melvin Bernhardt ’55 Richard E. Bianchi ’57 Robert Brustein ’51, hon ’66 Rene Buch ’52 Ian W. Cadenhead ’58 William F. Carden ’50 Joy G. Carlin ’54 Sami Joan Casler ’59 Cosmo A. Catalano, Sr. ’53 Margaretta M. Clulow ’56 Patricia J. Collins ’58 Forrest S. Compton ’53 Alfred B. Connable ’58 Sue Ann Gilfillan Converse ’55

George Corrin, Jr. ’51 John W. Cunningham ’59 Allen Davis III ’56 Jose A. Diaz ’52 William F. Dowling ’52 D. William Duell ’52 David B. Ebbin ’57 Mildred N. Ebbin ’57 Philip R. Eck ’59 Sonya G. Friedman ’55 Joseph Gantman ’53 Alfred S. Geer ’59 Robert W. Goldsby ’53 Barbara K. Goodwillie ’51 Bigelow R. Green ’59 Brita Brown Grover ’59 Eugene Gurlitz ’57 Albert R. Gurney ’58 Phyllis O. Hammel ’52 Marian E. Hampton ’59 David W. Hannegan ’53, yc ’50 Russell T. Hastings ’57 Carol Thompson Hemingway ’55 Betsy N. Holmes ’55 Carol V. Hoover ’59 Evelyn H. Huffman ’57 James Earl Jewell ’57 Geoffrey A. Johnson ’55 Marillyn B. Johnson ’50 Donald E. Jones, Jr. ’56 Amnon Kabatchnik ’57 Lloyd A. Kaplan ’58 James D. Karr ’54 Jay B. Keene ’55 Arthur J. Kelley, Jr. ’53 Roger L. Kenvin ’59, dfa ’61 Bernard Kukoff ’57 David Jeremy Larson ’50 Romulus Linney ’58 Edgar R. Loessin ’54 Henry E. Lowenstein ’56 Paul David Lukather ’53 Elizabeth Lyman ’51 Jane B. Lyman ’51 Lewis R. Marcuson ’54 Richard G. Mason ’53 David Ross McNutt ’59 Harvey M. Medlinsky ’58 Robert J. Miller ’57 Ellen L. Moore ’52 George Morfogen ’57 Chester W. Morss* ’56 Tad Mosel ’50 Marion V. Myrick ’54 Franklin M. Nash ’59 Paul L. Newman ’54, hon ’88 Kendric T. Packer ’52 Eilene C. Pierson ’50 Virginia F. Pils ’52 David S. Pomeran ’55 Gladys S. Powers ’57 Howard L. Ramey ’50 David Rayfiel ’50 Harry M. Ritchie ’55, dfa ’60 David A. Rosenberg ’54 Philip Rosenberg ’59 Jerome E. Rosenfeld ’50 A. Raymond Rutan, 4th ’54

YSD 2006

Raymond H. Sader ’58 Stephen O. Saxe ’54 William T. Schneider ’56 Ernest J. Schwarz ’59 Forrest E. Sears ’58 Michael Charles Shurtleff ’52 James A. Smith ’59 Kenneth J. Stein ’59 Pamela D. Strayer ’52 Elmer A. Tag ’51 Robert S. Telford ’55 Edward Trach ’58 Shirin Devrim Trainer ’50 Roy S. Waldau ’56 Phyllis C. Warfel ’55 William B. Warfel ’57, yc ’55 Betsy B. Watson ’53 John Ransford Watts ’53 Zelma H. Weisfeld ’56 Marjorie M. Williams ’55 Barbara M. Young ’53 Arthur Zigouras ’56

1960s David E. Ackroyd ’68 Lois D. Aden ’60 Richard Ambacher dfa ’65 Leif E. Ancker ’62 Barbara B. Anderson ’60 Cletus R. Anderson ’66 Mary Ellen O’Brien Atkins ’65 Thomas R. Atkins ’64 Robert A. Auletta ’69 Jan Van Etten Austell ’65 James Robert Bakkom ’64 Philip J. Barrons ’65 Warren F. Bass ’67 John Beck ’63 Jody Locker Berger ’66 Edward Bierhaus, Jr. dfa ’69 Jeffrey A. Bleckner ’68 Arthur W. Bloom ’66 A. James Bravar ’62 Carol Bretz Murray-Negron ’64 Arvin B. Brown ’67 Oscar Lee Brownstein ’60 James Burrows ’65 Donald I. Cairns ’63 Dennis Carnine ’65 Stephen Carnovsky ’68 Raymond E. Carver ’61 Mary-Jane Cassidy ’69 Suellen G. Childs ’69 Katherine D. Cline ’60 Patricia S. Cochrane ’62 Robert S. Cohen dfa ’64 Kenneth T. Costigan ’60 Peggy Cowles ’65 Stephen C. Coy ’63, dfa ’69 Laila S. Dahl ’65 F. Mitchell Dana ’67 Wendy B. Dana ’68 Ramon L. Delgado ’67 Gene E. Diskey ’61 Philip R. Dixson ’67 Rev. Robert J. Donnelly ’64 Robert H. Einenkel ’69 Elisa Ronstadt Eliott ’62 Joyce Elliott ’62

David H. Epstein ’68 Jerry N. Evans ’62 John D. Ezell ’60 Ann Farris ’63 Richard A. Feleppa ’60 William H. Firestone ’69 Hubert C. Fortmiller, Jr. ’61 David Freeman ’68 Richard D. Fuhrman ’64 Bernard L. Galm ’63 Minnie G. Gaster ’66 John E. Guare ’63 Ann T. Hanley ’61 Jerome R. Hanley ’60 Richard A. Harrison ’66 Patricia Helwick ’65 Stephen J. Hendrickson ’67 Henry J. Heymann ’60 Elizabeth Holloway ’66 John Robert Hood ’61 Barbette Hunt ’66 Derek Hunt ’62 Peter H. Hunt ’63, yc ’61 Laura Mae Jackson ’68 John W. Jacobsen ’69, yc ’67 Paul Jaeger ’67 Lee H. Kalcheim ’63 Asaad N. Kelada ’64 Abby B. Kenigsberg ’63 Jane Kimbrough ’61 Carol Soucek King ’66 Marna J. King ’64 Raymond Klausen ’67 Richard H. Klein ’67 Donald D. Knight ’65 Frederick R. Koch ’61 Harriet W. Koch ’62 Raymond T. Kurdt ’64 Peter J. Leach ’61 Lance W. Lee ’67 Stephen R. Leventhal ’69 Irene Lewis ’66 Fredric A. Lindauer ’66 Janell M. MacArthur ’61 Marcia Madeira ’68 Richard E. Maltby, Jr. ’62, yc ’59 Sandra Manley ’68 Kenneth L. Martin ’69 Thomas O. Martin ’68 Patricia D. McAdams ’61 B. Robert McCaw ’66 Margaret T. McCaw ’66 Bruce W. McMullan ’61 Banylou Mearin ’62 Donald Michaelis ’69 Jeffrey R. Milet ’69 Karen H. Milliken ’64 H. Thomas Moore ’68 Donald W. Moreland ’60 Robert B. Murray ’61 David A. Nancarrow ’63 S. Joseph Nassif ’63 William M. Ndini ’65 Sheila Nevins ’63 Ruth Hunt Newman ’62 Dwight R. Odle ’66 Janet Oetinger ’69 Richard A. Olson ’69 Sara Ormond ’66

John Osander ’62 Joan D. Pape ’68 Kenneth L. Parker ’61 Howard Pflanzer ’68 Louis R. Plante ’69 Michael B. Posnick ’69 Brett Prentiss ’68 Zeev Raviv ’60, dfa ’64 Barbara Reid ’62 Mary Dupuy Roane ’61 Carolyn L. Ross ’67 Sheilah B. Rostow ’68 Clarence Salzer, Jr. ’60, yc ’55 Donald T. Sanders ’69 Janet M. Sarno-Dontzin ’63 Isaac H. Schambelan, dfa ’67 Georg Schreiber ’64 Talia Shire Schwartzman ’69 Anthony P. Scully ’69 Winifred J. Sensiba ’63 Paul R. Shortt ’68 Carol M. Sica ’66 E. Gray Smith, Jr. ’65 Helena L. Sokoloff ’60 Mary C. Stark ’61 Louise Stein ’66 John W. Stevens ’66 G. Erwin Steward ’60 John Henry Thomas, 3d ’62 David F. Toser ’64 Russell L. Treyz ’65 Thomas S. Turgeon, dfa ’68 Joan Van Ark ’64 Charles H. Vicinus ’65 Ruth L. Wallman ’68 Steven I. Waxler ’68 Gil Wechsler ’67 J. Newton White ’62 Peter White ’62 Richard Kent Wilcox ’61 John S. Wolfson ’64 Robin Benensohn-Rosefsky Wood ’69 Albert J. Zuckerman ’61, dfa ’62

1970s Sarah Jean Albertson ’71 Michael L. Annand ’75 John L. Beatty ’73 Ursula Belden ’76 Sandra K. Boynton ’79, yc ’74 Thomas R. Bruce ’79, yc ’75 Michael William Cadden ’76, dfa ’79, yc ’71 Ian Calderon ’73 Lisa Carling ’70 Cosmo A. Catalano, Jr. ’79 James A. Chesnutt III ’71 Lani L. Click ’73 William R. Conner ’79 David M. Conte ’72 Jonathan S. Coppelman ’70 Marycharlotte C. Cummings ’73 Charles Andrew Davis ’76 Julia L. Devlin ’74 Thomas Di Mauro ’78 Dennis L. Dorn ’72 Franchelle S. Dorn ’75 John A. Duran ’74

Yale School of Drama Alumni Fund

Nancy Reeder El Bouhali ’70 Eric S. Elice ’79 Peter Entin ’71 Dirk Epperson ’74 Femi Euba ’73 Douglass M. Everhart ’70 Marc F. Flanagan ’70 Abigail J. Franklin ’78 Robert Gainer ’73 Paul Gallo ’77 Marian A. Godfrey ’75 Suzanne L. Gooch ’77, som ’79 Wray Steven Graham ’77 Joseph G. Grifasi ’75 Michael E. Gross ’73 William B. Halbert ’70 Charlene Harrington ’74 Jane C. Head ’79 Robert C. Heller ’78 Jennifer Hershey-Benen ’77 Jeffrey W. Higginbottom ’72 Nicholas A. Hormann ’73 David Eric Kaplan ’79 Barnet K. Kellman ’72 Alan L. Kibbe ’73 Dragan M. Klaic ’76, dfa ’77 Fredrica A. Klemm ’76 David A. Kranes, dfa ’71 Frances E. Kumin ’77 Mitchell L. Kurtz ’75 F. Rocco Landesman, dfa ’76 Thomas E. Lanter ’75 Michael John Lassell ’76 Stephen R. Lawson ’76 Charles E. Letts III ’76 Francis N. Levy ’73 Martha C. Lidji ’77 George N. Lindsay, Jr. ’74 Jennifer K. Lindstrom ’72 Robert Hamilton Long II ’76 Santo R. Loquasto ’72 Donald B. Lowy ’76 William Ludel ’73 Patrick F. Lynch ’71 Elizabeth M. MacKay ’78 Lizbeth P. Mackay ’75 Alan Mokler MacVey ’77 Christopher J. Markle ’79 Jonathan E. Marks ’72, dfa ’84, yc ’68 Craig T. Martin ’71 Neil A. Mazzella ’78 John A. McAndrew ’72 Brian R. McEleney ’77 Kate McGregor-Stewart ’74 Patricia M. McMahon ’72 Lynne Meadow ’71 Stephen W. Mendillo ’71 Lawrence S. Mirkin ’72, yc ’69 Thomas Reed Mohan ’75 George Moredock III ’70 Patricia C. Norcia ’78 Robert J. Orchard ’72 Richard Ostreicher ’79 Jay P. Parikh ’78 Jeffrey Pavek ’71 William M. Peters ’79 Stephen B. Pollock ’76 Daniel H. Proctor ’70

William Purves ’71 Arthur I. Rank III ’79 Pamela Ann Rank ’78 Ronald P. Recasner ’74 William J. Reynolds ’77 Steven I. Robman ’73 Alan D. Rosenberg ’74 Mark C. Rosenthal ’76 John M. Rothman ’75 Robert Sandberg ’77 Suzanne M. Sato ’79 Joel R. Schechter ’72, dfa ’73 Paul R. Schierhorn ’72 Michael D. Sheehan ’76 Charles E. Siegel ’70 Richard R. Silvestro ’76 Jeremy T. Smith ’76 Maura Beth Smolover ’76 Marshall S. Spiller ’71 Katherine H. Stapleton ’71 Charles N. Steckler ’71 Roy Bennett Steinberg ’78 Jaroslaw Strzemien ’75 Ted Tally ’77, yc ’74 Edith R. Tarbescu ’76 Richard B. Trousdell ’72, dfa ’74, yc ’67 Russell Vandenbroucke ’77, dfa ’78 Eva M. Vizy ’72 Carol M. Waaser ’70 Jeff Wanshel ’72 David J. Ward ’75 Eugene D. Warner ’71 Lynda Lee Welch ’72 Carolyn Seely Wiener ’72 Stephen E. Zuckerman ’74

1980s Kimberleigh Aarn ’86 Michael G. Albano ’82 Amy L. Aquino ’86 Christine M. Arnold ’85 Clayton Mayo Austin ’86 Dylan Baker ’85 Steven Alan Balk ’88 Robert P. Barron ’83 Spencer P. Beglarian ’86 James B. Bender ’85 Todd William Berling ’89 Anders P. Bolang ’87 Katherine R. Borowitz ’81, yc ’76 Sara Braun ’87 Mark Brokaw ’86 Andrew Jon Brolin ’89 Claudia M. Brown ’85 William J. Buck ’84 Katherine Burton ’82 Jon E. Carlson ’88 Anna T. Cascio ’83 Joan Channick ’89 Robert N. Chase ’84 Patricia D. Clarkson ’85 E. David Cosier, Jr. ’88 Dana S. Croll ’87 Jane Crum ’85 Scott T. Cummings ’85, dfa ’94 Donato Joseph D’Albis ’88 Richard Sutton Davis ’83, dfa ’03

Kathleen K. Dimmick ’85 Merle Gordon Dowling ’81 Polly Draper ’80 Michael D. Fain ’82 Terry Kevin Fitzpatrick ’83 Alison Ford ’82 Walter M. Frankenberger III ’88 Randy R. Fullerton ’82 Judy Gailen ’89 Steven J. Gefroh ’85 Michael J. Giannitti ’87 Jeffrey M. Ginsberg ’81 William A.L. Glenn ’87 Charles F. Gordon ’81 Charles F. Grammer ’86 Rob Greenberg ’89 Anne R. Hamburger ’86 John E. Harnagel ’83 James W. Hazen ’83 Mary Dwight Hazzard ’82 Donald S. Holder ’86 Ms Catherine MacNeil Hollinger ’86 Charles R. Hughes ’83 Timothy J. Hunter ’82 Thomas K. Isbell ’84 Chris P. Jaehnig ’85 Michael D. James ’89 Walker Jones ’89 Jane Kaczmarek ’82 Jonathan F. Kalb ’85, dfa ’87 Bruce Abram Katzman ’88 Edward A. Kaye ’86 Richard Kaye ’80 Patrick Kerr ’87 Colette Ann Kilroy ’88 David K. Kriebs ’82 Edward H. Lapine ’83 Wing Lee ’83 Eugene C. Leitermann ’82 Max H. Leventhal ’86 Sasha Emerson Levin ’84 Kenneth J. Lewis ’86 Peter Gray Lewis ’87 Jerry J. Limoncelli, Jr. ’84 Becky London ’82, yc ’79 Quincy Long ’86 Mark E. Lord ’87 Andi Lyons ’80 Gregory Stephen Markowski ’88 Joan M. McMurtrey ’84 Katherine Mendeloff ’80 Grafton V. Mouen ’82, yc ’75 Mary Elizabeth Myers ’89 Tina C. Navarro ’86 Regina L. Neville ’88 Thomas J. Neville ’86 Christopher D. Noth ’85 Arthur E. Oliner ’86 Erik Alexander Onate ’89 Carol Susan Ostrow ’80 James D. Peskin ’82 Pamela Marie Peterson ’86 Robert J. Provenza ’86 Carol Anne Prugh ’89 Kate Lyn Reiter ’81 Ross Sumner Richards ’88 Laila V. Robins ’84 Lori Robishaw ’88

Russ Lori Rosensweig ’83 Andrew I. Rubenoff ’83 Cecilia M. Rubino ’82 Kevin J. Rupnik ’81 Steven A. Saklad ’81 Heidi M. Schultz ’86 Kimberly A. Scott ’87 Anthony M. Shalhoub ’80 Charlotte Ann Sheffield ’87 Deborah A. Simon ’81 William P. Skipper ’83 Teresa L. Snider-Stein ’88 Douglas O. Stein ’82 Neal Ann Stephens ’80 Mark Stevens ’89 Forrest M. Stone ’85 Mark L. Sullivan ’83 Thomas Phillip Sullivan ’88 Bernard J. Sundstedt ’81 John M. Turturro ’83 Courtney Bernard Vance ’86 Peggy Ann Vernieu ’87 Craig F. Volk ’88 Sharon Washington ’88 Darryl S. Waskow ’86 Geoffrey J. Webb ’88 Rosa V. Weissman ’80 Susan West ’87 Dana B. Westberg ’81 Matthew Marc Wiener ’88 Robert M. Wierzel ’84 Robert M. Wildman ’83 Alexandra R. Witchel ’82 Steven A. Wolff ’81 Evan D. Yionoulis ’85, yc ’82 David R. York ’80 Catherine J. Zuber ’84

1990s Narda Elaine Alcorn ’95 Angelina Avallone ’94 Robert L. Beatty, Jr. ’91 Emily Jean Beck ’95 Elizabeth Jeanne Bennett ’97 Sarah Eckert Bernstein ’95 Daniel M. Blinkoff ’96 Debra Booth ’91 John Cummings Boyd ’92 Merredith Scott Brittain ’97 Tom Joseph Broecker ’92 Shawn Hamilton Brown ’90 Laura M. Brown MacKinnon ’93 James Abbott Bundy ’95 Kathryn A. Calnan ’99 Vincent James Cardinal ’90 Esther K. Chae ’99 Myung Hee Arlene Cho ’95 Chris Henry Coffey ’99 Enrico L. Colantoni ’93 Robert H. Coleman III ’98 Aaron M. Copp ’98 Robert C. Cotnoir ’94 Susan Mary Cremin ’95 Sean James Cullen ’90 Sheldon Deckelbaum ’92 Michael Lloyd Diamond ’90 Alexander Timothy Dodge ’99 Henry S. Dunn ’94 Michael A. Early ’91

Frances Louise Egler ’95 Glen Richard Fasman ’92 Rodrick D. Fox ’99 David William Gainey ’93 Peter M. Gantenbein ’99 Elizabeth Giamatti ’95 Paul Edward Giamatti ’94, yc ’89 Stephen L. Godchaux ’93 Michael Gabriel Goodfriend ’96 Naomi S. Grabel ’91 Constance Marie Grappo ’95 Elisa R. Griego ’98 Regina Selma Guggenheim ’93 Alexander Taverner Hammond ’96 Douglas Rodgers Harvey ’95 James T. Hatcher ’94 Samantha R. Healy ’97 Shawn Bernard Hirabayashi ’92 Kevin Michael Hodgson ’97 John C. Huntington ’90 Raymond P. Inkel ’95 Ann Johnson ’90 Debra Jane Justice ’92 Samuel L. Kelley ’90 Andrea Chi-Yen Kung ’99 James William Larkin ’96 Chih-Lung Liu ’94 Suzanne R. Cryer Luke ’95, yc ’88 Robin Malcolm Macduffie ’97 Marya L. Mazor ’92 Robert A. Melrose ’96 Richard R. Mone ’91 Daniel Evan Mufson ’95, dfa ’99 Laura E. Naramore ’95 Margaret L. Neville ’97 Martha Josephine New ’92 Olusegun A. Ojewuyi ’98 Michael W. Patterson ’98 DW Phineas Perkins ’90 Vicki Pesetti ’95 Amy Joyce Povich ’92 James W. Quinn ’94 Sarah Gray Rafferty ’96 Joe Reynolds ’97 Douglas Ray Rogers ’96 Michael V. Rogers ’98 Reginald Hunt Rogers ’93 Jennifer C. Schwartz ’97 Paul Francis Selfa ’92 Thomas W. Sellar ’97, dfa ’03 Jane M. Shaw ’98 Rachel Sheinkin ’95 Graham A.W. Shiels ’99 Linda Maurel Sithole ’91 Ilona K. Somogyi ’94 Paul Spadone III ’99, yc ’93 Douglas Spitz ’91

Contributions received from July 1, 2005 through June 30, 2006 *deceased

YSD 2006

Contributors Kris E. Stone ’98 Erich William Stratmann ’94, yc ’93 Sy C. Sussman ’94, yc ’87 David Loy Sword ’90 Benjamin Warder Thoron ’92 Patti W. Thorp ’91 Paul Charles Tigue III ’99 Deborah L. Trout ’94 Jeffrey D. Upah ’98 Michael R. Van Dyke ’92 Nancy Elizabeth Vest ’97 Erik William Walstad ’95 Thomas S. Werder ’90 Lisa A. Wilde ’91, dfa ’95 Marshall Butler Williams ’95 Liza Barbara Zenni ’90 Robert Michael Zoland ’95

2000s Alexander G. Bagnall ’00 Sarah K. Bartlo ’04 James C Bellavance ’00 Sarah Elaine Bierenbaum ’05, yc ’99 Elaine Bonifield Wackerly ’03 Cynthia T. Brizzell-Bates ’00 Edgar M. Cullman III ’02, yc ’97 Jenifer E. Endicott ’00 Miriam Rose Epstein ’02 Rachel Lynn Fink ’00 Shannon Colleen Flynn ’02 Sarah McColl Fornia ’04 Robyn D. Ganeles ’03 Sandra Goldmark ’04 Alan Anthony Grudzinski ’04 John J. Hanlon ’04 Scott Christopher Hansen ’04 Amy S. Holzapfel ’01, dfa ’06 David Carr Howson ’04 Melissa Huber ’01 Candace Yvonne Jackson ’00 Rolin Jones ’04 Fred Thomas Kinney ’02 Nico M. Lang ’05 Jennifer Chen Hua Lim ’04 Elena Moreno Maltese ’03 Lorraine M. Monnier ’01 Elizabeth Deanne Morrison ’05 Adam N. O’Byrne ’04, yc ’01 Andrew Charles Plumer ’02 Clara J. Rice ’02 Tijuana Teneda Ricks ’04 Brian Wayne Robinson ’00 Christopher Carter Sanderson, ’05 Elisa Marie Spencer ’05 Ari M. Teplitz ’05 William T. Thompson ’02 Melissa L. F. Turner ’05 Bradlee M. Ward ’05 Wendy Ann Weckwerth ’02 Bess Wohl ’02 We are also very grateful to the following alumni who made in-kind gifts: Boris Baranovic ’61 Jane Kaczmarek ’82 Neil Mazzella ’78

Contributors to the Benjamin Mordecai Scholarship Fund Pat Acocella and Sandy Stollerman Daniel Adamian Narda Elaine Alcorn ’95 Gerald D. Alexander D.M.D. Paul Alter ’49 Jessica L. Andrews Lynn C. Andrewsen Amy L. Aquino ’86 Mary B. Arnstein The Arts Council of Greater New Haven Aurora Productions, Inc. David L. Auster Julia Badham and John Badham ’63 Becky Baker and Dylan Baker ’85 Sarah K. Bartlo ’04 Robert G. Bartner Steven Baruch Kit Smyth Basquin Mr. and Mrs. Damian Bazadona Mary Bensel Marcia S. Bernstein Charleen M. Bertolini Sarah Elaine Bierenbaum ’05, YC ’99 Michael Carol Blasko Daniel M. Blinkoff ’96 Mark J. Bly ’80 Karen Burlingame and Anders Bolang ’87 Alison L. Bonds Elaine Bonifield Wackerly ’03 Katherine Borowitz ’81 and John Turturro ’83 John Cummings Boyd ’92 Suzen E. Bria ’04 and Nick Bria ’04 Merredith Scott Brittain ’97 The Broadway Asia Co. Adrian Bryan-Brown Arvin B. Brown ’67 James Bundy ’95 Debbie Burrows and Jim Burrows ’65 Jonathan Stewart Busky ’02, YC ’94 The California Community Foundation Richard L. Callian Jed Canaan Teresa Candido Nancylinnéa Carlson David Carlyon and Barbara Whitman Gale Carroll and Michael Silverberg Theresa Cerillo Esther K. Chae ’99 Steven Chaikelson Joan Channick ’89 David B. Chase Susan C. Clark

YSD 2006

Sara Ryung Clement ’05 Darrah Cloud Arnold L. Cohen Jane and Larry Cohen, M.D. Lawrence S. Cohen ’70 Stan and Jeanne Cohen Judith Marinoff Cohn Enrico L. Colantoni ’93 Columbia Artists Theatricals, Inc. Gregory W. Copeland ’04 Scott T. Cummings ’85, DFA ’94 Jennie A. Cusanelli and Henry Martone, Sr. Ronald A. Cwik William and Faith Dalton Richard Sutton Davis ’83, DFA ’03 Kathleen Derringer Dewynters Advertising Inc. Liz Diamond Charles Dillingham III ’69 Patty DiNatale Edgar Dobie Vladimiro Ariel Dorfman John A. Duran ’74 Jeffrey and Gayle Dworkin Eric S. Elice ’79 Barbara T. Ellinghaus Patricia Egan Mr. & Mrs. Helmer N. Ekstrom Jenifer E. Endicott ’00 Abigail W. Evans ’87 Cornelia Anne Evans ’93 Carl and Yvonne Everett Audra Ewing John D. Ezell ’60 Barbara and Richard Feldman Harry Feldman Bert Fink Alexandra Jane Fischer ’00 Terry Kevin Fitzpatrick ’83 Nicole J. Fix ’98 Mary Fleischer ’44 and Richard O. Fleischer * ’42 Joel C. Fontaine ’83 Arthur and Benje Freedman Meredith Rand Freeman ’88 Barbara Freitag Robert Fried Randy R. Fullerton ’82 J. Ellen Gainor ’83 and David Faulkner Julius J. Galacki, Jr. ’98 Susan Gallin Renee Gaudette Seth D. Gelblum Elizabeth Giamatti ’95 and Paul Giamatti ’95 Dean and Jane Gladden Morton G. Glickman, M.D. Harry S. Gold Caryl Goldsmith Joan Gourley Joan F. Gourley Naomi S. Grabel ’91 Constance M. Grappo ’95 Elizabeth M. Greene Barry and Maggie Grove Barbara Groves

Eugene Gurlitz ’57 Jane Hadjimichael Kathryn Hahn ’01 Todd Haimes William B. Halbert ’70 Ann M.K. McLaughlin (Hamada) ’03 Anne R. Hamburger ’86 Judith Hansen Jane Harmon Joseph Harris Michael Hartman Barbara B. Hauptman ’73 Patrick Herold Rhoda Herrick Rodger Hess Productions, Inc. Margaret M. Hill Drew Hodges Catherine MacNeil Hollinger ’86 David Howson ’04 Timothy J. Hunter ’82 Kathryn Layng and David H. Hwang ’83 Hugh Hysell Chris P. Jaehnig ’85 J.M.C. Travel, Inc. Cynthia P. Kaback ’70 Jane Kaczmarek ’82 Greg Kandel Carol M. Kaplan ’89 Sharon Karmazin Esther and Ken Kashkin Cindy E. Katz ’90 Bruce Katzman ’88 Richard Kaye ’80 W. Stacy Keach, Jr. ’66 Patrick Kerr ’87 Devin Keudell Fredrica A. Klemm ’76 Joann M. Knudson Donald and Candice Kohn Marvin and Elaine Krauss Dr. and Mrs. Robert LaCamera Norma Langworthy Nina Lannan Associates, Inc. Michael John Lassell ’76 The Blanche & Irving Laurie Foundation Le Montrose Suite Hotel Simma Levine Dena S. Levitin Malia Rachel Lewis ’97 and Margot Damaser Edward F. Limato Ken Lin ’05 Marita Lindholm-Gochman Margo Lion Hal Luftig Karyn Lyman ’05 Emmanuel E.M. Madlansacay ’96 Brian E. Mahoney Herbert S. Marchand Elizabeth Margid ’91 Edward Martenson Robert K. Marx ’75, DFA ’79 Gayle E. Maurin ’85 Jean and Anne Mauro William F. and Kay Mayr II

Mary L. McCarthy Stephanie McClelland Kevin McCollum John McDaniel Amyruth McGraw and David J. McGraw ’96 Mareli F. McGee Randall R. McKey ’83 Sharon McManus Lynne Meadow ’71 John Medveckis Joseph V. Melillo Shara V. Mendelson Katie and Bob Metcalf Douglas Meyer Molly Meyer Marion Miller Howard J. Millman David E. Moore, Jr. ’87 H. Thomas Moore ’68 Sherry Mordecai Frank Morley John, Ruth and Barbara Morley Leslie and Jim Morley Michael P. Morley Diane Morrissey Dorothy Weston Murphy Susan Myerberg and Martin Bell Merle Nacht and Arthur Nacht ’06 Obi Anthony Ndefo ’94, YC ’97 Peter Neufeld Crystal Neuhauser Regina Lickteig Neville ’86 and Thomas J. Neville ’86 Annette Niemtzow Victoria Nolan and Clark Crolius Carol E. Ochs ’84 Gene O’Donovan Scott and Kelley Olson Joey Parnes Chris Pates Stephanie L. Pearlman ’04 Tiffany Penn Percy/Aaronson Family DW Phineas Perkins ’90 Allan and Alice Poole Amy Povich ’92 Bill and Angela Powers Lisa M. Poyer Providence Performing Arts Center Carol Anne Prugh ’89 and Maureen Gibson Toni Rembe Joe Reynolds ’97 Mary B. Reynolds ’55 Sharon Reynolds and William J. Reynolds ’77 Jeffrey Richards Nancy L. Richards David Richenthal Laila V. Robins ’84 Lori Robishaw ’88 Steven I. Robman, ’73 The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization Gordon Rogoff Mary E. Rose ’96

“There is no pleasure to me without communication.” Nancy Rose Russ Lori Rosensweig ’83 and Larry Schwartz ’83 Michael Ross Daryl Roth Bob Ruth and Mary L. McCarthy Harvey Sabinson Laraine Sammler and Ben Sammler ’74 Bonnie Sargent Herbert E. Scher ’86 Julian Schlossberg Peter Schneider Eric Schonewald Roche Schulfer Susan H. Schulman ’67 Thomas Schumacher Jennifer C. Schwartz ’97 Talia Shire Schwartzman ’69 Alexander Scribner ’80 Beverly T. Seiler Edwin and Deborah Seldin Paul Francis Selfa ’92 Vicki Shaghoian Michael D. Sheehan ’76 Bartlett B. Sher Eugene F. Shewmaker ’49 Claire and Sam Shindler Marla Silberstein Michael and Gale Silverberg James B. Sinclair Signature Theatre Company Spring Sirkin Julia Smeliansky ’97 Martha Solnit Kristin Sosnowsky ’97 and James Murphy ’97 Liselotte Sperber Anne S. Squadron Douglas O. Stein ’82 Nausica C. Stergiou ’85 and James Gardner Edward J. Stern Sandy and Pam Stoddard Barbara and Peter Strauss Elsa D. Suisman Morton Swinsky Dennis and Vicky Tettelbach Stuart J. Thompson Richard M. Ticktin and

Frances E. Kumin ’77 Paul Charles Tigue III ’99 Jennifer Tipton Paula Tomei and David Emmes Edward Trach ’58 Sylvia and Charles Traeger Victoria Traube Anne Trites and Kent McKay Ted Tulchin Teri Tuma Roy, Paul and Ronald Tumpowsky Melissa L. Turner ’05 Jeffrey D. Upah ’98 Joan Van Ark ’64 Carrie Van Deest ’06 Ron Van Lieu Peggy Ann Vernieu ’87 Zannie Voss James Walsh Ric Wanetik Ru Jun Wang and Yi Liu Buzz Ward Barbara Wareck Merle Waxman and Stephen Waxman, M.D., PhD Diane and Harvey Weiner Stuart Alan Weinzimer, M.D. and Jodie M. Ambrosino, Rebecca and Eliana Weinzimer Zelma H. Weisfeld ’56 Barry Weissler Weitzenhoffer Productions Dorothy and Glenn Weston-Murphy Stanley E. Wiklinski ’70 Robert M. Wildman ’83 Barbara Wilk and Max Wilk ’41 Mary C. Wilkinson Catherine M. Wilson ’84 Steven A. Wolff ’81 Harold E. Wolpert Steven Woolf Val Chao Wu ’49 Yale School of Drama Theater Management Class of 1999 Yale School of Drama Theater Management Class of 2006 Liza Zenni ’90 *deceased

Attributed to Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)

Dear Friends, Those of us who work at YSD have, as one of our greatest pleasures, the opportunity to see our students become alumni. We take great pride in your aspirations and achievements! Wherever you fall in our school’s illustrious eighty-one year history and wherever your career or life has taken you, you will always have a special place in our hearts and among these pages.  Over the past year and a half, I have already had the pleasure of meeting many of you in person. Whether at our annual New York Holiday Party, our LA Winter event, Reunion 2006, or here and there, I have truly enjoyed getting to know you. But that should go without saying! You are, I think, the most creative and dynamic group of alumni that any graduate school could possibly boast! I therefore look forward to getting to know as many more of you as I possibly can. If you would like to meet me sooner, rather than later, please do not hesitate to write, email, or call and we will make an appointment to get together in person or speak by telephone. I do hope you are pleased with your new Alumni Magazine.  With this and subsequent issues, our goal is to share with you the enthusiasm and the accomplishments of Yale School of Drama’s students and alumni. Contributing Editor Mark Blankenship ’05 and I will strive through this publication to bring you a glimpse of the exciting things your fellow graduates and current students at the school are doing. Please stay in touch so we can hear your latest news and share your stories with our community. With best wishes,

Deborah S. Berman Director of Development and Alumni Affairs Yale School of Drama

Your Gift Counts! Annual Giving to the Drama Alumni Fund: • Supports student financial aid and minimizes student debt • Opens our doors to the world’s most talented and deserving students • Supports the pursuit of excellence

Please consider remembering Yale School of Drama with a bequest or other planned gift option. You can: • Make a gift, receive lifetime income, save taxes and support the Drama School at the same time • Benefit from the peace of mind that comes with Yale’s sound financial management • Support future generations of Drama School students and faculty To learn more about making a gift to Yale School of Drama, please contact Arthur Nacht, arthur.nacht@yale.edu, 203 432-1536.

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