Annual Magazine of Yale School of Drama 2010 –2011
Yale school of Drama
Theatre Architecture & Consultancy in the Contemporary Era Interview with Christopher Durang The Collaborative Art: Working Together at Yale and Beyond
From the Dean
Dear Reader, Each year, I have the honor of welcoming hundreds of prospective students visiting Yale School of Drama on two regularly scheduled Visitor Days. At these times, the School offers Q&A sessions with chairs of departments and current students, as well as tours of the School and financial aid. The effect on applicants is singular, and it is gratifying to observe that transparency—the deeply felt personal observations of those who know the School ’s and the Rep’s strengths and vulnerabilities best—is the most powerful tool both for communicating the immediate value of the School’s program, and for humanizing the application process so that an actor in an audition, a designer in a portfolio review, or a dramaturg in an interview, can tune out the static and focus on the work at hand. Part of my job, on such a day, is to provide an introductory overview of the School and of Yale Rep: I find I can only do this by talking about scope, which is truly the defining characteristic of Yale School of Drama compared to other graduate theatre training programs and conservatories in America and around the world. It is obvious to almost everyone interested in theatre training that the founding of Yale Rep by the visionary Robert Brustein, and its
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... the School offers students opportunities, not only to master their own specific area of theater craft, but also to arrive at deeper lifelong understanding of others’ artistry and the collaborative process.
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investments in new work and long-term relationships with important theatre artists from around the world under the leadership of Lloyd Richards and Stan Wojewodski, Jr., all represent the pursuit of aesthetic and professional scope that enhanced the quality of training in all disciplines at the School. Less obvious to the outside world, but familiar to most readers of this magazine, is that with training in every discipline of the theatre, the School offers students opportunities; not only to master their own specific area of theater craft, but also to arrive at a deeper lifelong understanding of others’ artistry and the collaborative process. Moreover, the School continues to provide a spectrum of classroom and production opportunities—from directed to mentored to unsupervised—in which students may grow in both artistry and craft: whether at the School, the Rep or the Cabaret, the freedom to take artistic risks in public is one of the priceless treasures the University affords. Such scope—magnified by their numbers and extraordinary opportunities around the world—also defines the activities of our alumni contributing to the imaginative life of the nation and the globe, just a few of which are captured in the pages of this magazine. Knowing that the work described herein is only a small minority of what might be reported only magnifies my excitement in sharing these stories with you. I hope that you find them as inspiring as I do, and that if you are an alum, you’ll take an early opportunity to share your news with us. We’ll be honored to publish it to your friends and colleagues, wherever they may be. Sincerely yours,
James Bundy
Photo by Harold Shapiro.
Contents
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14
2010–2011
Theatre Architecture & Consultancy
Working Together at Yale and Beyond
Interview with 26 An Christopher Durang
Features
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20
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The Collaborative Art: Working Together at Yale and Beyond
Theatre Architecture & Consultancy in the Contemporary Era
This Isn’t a Play: An Interview with Christopher Durang
By Colin Mannex ’10, Sunder Ganglani ’12, and Barry Jay Kaplan
By Drew Lichtenberg ’08
By Caroline V. McGraw ’12
Departments 4 On and Off York Street
30 In Review 38 Graduation Prizes 40 Alumni News 46 The Art of Giving 49 Alumni Notes 72 Contributors
From the Editor
annual MAGAZINE YALE SCHOOL OF DRAMA Fall 2010, Vol. LV
Editorial Staff
Some of this year’s YSD Annual Magazine staff in front of the University Theatre: (Front row, left to right) Deborah Berman, Adina Verson ’12, Alexandra Trow ’12, Debbie Ellinghaus, Susan Clark, Caroline McGraw ’12, Elliot Quick ’12. (Back row, left to right) Leon Dobkowski ’11, Elizabeth Elliott ’11, Miriam Hyman ’12, Lileana Blain-Cruz ’11, Barry Jay Kaplan, Chad Raines ’11, Jennifer Newman ’11, Anne Seiwerath ’12. Photo by Maggie Elliott.
Deborah S. Berman Editor Debbie A. Ellinghaus Managing Editor Barry Jay Kaplan Associate Editor Susan Clark Production Manager Belene Day Editorial Assistant Elizabeth Elliott ’11 Editorial Assistant Jennifer Newman ’11 Editorial Assistant
Contributors
Dear Alumni and Friends, Creating the Annual Magazine is an opportunity to shine a spotlight on the activities of our alumni, as well as what is happening at the School. This year the Magazine focuses on collaboration, architectural evolution and YSD’s influence around the world: alumni working together to build theatres, form artistic relationships and advance theatre life internationally. The Collaborative Art: Working Together at Yale and Beyond takes a look at some of the ways in which students who met at the School have coalesced as alumni to found theatres, theatre companies and designer collectives. Theatre Architecture and Consultancy in the Contemporary Era concentrates on the changing nature of theatre buildings as architects, designers and theorists cooperate in devising contemporary performance spaces. In Class Notes we’ve highlighted alumni who began as foreign students studying at Yale then took their experiences home, and American alumni who are doing artistic work overseas. The Magazine only comes out once a year, but there are many ways that you can stay connected to the School at any time. You can reach us—and each other—on Twitter and Facebook where you can share personal and professional news and find out what your fellow alumni are up to—in real time. You can volunteer as mentors, helping third-year students navigate the transition to the profession. Or you can host events, or serve as a class agent and work with us to build the annual fund and this year’s million dollar Matching Challenge. I am always moved by your creativity, your generosity and the spirit of your commitment to remain engaged with the School and I invite you to contact me with any ideas or suggestions or questions as to how you may become further involved. (As an example, some of your fellow alumni in San Francisco, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Raleigh/Durham have expressed interested in developing local alumni chapters and we’re helping them through that process.) I hope that, in the Magazine you are now holding in your hands, we have brought you a little closer to what’s happening on York Street, and that we have captured the energy and impact YSD alumni continue to have on the world of the theatre.
Deborah S. Berman deborah.berman@yale.edu 203 432-2890
Lileana Blain-Cruz ’12 Tim Brown ’10 Ryan Davis ’11 Jason Fitzgerald ’09 Sunder Ganglani ’12 Elizabeth Groff ’10 Chris Henry ’12 Miriam Hyman ’12 Drew Lichtenberg ’09 Colin Mannex ’10 Caroline McGraw ’11 Elliot Quick ’12 Chad Raines ’11 Anne Seiwerath ’12 Susan Soon He Stanton ’10 Alexandra Trow ’12 Brian Valencia ’10 Adina Verson ’12
Design Jack Design, jackdesignstudio.com
On the Cover
Da’Vine Joy Randolph ’11 and Liz Wisan ’10 in Yale Repertory Theatre’s 2010 production of The Servant of Two Masters. Photo by Richard Termine.
Yale School of Drama/Yale Repertory Theatre James Bundy ’95 Dean, Artistic Director Victoria Nolan Deputy Dean/Managing Director
Yale School of Drama Board of Advisors Neil A. Mazzella ’78, Chair John Badham ’63, yc ’61, Vice Chair John Beinecke yc ’69, Vice Chair Amy Aquino ’86 John Lee Beatty ’73 Clare Brinkley Sterling Brinkley yc ’74 Lynne Bolton Kate Burton ’82 Lois Chiles Patricia Clarkson ’85 Converse (Tony) Converse yc ’57 Sue Ann Gilfillan Converse ’55 Peggy Cowles ’65 Edgar (Trip) M. Cullman III ’02, yc ’97 Michael Diamond ’90 Polly Draper ’80, yc ’77 Charles S. “Roc” Dutton ’83 Heidi Ettinger ’76 Marc Flanagan ’70 Donald P. Granger, Jr. yc ’85 David Marshall Grant ’78 Ruth Hendel Catherine MacNeil Hollinger ’86 Asaad Kelada ’64 Sasha Emerson Levin ’84 Mark Linn-Baker ’79, yc ’76 Sarah Long ’92, ’85 yc Elizabeth Margid ’91, yc ’82 Drew McCoy Tarell Alvin McCraney ’07 David Milch yc ’66 Carol Ostrow ’80 Amy Povich ’92 Liev Schreiber ’92 Tony Shalhoub ’80 Michael Sheehan ’76 Jeremy Smith ’76 Ed Trach ’58 Courtney B. Vance ’86 Henry Winkler ’70
Letters to the Editor Just received my Drama magazine and noticed the passing of Tharon Musser… What a lady! She was a master of control in lighting. At the end of my first year at YSD— the summer of ’53—I worked as assistant electrician and board operator for Tharon at the Brandeis Summer Festival. This was performed in a huge open shed at the base of a hill used for seating. The front lighting was hung from telephone poles on either side of the hill. The night before opening Les Mamelles de Tirésias by Poulenc, directed by Lenny Bernstein, we were doing the final lighting check—on resistance dimmer boards!—working through the night. When it came to the last blackout we slammed all the handles down with a broomstick but there was still a spotlight shining on a table. Tharon was upset at our incompetence: “Pull the master switch!” That didn’t work either. I started to climb the pole where the light seemed to be coming from, when I saw the source: the sun. Even Tharon couldn’t control that!!!! Jay Keene ’55
me; I will never forget how his mother confronted me at his graduation with the words: “So, what are you going to do for him now?” Howard Stein (Former Faculty) You did it. I’ve never seen anything like it and I graduated in ’62: that’s a lot of years. Best damn alumni magazine I’ve ever seen anywhere. Cover to cover. Just great. Joseph Scott Kierland ’62
Your magazine arrived yesterday and I tore through it. Outstanding! So many stories of talented, exciting theatre artists—staff, alumni and students! I noted with sadness the obituary of Tharon Musser. While she was not the first stage or theatrical lighting designer of her sex, she was, perhaps, the most talented and longest serving female lighting designer of her time—and the first to use an electronic lighting console in the Broadway theatre. It was the first such technology of its kind, developed by former Professor George Izenour at Yale! I want to thank you for sending me the School of Drama Annual Magazine. I was very happy to read all the news, but I was terribly upset to read of the deaths of Ursula Belden, Larry King, Joe Linsalata and Robin Rosefsky— all students during my time at the school. The young are born to replace the old, not to precede them. The issue was and is beautiful. The material on Lewis Black was especially meaningful to
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Submit Letters to the Editor Please address all editorial comments to: Deborah Berman, Editor, Yale School of Drama Annual Magazine PO Box 208244 New Haven, CT 06520 deborah.berman@yale.edu (203) 432-2890
Submit Class Notes Please submit your news and photos to: ysd.alumni@yale.edu or Office of Development and Alumni Affairs Yale School of Drama PO Box 208244 New Haven, CT 06520
Contact the Magazine Yale School of Drama, Annual Magazine PO Box 208244 New Haven, CT 06520 ysd.alumni@yale.edu (203) 432-4853 or (203) 432-4133
Send Us Your Email Please submit your email to: ysd.alumni@yale.edu
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On and Off York Street
News from Yale School of Drama
Transitions and Timings: The MFA Program in Projection Design If you want to see history being made, it might be worth reserving your seats now for Yale School of Drama’s 2013 commencement. On that day, Hannah Wasileski ’13 and Paul Lieber ’13 are expected to be the first students in the School’s history to receive an MFA with a concentration in Projection Design. And cheering them on will be the first head of its Projection Design Program, Wendall Harrington (Faculty). Stage projections—a general term for the incorporation of still photos, video, and animation into a production—have been on the theatrical scene for decades. Harrington, who transitioned from filmmaking to theatrical projection design in the 1970s, has traced this form to slide shows used in German theatres in the 1900s, including an influential production of Frank Wedekind’s Spring Awakening. Nonetheless, theatre artists who specialize in projection have been rare until recently. “For a long time, I was literally the only game in town,” Harrington says. “Every time I would start a project I would have to teach people everything.” At Yale School of Drama students have been incorporating projections into productions for years, often by stretching the resources of one or two students with the technical experience to execute their plans. Harrington has
been offering a one-semester course on projection design since 2006, and the excitement surrounding her course was a major impetus for expanding into a three-year program. “Playwrights, directors and designers were going to be doing it no matter what,” reflects Dean James Bundy ’95, “so we thought we should be teaching it at a very high level.” Yale’s Projection Design curriculum will be similar in fundamental ways to that of the Sound Design program, with its emphasis on rhythmic as well as visual elements, and with, in Harrington’s words, “more digital skills than hand skills.” Stephen Strawbridge ’86 (Faculty), co-chair of the Department of Design, is excited that the new program “may help straddle the worlds of the sound and visual departments,” bringing “a greater focus on the temporal aspects, the transitions and timings.” Nonetheless, Harrington is quick to emphasize her interest in aesthetic development. Her Visual Iconography class will be offered to the entire school and provide a grounding in art history, puppetry and cinematography. As she explains, “If I can’t talk about Caravaggio, I can’t talk about light.” She also plans to partner with Yale School of Music, and eventually with the School of Art. “Once everyone gets tired of putting
Wendall Harrington’s projection design for Having Our Say, directed by Emily Mann. Produced at the McCarter Theatre in 2006. Photo by T. Charles Erickson.
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Wendall Harrington giving a presentation at Live Design Broadway Masters meeting in 2009. Photo by T. Charles Erickson. projections in every show in the world, there are terrific opportunities in classical music, which is looking for ways to become more 21st century.” Harrington has learned, from her own work in concerts and operas, to harness music as a weapon in her “biggest battle with my students—getting them to be abstract.” This focus on creating a total theatre artist informs Harrington’s selection of her students. “Someone interested only in projection design is not going to be interesting. I’m looking for somebody who’s really a big thinker.” Wasileski and Lieber each fit the profile. Wasileski has a background in music and visual art, and her interest in the program speaks to its best impulses: “I am really excited to explore the dialogue between projections and the stage—to delve into a character of projection that doesn’t stand on its own, but that becomes an entirely integrated and necessary element of the theatre piece as a whole.” Paul Lieber landed in Projection Design because, he says: “I’m interested in everything. I came from a film and video background via literature, the spoken word, poetry, photography and acting. I’m also a musician—guitar and piano—and self-taught in every discipline. In terms of projection design, you can’t just be focused on what a projector and some slides can do.” Jason Fitzgerald ’08
News from the Yale School of Drama
Judith Malina: The Living Theatre Lives In the fall 0f 2010, avant-garde legend Judith Malina of The Living Theatre joined YSD for a week of workshops, panel discussions and screenings. Along with her colleagues Tom Walker and Brad Burgess, Ms. Malina addressed theatre-making in the 50s, 60s and 70s (including Paradise Now in 1968, which
infamously sent audience members pouring out of the University Theatre onto the streets of New Haven sans clothing). Malina’s theories of collaboration were formed against the backdrop of American politics in the turbulent 1960s; understanding those theories meant, first, understanding the period’s protest movements. The discussions were elucidating and inspiring, particularly for the first-year actors,
directors, playwrights and dramaturgs embarking on “DRAMA 50: The Collaborative Process.” Malina’s lectures and workshops sparked controversy, argument, and ultimately, rigorous conversation about the role theatre plays in social change. In the end, her visit confirmed the formative role The Living Theatre played in progressive, experimental theatre. Alexandra Trow ’12
A New Beginning: Design Meeting 2010 “It’s the one thing that stands out of my whole experience before my professional life, even more than graduation.” That’s the way John Coyne ’97 speaks of “Ming’s Clambake,” the annual portfolio review at which graduating designers displayed their work to a crowd of working theatre artists and educators. Organized by Ming Cho Lee (Faculty) and Betsy Lee, the Clambake was a signal opportunity for generations of YSD alumni and designers from other graduate programs around the country. When Ming
“Young designers need more than contacts... They need relationships.”
and Betsy decided that the 2009 Clambake would be their last, Yale and other schools were required to reconceive the event. Coyne became the producer of the newly named Design Meeting, which Christopher Barreca ’83, Susan Hilferty ’80, and Stephen Strawbridge ’83 (Faculty)—representing programs at Cal Arts, NYU, and Yale, respectively—imagined as a smaller event focused on, as Coyne puts it “the beginning of each student’s professional life.” The inaugural edition of the Design Meeting, with a guest list that included hundreds of theatre professionals, took place during the weekend of May 26–28, 2010, in the Pope Auditorium at New York’s Fordham College, and allowed the graduates of the three programs time to get to know each other socially: after load-in on Friday night, Hilferty graciously invited all presenters to dine at her apartment. At the showcase itself, student work was arranged in booths throughout the room; the quality of their training, their individuality and passion for their work on full display in an event with roughly half as many designers participating as had been
Examples of costume design by third year designers at the June 2010 Design Meeting in New York. Photo by Jason Fitzgerald ’08.
the norm at the Clambake. In the smaller setting, as before, there was a casual co-mingling of peers and established professionals discussing the work, professional opportunities, and the design field at large. Directors from the Lincoln Center Directors Lab and the Drama League Directors Project also joined the Meeting through the weekend—emphasizing graduating designers’ immediate connection to a range of potential collaborators. On Sunday morning, the doors to the Pope Auditorium were closed for two hours so that the students could see and discuss each others’ work. Coyne reports that the most common feedback from students was a desire to extend this portion of the event. “Young designers need more than contacts,” Coyne says. “They need relationships.” Jason Fitzgerald ’08
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On and Off York Street Listening in the Dark At the rear of the stage of the small Annex Theater on Park Street, musicians tuned an unusual assortment of instruments made from such diverse materials as wood, goat skin, glass, metal and PVC pipe. These instruments—including flutes, a hurdy-gurdy, a kalimba (an African thumb piano), two psalteries (a stringed instrument dating from 2800 B.C.E.), a washtub bass, lyre, and tongue drum (when struck it vibrates throughout its body to produce sound)—were designed and built by Nathan A. Roberts ’10, who, for his thesis project in Sound Design, also composed the music, led the orchestra, and adapted and wrote the script, based on the children’s tale Fox by Margaret Wild. Once the audience settled in its seats, a curtain was drawn to conceal the musicians, and the actors took their places at music stands. The director of Fox, Jesse Jou ’10, encouraged audience members to close their eyes to fully enjoy what they were about to hear. The lights were then switched off, and with the theatre plunged into darkness, the music began.
Nathan Roberts ’10 (in shadow) and Junghoon Pi ’12 in Fox.
Fox is a bittersweet tale of the friendship between a wounded bird and a half-blind dog torn apart by a deceitful fox, exploring themes of love, jealousy and betrayal. With disturbing and powerful force, Roberts’ music transmuted the visual experience of the book’s illustrations—reds, oranges and blacks depicting the dry Australian scrub—into an aural experience, brought vividly to life in the dark by musicians Kellen McNally ’10, Junghoon Pi ’09, Chad Raines ’11, Michael Skinner ’11, and Michael Zell mus ’09, and the expressive voices of Laura Gragtmans ’12, Marcus Henderson ’11, and Blake Segal ’11. Roberts describes the Fox story as having been “flickering through the trees of my imagination” for three years, and which he felt compelled to set to music. “Fox is like a radio play happening in real time, before your very ears. There’s something exciting about an audience hearing these words and these musical instruments in the same space.” In the dark, with no visual cues for guidance or interpretation, imaginations were set free to respond purely to Roberts’ innovative, heartbreaking soundscape. Susan Soon He Stanton ’10
Theater Goes Digital In the fall of 2010, Theater magazine joined the digital age. Though the editorial offices remain in their cozy aerie on the top floor of the Cabaret building, and the magazine is still published at Duke University in North Carolina, every issue, dating back to its founding in 1968, has gone online. In addition, Editor-in-Chief Thomas Sellar ’97, dfa ’03 (Faculty) and the editorial staff launched a new website for the magazine and posted a blog with exclusive audio and video recordings of interviews and essays by current School of Drama students. “Our little journal is going to have to be ready for the migration to electronic publishing,” Sellar says, pointing to the increasing dominance of electronic publishing, and noting that e-books now outsell hardcovers on Amazon.com. All of Theater’s electronic activity merely augments the content that appears on the pages of the magazine. Even with the development of an online archive and a more robust website Sellar states categorically that the magazine’s mission remains the same:
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At work in the Theater magazine office, front left to right: Jacob Gallagher-Ross ’09, Ryan Davis ’11, and Miriam Felton-Dansky ’09. Photo by Sunder Ganglani ’12. “Long-form essayistic writing has been our strength,” he says, “and Theater will continue to be a home for that type of criticism.” In other words: Theater definitely will continue to publish in print. Sellar also sees the magazine’s new online presence as a way to expand and stimulate its audience. “Online political journalism, for example, is influencing the conversation in a way that traditional political journalism isn’t,” he notes, speculating that, freed from
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long lead times and limited column inches, online theatre criticism might do the same. Theater’s website also presents publication opportunities for more students, even those beyond the Department of Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism who staff the magazine. And wouldn’t every dramaturg and critic like to believe that a more vibrant critical conversation makes for better art? Anne Seiwerath ’12
News from Yale School of Drama
Commedia Takes Istanbul The commedia project, Always Almost Something, created by third-year acting students in Clown Class with teacher/director Chris Bayes (Faculty), was about to make its debut on the stage of a small auditorium theatre on the campus of Bogaziçi ˘ University in Istanbul. The actors, all in the class of ’10—Will Connolly, John Patrick Doherty, Austin Durant, Joby Earle, Slate Holmgren, Aaron Moss, Charise K. Smith and Liz Wisan—were backstage, nervously waiting to go on. Theirs was not a routine case of stage-fright; they were terrified, and for two good reasons. These actors had never before faced the prospect of performing for an audience who might not understand a word of what they were saying. But the language barrier was only the first hurdle; what would the Turkish audience make of the project’s potentially controversial content, if they did understand? Always Almost Something was a typical commedia blend of slapstick, sexual innuendo, irreverent bits of physical business, songs and topical (often obscene) cultural references. It was impossible to predict whether or not the audience assembled in the small auditorium would laugh at the jokes or be embarrassed by the sexual innuendo. Would they be offended by the obscenities? Grossed out by the physical business? Would they sit in stony silence or storm out in a huff? Given the uncertain circumstances, what was Always Almost Something doing in Istanbul in the first place? The commedia project was part of this year’s Yale Week in Istanbul, a series of performances and symposia organized by the Yale Office of International Affairs in partnership with academic institutions in Turkey. Each year, representatives from Yale travel abroad to further develop ties with international communities of alumni. This year’s events showcased Yale’s
These actors had never before faced the prospect of performing for an audience who might not understand a word of what they were saying. performing arts curriculum, which also included the Yale Student Orchestra, led by Toshiyuki Shimada, playing in the Byzantine Aya Irini Church in the courtyard of Topkapi Palace. A few days before the commedia performance, Chris Bayes and Joby Earle ’10 gave a physical comedy workshop for a group of 32 high school students on the stage of Amuammer Karaca Theatre, attended by Ahmet Misbah Demircan, the Mayor of Beyoglu Municipality, and Sharon A. Weiner, the United States Consul General for Istanbul. And finally, there was Always Almost Something.
Clockwise from left: Joby Earle ’10, Charise Smith ’10, Austin Durant ’ 10, John Patrick Doherty ’10, Will Connolly ’10, Liz Wisan ’10 in Always Almost Something by Christopher Bayes (Faculty). Photo courtesy of Yale School of Drama. While the cast dealt with their pre-show jitters, the evening began on an auspicious note with the onstage appearance of the legendary Turkish director—and YSD alumnus— Haldun Dormen ’55. Wearing dark glasses and a rakish orange scarf, he reminisced about the significance of his years at the School of Drama (see pg. 9), then introduced the show and stepped aside. The fears of the cast were unfounded: the performance was a triumph. The audience of high school and college students— as well as the staff of Bogaziçi ˘ University, including its Rector, Kadri Ozcaldiran—laughed throughout and finally stood up and cheered, bringing the cast back onstage for a sustained round of applause and the presentation of a congratulatory bouquet of flowers to director Bayes. At the celebratory dinner that night on a luxury yacht cruising up the Bosphorus under a full orange moon, any worries anyone had about the reception of the show were put to rest when the host of the event, Mehmet Kahya yc ’74, announced that comedy on Turkish television is even more salacious and rude than Always Almost Something, and that next time, Chris Bayes and company had his blessing to produce something that went even further. Barry Jay Kaplan
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On and Off York Street Yale Institute for Music Theatre: Sarah Sings Out The Yale Institute for Music Theatre (YIMT) was established last year by Yale School of Drama and Yale School of Music, to bring together emerging theatre artists, writers, and composers to support the creation of new musical theatre works. Mark Brokaw ’86 and Beth Morrison ’05 returned for their second season as Artistic Director and Producer, respectively, and oversaw the development of two workshops this summer. Stuck Elevator (music by Byron Au Yong and libretto by Aaron Jafferis) mapped the psychological nuances of a Chinese delivery man, trapped in an elevator, terrified his illegal immigrant status will be discovered if he pushes the help button. The Daughters (music and libretto by Shaina Taub) follows three daughters of Zeus as each travels a path to self-discovery. Acting student Sarah Sokolovic ’11 auditioned and was cast in The Daughters. She recounted this about her experience: The most vivid aspect of my audition for The Daughters came not during the actual audition itself but in the waiting room outside. As I watched the clock and counted the minutes until my turn I heard some astonishing sounds coming from inside that room. Wailing is what it was. But not wailing in the Bacchantic sense of the word but distinctive wailing. Like Aretha Franklin. Like Ella Fitzgerald. Like Marvin Gaye and Mary J. Blige and the late King of Pop. And Sarah Vaughn. And Jeff Buckley. I was desperately hoping I wasn’t going to have to follow that! As a one-time cabaret performer and frequenter of open-mic nights, it was always a bit unnerving to hear someone being great just before it was your turn to go on. My name was called. I entered the room. And I discovered that the voice I’d heard belonged to Shaina Taub, author of the play I was auditioning for. I gulped, hefted my guitar and sang a little Beyoncé, a little Sondheim, and a little Etta James. End of audition. End of my chances? A few anxious days later I heard from Shaina—an incredibly kind note, telling me how
great she thought I was. (FYI: After an audition, it’s usually me who sends the “thank-you” note.) Not only were her voice and music amazing, she was also thoughtful and generous. And I got the part! Over the next two weeks of working on her play, I would find so many more reasons to love her and her music. She was intelligent, articulate, fun, and warm, a combination of equal parts thoughtful, challenging, and supportive, coupled with a great sense of humor and imagination. In my ten years of working in regional theatre, Shaina is one of the most inspiring and exciting artists that I have had the pleasure to work with.
In rehearsal for The Daughters by Shaina Taub. Back from left: Sarah Sokolovic ’11, Christina Acosta Robinson ’10, Emily Jenda yc ’10. Front from left: Rachel Stern, Carrie Mariolakos, Jo Lampert. Photo by Sabato Visconti.
David Alan Grier on Acting
Miriam Hyman ’12 and David Alan Grier ’81. Photo by Debbie Ellinghaus.
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On his Monday off from starring in David Mamet’s Race on Broadway, David Alan Grier ’81 came to New Haven to speak to YSD students. Most people know David’s work as a comic actor, but what was intriguing was his versatility in all forms of performance. From Shakespeare in the Park’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, to the comedy sketch show In Living Color, and then to Mamet on Broadway, he is a versatile performer. The packed room listened as David spoke about the importance of honing one’s craft, of sustaining artistic interest and political curiosity. He also stressed the need to cultivate versatility as a performer, and to create opportunities to do meaningful work, noting that for African-American actors, this need exists within the industry’s limited offerings. Intrigued by David’s lecture, Miriam Hyman ’12 took the train into New York to see him onstage in Race. “Watching his performance was enjoyable,” she said. “And knowing that I was seeing his theory in practice was truly inspiring.”
News from Yale School of Drama
Haldun Dormen: Istanbul to Yale and Back At age 82, Haldun Dormen ’55 has no intention of slowing down. The night he introduced YSD’s commedia Almost Always Something at Bogaziçi ˘ University in Istanbul, he had just driven five hours from where he was acting in two different plays, in addition to preparing a new play written entirely in Kurdish for the first time in his career. He is referred to as “the ruling doyen of Istanbul’s boulevard theatre,” and has presented, directed, and acted in everything from Shakespeare to Feydeau farces to American musicals, at his own Dormen Theatre and elsewhere. He has Haldun Dormen ’55 often adapted foreign works to a Turkish introduces the commedia context as well as produced, directed and project in Istanbul. acted in translations of the great plays of world theatre, including at least four different translations of Hamlet, which Turkish audiences enjoy, along with broad farce and the cutting verbal humor often found in urban Jewish comedies, like those of Neil Simon. To date he has produced almost 200 plays and 50 musicals. His extraordinary career began in the early 1950s at Yale School of Drama. “My father wanted me to be a businessman,” he recalls, “but I wanted a life in the theatre. When my father heard this, he said: ‘be in the theatre but be the best.’” As far as Haldun was concerned, there was only one place to study to be the best. Upon his graduation and return home—the first actor from Istanbul to attend Yale School of Drama—he surprised his expectant colleagues by staging a farce. In short order, he and
a few friends created “Cip” or pocket theatre, and performed plays by Sartre and Saroyan in an apartment space accommodating just 25 seats. “At the time it was considered avant-garde,” he says. “It was very similar to what was being done at the same time in New York’s off-off Broadway.” Haldun has gone on to train hundreds of actors, been awarded Anointed State Artist by the Turkish Ministry of Culture, won the Golden Orange Award (1966) for Best Film, and in 1967 the best comedy film prize. At the 15th International Istanbul Theatre Festival and the 4th International Theatre Olympics, he was awarded, along with Peter Brook, a Lifetime Achievement award. A few nights after the commedia performance was a celebratory YSD dinner in a restaurant on the banks of the Bosphorus, a strait that forms part of the boundary between Europe and Asia, chosen especially by Haldun because he thought the student actors would be charmed by it, which they were. During conversation, he was persuaded to look back—something he rarely does—on his fiftyplus years in the theatre. He talked about his beginnings at Yale, his fondness for New Haven and its residents, mentioning George Pierce Baker (Former Faculty) and an occasional sighting of fellow student Paul Newman ’54. “I owe my whole career to the solid foundation I got at Yale School of Drama.” He reserves his most ardent praise for acting teacher Constance Welch (Former Faculty), crediting her belief in him for the longevity of his career. He turns to look out at the water, his eyes seeming to look deep into his past. “She was the greatest influence on my life.” Barry Jay Kaplan
Faculty Winners Ming Cho Lee, Donald M. Oenslager Professor (Adjunct) of Design and Co-Chair of the Design Department, was among the honorees of the Theatre Development Fund’s Irene Sharaff Awards as he received the Robert L.B. Tobin Award for Sustained Excellence in Theatrical Design Bowling Green State University named Ron Van Lieu, Lloyd Richards Professor (Adjunct) of Acting and Chair of the Acting Department, as one of its 100 most distinguished graduates on the occasion of its centenary. Marc Robinson ’90, dfa ’92 (Faculty), Professor (Adjuct) of Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism won the George Jean Marc Robinson ’90 Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism for dfa ’92. his book The American Play 1787–2000.
“I do.” The surprise hit of the Fall 2010 Cabaret season was the September 30, 2010 midnight wedding of Andrew Kelsey ’11 and Stéphanie Hayes ’11. Walton Wilson (Faculty) officiated. Photo by Yi Zhao ’12.
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On and Off York Street Bill Reynolds Takes a New Job; Diane Galt Takes an Old One When the Japanese performance duo Baby-Q filled the Iseman Theater with thick fog, Bill Reynolds ’77 knew the exact concentration of the chemicals in the air: he measured the particulates in parts-per-million. He also made sure that when the actor deflected lasers from her body with a mirror, she would do it at an angle that wouldn’t expose audience members to the rays. For Bill, former Director of Facility Operations and now the Drama School’s first-ever Director of Theatre Safety and Occupational Health, Baby-Q’s performance presented an opportu-
Bill Reynolds ’77 and Diane Galt. Photo by Debbie Ellinghaus.
nity for discovery, even as he strove to keep audiences and performers safe. Bill has worked at the School since 1982, both as an instructor in the Technical Design and Production department and as an administrator. Since the late 1980s, he has taught a safety course required for all first-year TDs and stage managers. Replacing Bill as Director of Facility Operations is Diane Galt, who came to Yale in January 2010 after serving as Director of Operations at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York. Diane says that her time at Yale will be spent “on a very basic level, managing the maintenance and renovations of our wonderful building stock.” This may be basic but it will not be easy. Some of the YSD buildings, including the Yale Repertory Theatre, are more than 100 years old and are used for things other than their original purpose; the Rep building’s original 1846 incarnation was The Calvary Baptist Church. Fortuitously for Yale, Diane’s expertise is in Historic Preservation and Architectural History and she looks forward to raising YSD buildings to their fullest potential. “This is the best kind of recycling possible,” she says: “the recycling of beautiful buildings.”
Take a Class: Auditing Offered to Alumni Recognizing the value of lifelong learning for practicing theatre professionals, the School of Drama now offers alumni the opportunity to audit—tuition-free— select Drama courses on a non-credit basis. Alumni may seek to expand their knowledge within a different discipline than the one they studied at Yale; for example, directors who feel they might benefit from a management course in their role as artistic director of a theatre. Others may want to keep up with new developments in the field by taking a course not offered when they were students, such as a set designer who wants to study projection design. Not all Drama courses are open to alumni auditors, and auditing is only permitted with the instructor’s consent. Any YSD graduate who wishes to audit a course should contact Registrar Maria Leveton at maria.leveton@yale.edu for more information. Consult the School of Drama Bulletin—formerly known as the Bluebook—on the School of Drama website at http://drama.yale.edu for course listings. The University’s Alumni Auditing Program, which enables alumni to audit Yale College classes, is also open to degree-holding Drama alumni and their spouses. Auditing a Yale College course costs $500 per term for the 2010–11 academic year. Visit http://admissions.yale.edu/yale-alumni-auditing-program for more details. Joan Channick ’89, Associate Dean
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A Poet in our Midst This fall, the Old Saybrook, CT, Public Library’s poetry contest gave first prize to Senior Administrative Assistant for the Design Department at Yale School of Drama Mary Buell Volk for her poem Approaching Winter. Mary’s poetry also appears in Caduceus, a collection sponsored by the Yale Medical Group and Art Place; The Guilford Poets Guild 20th Anniversary Anthology; Mad Poets Review and Avocet.
Steven Epp Speaks Though Yale Rep audiences experienced Steven Epp as the virtuosic clown at the center of last season’s production of The Servant of Two Masters at the Rep, YSD students had the chance to talk with Steven about his experience as one of the founding members of Theatre de la Jeune Lune, the now legendary (but recently closed) theatre in Minneapolis. Epp shared his experience as a leader in the field as both an actor and administrator and explained how to sustain an organization while creating new works for the stage. The conclusion: it takes a ridiculous amount of hard work, blind faith, boundless creativity, and of course, the heart of a clown. Sunder Ganglani ’12
News from Yale School of Drama
Strange Love in Outer Space It is hardly routine that a Dwight/Edgewood (D/EP) presentation in New Haven goes on to a run in New York, but try telling that to Janyia Antrum. Last summer when she was a sixth-grader at Wexler/Grant Community School, Janyia began imagining the world of Strange Love during her participation in the D/ EP weekend camping retreat. She had never written a play but that was no stumbling block. All weekend long, with the apparent confidence of an old pro, Janyia sketched out the action for her one-act musical: the alien princess Splontusia is the nicest girl on her home planet, Contasia, until the evil Dr. Roswald Tuscanunin, a mad scientist (and four-mile-long worm) injects her with his experimental “mean serum.” Revenge is sworn, differences are overcome and in the end, love conquers all. In response to the overwhelmingly positive reception, Janyia took it upon herself to pen a sequel: Strange Divorce in Outer Space, a tragicomic glimpse into the lives of Splontusia and Dr. T. seven years later. Impressed by the young playwright’s promise—and charmed by her wacky but intensely lovable alien creations —Yale Cabaret commissioned Janyia to write a third and final act of the Strange Love saga, and the full trilogy was produced in a sold-out run as part of the Cabaret’s 42nd season.
With the help of producers Elizabeth Elliott ’11 and Jorge Rodriguez ’10 and director Christopher Mirto ’10, the Strange Love trilogy made its New York City premiere at the Cherry Pit Theatre as part of the 2010 New York International Fringe Festival. And as for the critics, Ryan Emmons had this to say at nytheatre.com: “Strange Love in Outer Space: A Musical Traumedy is an excellent reminder that it is okay to have fun in the theatre and an imagination is a beautiful thing. It also stressed for me that encouraging young minds to create is vital and fruitful and should be done whenever possible. There are silly, wonderful and fun ideas in the minds of 12-year-olds that tell us something about who we are today. I’m looking forward to Antrum’s next one!” Brian Valencia ’10
David Chambers (Faculty) holding the honorary Doctorate certificate he received in Romania.
Honors for David Chambers When David Chambers (Faculty) was invited to the 10th anniversary of theatre pedagogy at the University of the Lower Danube in Galati, Romania, he thought he was there only to deliver a workshop to an international conference of theatre students and educators. What he didn’t know was that he would also be awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Arts by the Rector of the University. In awarding the Doctorate, the Director of the Theater Department of the Faculty of Arts, Professor Mihaela Dumitriu, delivered the Laudatio, ”In the 23 years [at Yale University] … he has made a tremendous difference in the training of several generations of directors and actors who have graduated from this prestigious school of drama. His work has left significant and valuable traces in the many places of the world he has been to, his prestigious work being unanimously recognized as such for its exquisite professional qualities.”
Save the Date! Yale School of Drama 2010–11 Alumni Events
West Coast Alumni Party Sunday, March 6, 2011 At the home of Asaad Kelada ’64
Christopher Mirto ’10 and Alexandra Hendrickson ’11 in Strange Love in Outer Space at Yale Cabaret. Photo by Steven Schmidt ’11.
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On and Off York Street YSD Students Go to China After her visit to Yale last April, China’s State Councilor, Madame Liu Yandong, invited Assistant Secretary of the University, Fawn Wang, to bring 50 students to China to participate in a special language and cultural program. On December 28, participants traveled to Beijing, where they visited important sites such as the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, and Great Hall of the People, and went to Shanghai for a week of lectures, museum visits and sight-seeing, language classes and meetings with Chinese students. Ryan Retartha ’10, Miriam Hyman ’11 and Leon Dobkowski ’11 were the three students from YSD chosen to make the trip. Below they share their impressions. Ryan Retartha ’10 on the Great Wall of China.
Leon Dobkowski ’11 One particular experience in Beijing sticks out as being the link between my work at the School of Drama as a costume design student and my time in China. Beneath numerous layers of clothes—and in spite of multiple cups of Starbucks—it was unbearably cold the day our group walked through courtyard after courtyard in the Forbidden City along with tourists from all over the world. I had begun to wonder if what was forbidden about this city was heat. After one too many climbs up and down massive flights of stairs, we were all too cold to enjoy ourselves. A few of the students decided they could take it no longer and pleaded to be taken back to the bus. Quick thinking sent our chaperones into action. Within minutes they produced stuffed panda hats for the entire group, including themselves and our Chinese guides. Suddenly, the arctic temperature was bearable. It took only a hat to raise the temperature and the spirits of an entire group. We finished the tour, went for our first taste of Peking duck, and later that evening attended a performance by a troupe of Chinese acrobats. We were all happy, and stayed in costume.
In the Forbidden City with, from left to right, Leon Dobkowski ’11, Kalina Duncan eph ’11, Roland Dimya eph ’11, Lesley Magnussen nur ’10, Trang Thach eph ’10, Ivan Fernandes som ’10.
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Miriam Hyman ’12 As an actor, I was certain that going on the 2009 Yale trip to China would present new experiences that would broaden my ideas about what was possible in the theatre. I didn’t expect to learn so much about generosity and patience. Immediately upon arrival in Beijing, we were immersed in a political and cultural climate that was completely new to me. I thought of my classmates at home with their families during the mid-winter break, while here I was in Beijing, struggling through classes in Mandarin and willing my body to loosen up while doing Tai-Chi. Our host, Tony J. Wang, was a student from Eastern China Normal University. Surprisingly, it was from him and his family that I learned the most during my trip. They graciously invited us into their home, and opened their hearts to our sometimes awkwardly expressed curiosity about their way of life. In terms of how this applies to acting, I can’t imagine a better teaching experience than having the opportunity to see life from a different perspective. I came back home, eager to draw from these new experiences and create new characters.
Ryan Retartha ’10 Toward the end of our time in China, the 50 Yale graduate and professional students who participated in the trip were paired with students from Eastern China Normal University, where we were housed during our week in Shanghai, and invited to their homes. I was paired with a young student named Emily, but was somewhat apprehensive about going to her home because I expected a cold reception. Even after being surrounded by incredibly friendly and outgoing Chinese during our stay, I still had this clichéd idea of a stern father and distant mother. I probably watch too much TV. As it happened, my experience in Emily’s family’s small apartment had a profound impact on me. The family members went far beyond their means to provide me with a wonderful meal, the best I had eaten on the entire trip. Emily’s parents treated her with such love and unconditional adoration, I was almost moved to tears. Of course, I realized, most Chinese families are allowed only one child. It was then that I also understood one of the theatre’s larger responsibilities: to be the translator of family, love and the human condition, because all of that is truly universal.
News from Yale School of Drama
Pamela Prather Says Goodbye to YSD After eight years at Yale School of Drama, Speech and Voice teacher Pamela Prather (Former Faculty) has left Yale. In announcing her departure from the School, Pamela said: “My tenure at Yale has been and continues to be inspirational.” She has coached more than 30 student productions, requiring at least as many accents and dialects. “My
Pamela Prather (Former Faculty) with son Harrison Ozymandias Millman. Photo by Travis Millman. favorite aspect of teaching at Yale was the caliber of students and faculty that I had the honor of working with. I consistently felt challenged to do my best and become a better coach and teacher.” Pamela is moving to Boston with her family, where she will continue to freelance as well as enjoy “the amazing sounds my 15-month-old son is making!”
Doug Wrights In Doug Wright yc ’85 joined the Yale School of Drama faculty as a Lecturer in Playwriting for the fall 2010 semester, filling in for Paula Vogel (Faculty), the Eugene O’Neill Chair of the Playwriting Department, who took a one-semester leave of absence. A Pulitzer Prize and Tony Awardwinning playwright, Doug has a pretty full professional plate but when Paula invited him to consider the opportunity to replace her for the semester, he found he couldn’t say no. “The thought of attempting to fill Paula’s shoes was incredibly daunting, but promised certain rewards as well,” he says. “And I can’t lie; nostalgia played a part in my decision. I’m a 1985 graduate of Yale College, and my first two plays were produced under Lloyd Richards at Yale Repertory Theatre.” Though Paula’s teaching methods are widely praised, she has urged Doug not to be beholden to them. After spending a few days in “boot camp”—Paula’s pre-semester intensive playwriting workshop—Doug admits, “I’ve found some of her notions just too intoxicating to ignore.” On his own, he hopes to create the kind of “safe space” that allows talented writers to “unleash their most lunatic and inspired fantasies, and their shrewdest observations about what it means to live in our maddening, immensely complicated world,” he says. “In some small way, I hope to ready them for the experience of professional production, and how to navigate a life in an admittedly tenuous field.” To that end he plans to share his own authorial struggles: how he has surmounted plot problems or unlocked particular themes
Playwright Doug Wright yc ’85 on the fire escape of his New York apartment. Photo by Joan Marcus. in his work, rendered texts more accessible to actors, collaborated with composers and lyricists, dealt with divas and paid the rent. “Hopefully,” he says, “in my particular, idiosyncratic experiences, together we can divine some larger, relevant truths.” During his teaching schedule, his own writing continues apace: a screenplay for producers Marc Platt and Steven Spielberg, a Disney feature, a new musical for the La Jolla Playhouse. “After I counsel my students,” he says, “I’ll have the sobering, even humbling experience of heading home to stare down my own blank page.” He’s a playwright, after all. Barry Jay Kaplan
Happy 80th Birthday Ming! Ming Cho Lee’s 80th birthday on October 3, 2010, was cause for a joyful celebration. Joining Ming and his wife Betsy were friends, family, colleagues and YSD alumni.
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Collaboration is the modus operandi and the soul of the theatre, generating an atmosphere and a community where disparate voices come together to create a work of art. Yale School of Drama has a long history of offering young theatre artists the time, space, resources, and mentorship with which to cultivate that community. Theatre artists cross paths at the School, share ideas and cultivate enduring artistic relationships.
The Collaborative Art Contributors Colin Mannex ’10, Sunder Ganglani ’12, Barry Jay Kaplan
Working Together at Yale and Beyond
The legacy of these collaborative partnerships lives on through the many theatre companies and organizations founded and run by YSD graduates. What follows are profiles of a few of the companies that have come out of creative collaborations begun at the School.
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Powerhouse Theatre Apprentice Company’s production of The Good Woman of Setzuan. Photo by Carlise Stockton.
New York Stage and Film: Developing New Work Mark Linn-Baker ’79, yc ’76 and Leslie Urdang ’81 had worked together at YSD on new plays they believed to be meaningful and envisioned a time when they would be able to continue that kind of work outside New Haven. Then graduation—and reality—hit. “By the time Leslie and I ended up in New York,” Mark recalls, “the burgeoning regional theatre movement that we planned to take part in after graduating from YSD had changed. The economics of the time, combined with the economics of making theatre, didn’t allow for very much risk-taking. We wanted to work on new plays but the kind of work that we had done at YSD wasn’t really being done in the non-profit or commercial sector at the time.” Together with Max Mayer, who had just graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in Acting, they found a temporary home at the Double Image Theatre in New York, run by Max Mayer’s mother, and soon realized they wanted to produce new work in a protected way. That meant developing new plays outside the watchful eyes of New York critics, who so often can stunt a play’s growth with an unfortunate review, and lower the commercial stakes of productions
with smaller budget sizes. They looked for a place outside the city to work. “Leslie drew a circle with a 90-mile radius from New York,” Mark says. “Then we found out through Carol Ostrow ’80, who was working at Vassar, that their theatre department was looking to start a summer theatre education program. We were able to combine their needs with our own production program.” Thus was the New York Stage and Film (NYSAF) created. The cornerstone of NYSAF’s artistic programming is the Powerhouse Season, an eight-week residency on the Vassar College campus in Poughkeepsie, NY, where each summer more than two hundred professional playwrights, directors, actors, and designers, as well as over fifty apprentices, live and work together. The program is designed to meet and respond to plays at various stages of development by helping them move to the next level. “Our model was the relationship between Yale School of Drama and the Rep,” Mark says. During the Powerhouse Season, new creative alliances are formed, artists substantially broaden their experience and expertise, plays take giant steps forward, nascent artists are given their first
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opportunities, knowledge is passed from working professionals to students, and audiences grow to understand and support the process of creating work for the theatre. From September to May, NYSAF produces a New York City Readings Series to further support plays developed during the Powerhouse Season, to deepen relationships with NYSAF’s family of artists, and to introduce the company to new artists and projects. New York Stage and Film plays a significant and distinctive role in the development of new plays for American theatre by providing a home for a diverse group of artists free from critical and commercial pressures.
“There has to be time in new play development where you’re working from impulse and inspiration, and the longer that time can be preserved, the better,” Mark says. “The influence of ticket sales and commercial success are not bad things, but they cannot be the origin of a work, and they must be kept at bay until the work achieves its artistic aspirations on its own terms.” Now celebrating its 26th season, NYSAF has established itself as a vital cultural institution for residents of the New York metropolitan region and artists of the world.
triad stage
Triad Stage: Cabaret Partners Establish a Theatre On Elm Street in downtown Greensboro, NC, is Triad Stage, a ten-year-old theatre company housed in a Montgomery Ward department store that had been vacant for four decades. Richard Whittington ’98 had heard great things about what Preston Lane ’95 was doing as Artistic Director of the Yale Summer Cabaret, challenging the artists, and making sure there was some hook that would bring in audiences. “He was creating a dialogue,” Richard says, “so that audiences were invested, not just buying tickets to see a play.” Richard approached Preston and asked him to stay on for one more year. “It was unprecedented at that time,” he tells, “for someone to continue to be Artistic Director after graduation, but Preston stayed on for the summer.” In Richard, Preston found a theatre manager who thought like an artist, who saw his job as putting together resources that allow
A street view of Triad Stage in Greensboro, NC. Photo courtesy of Triad Stage.
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artists to do what they do best. And in Preston, Richard found an artistic director who wanted to create a home for artists, to root it in a community with which he could engage in discourse. “At that time,” Richard says, “most directors had given up on regional theatre.” Previous Summer Cabaret management had cut costs on the artistic front—cheaper sets, smaller casts—because the other costs were fixed. What Preston and Richard did was increase the design budgets and pay the artists a bit better, focusing on streamlining the administrative aspects, and making sure systems worked well. Artists became the center of their organization. At the end of the summer of 1995, however, the pair felt frustrated. Their teachers extolled the idealistic goals of the regional theatre movement, yet concluded by saying they were impossible to reach. Preston and Richard decided to put their education to work and their compatible views about theatre to the test. “I spent my last year at YSD creating a business plan,” Richard says. “And we started to look for the right spot around the country. Preston wanted to go back to North Carolina, where he’s from. We found the area to be a gem. I graduated in 1998 and went down to North Carolina to ‘friend-raise.’ Each time we met with someone we asked for five more names of people to talk to.” In this way the men identified their Chairman of the Board, selected their Advisory Board and ultimately raised $5 million from the community to buy the department store. After extensive renovation, the building now has rehearsal space, a 300-seat main theatre and a 90-seat cabaret designed in homage to the Yale Cabaret. As they launch their tenth season, Preston and Richard agree that they continue to have something rare: a 50-50 partnership. “He doesn’t work for me—though I sometimes wish he would,” Richard jokes. “And I don’t work for him—though he sometimes wishes I did. We have mutual respect. I respect his artistry. I firmly believe he’s the best director I’ve ever met. We credit Yale with the birth of Triad. It wouldn’t have happened if not for our experiences there.”
new theater house
New Theater House: The Essence Piece Process In 2008, Shana Cooper ’09 was beginning work on her directing thesis at YSD, a production of Strindberg’s intense, dark chamber play, The Ghost Sonata. For the first two weeks of rehearsal, she conducted an experiment. Instead of working through the play scene by scene, blocking entrances and exits and guiding actors through the dense emotional landscape of Strindberg’s text, Shana decided to open up the process to the ensemble, making it a collective task to find new meaning and poetry in the play. Thus was born the “Essence Piece Process,” a principle that has come to define the working aesthetic of New Theater House (Nth), an ensemble of theatre artists dedicated to redefining the methods of collaboration in the American theatre. The process consists of “solo performance pieces that explore the visual, aural, and physical landscape of the play,” Shana explains. During The Ghost Sonata rehearsals, for example, the actors would arrive each day prepared to perform short studies in character and feeling for the rest of the company. Slowly, piece-by-piece, the world of the play was pulled into relief. In the end, a community of artists who had developed a shared theatrical vocabulary took shape as well. “We had discovered a way of working that allowed us access to our imaginations as a collective, and a process that broke down the barriers between different artistic disciplines. Everybody on the production team was suddenly involved in uncovering the meaning of the play, and devising its direction.” Nth was thus founded to sustain the group’s collective artistic inquiry and create a network of engaged theatre artists (and audiences). Andrew Kelsey ’11, an Nth collaborator, described working with
the company as “an invigorating experience, where the prevailing outlook in the rehearsal room is that anything is achievable, and that time constraints are actually a boon to the creative process. In the first two weeks of collaborating on The Whale Play (a world premiere by Victor Cazares ’08), we produced three or four shows’ worth of material.” For the present, the company functions as a network that convenes on a project-by-project basis wherever opportunities arise. Their first two productions—re-imagining Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, played in a parking lot transformed into an amphitheatre, and The Whale Play—were performed at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Amherst College in Massachusetts, respectively. The company’s work is visceral and expressive; it lays bare the emotional core of a text and creates an intimate space for audiences to experience live performance—and hopefully, along with the company, discover the poetic essence of a story. Nth is meant to become a supportive artistic home for the group of artists whose common roots are in YSD. They have individual professional careers in the American theatre, while the company provides a home base for experimentation, redefinition and in-depth collaboration.
nth ensemble members
Nikki Berger ’08 Shana Cooper ’08 Sarita Covington ’07
Scott Dougan ’09 Joby Earle ’10 Andrew Kelsey ’11
(top) The Twelfth Night Parking Lot Project in Ashland, OR, the first New Theater House project. Photo by Scott James. (right) The Whale Play by Victor Cazares ’08. Pictured are New Theater House members Barret O’Brien ’09 and Erica Sullivan ’09. Photo by Sam Masinter.
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Alex Major ’08 Barrett O’Brien ’09 Erica Sullivan ’09
wingspace
Anyone who enters the Wingspace studio becomes a potential collaborator— if not in the work itself, then in the discourse that it generates.
Wingspace: A Design Collective On a Brooklyn street littered with grit and broken glass sits the Old American Can Factory, home to the theatrical design collective Wingspace. Like so many abandoned buildings on either side of the Gowanus Canal, it has been retooled to accommodate studios and performance artists. Inside the divided space are a series of heavy iron doors with intricate locking mechanisms and knuckled hinges; they give the impression that each chamber is actually pressurized. Upon entering, a visitor first encounters Lee Savage ’05, whose studio’s vault-like door stands ajar. When Savage talks about the artistic aims of Wingspace, it becomes clear that the feeling of free passage and privileged access upon entering the building are more than fortuitous. Wingspace, founded by graduating YSD designers in 2005, has grown from a project-based website highlighting each member’s recent productions to a shared workspace environment where fourteen designers and one dramaturg pool research materials and expenses. In 2007, they took up residence at the Old American Can Factory, and since then they’ve been working within the community to stimulate interest in new American theatre. With a free public salon series featuring guest speakers and events ranging from contemporary dance, solo performance, and music-based theatre, to a reading of Sarah Kane’s Blasted, they’ve endeavored to keep an open-door policy. Anyone who enters the Wingspace studio becomes a potential collaborator—if not in the work itself, then in the discourse that it generates. Convening for organizational business like budgeting meetings, the members of Wingspace gather at a long glass table. Members working out of town attend monthly planning sessions via Skype. The heart of the collective is the building, which brings artists into regular contact with one another. Christine Mok ’05, the lone dramaturg, says, “Wingspace began as a community building project among designers and theatre makers. And it’s great to have the studio space because it takes that same impulse and extends its reach.” The conference table is surrounded by shelves of source books, plays, and theatre history and criticism; on the studio’s periphery, drafting tables line the walls. The few pieces of framed art look as though they could have been salvaged from the former YSD Library; it is easy to imagine a storied history for each. In the middle of the room, a squat water cooler serves as a reminder of how differently Wingspace functions from most creative offices. “We’re simply not a company,” Lee asserts. “It’s not one of our goals.” The environment
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The Coronation of Poppea by Claude Monteverdi at Hofstra University, costumes by Wingspace member Christina Bullard ’07. Photo by Christina Bullard.
suggests a different kind of working rapport. Wingspace members divide the budgeting, press, and promotional duties among themselves—without any central oversight. And in sharing the studio tasks, they also share its rewards. Lee continues, “There are other shared studio spaces, but none that have established an identity.” Working in a collaborative unit has other advantages, Lee observes. In a cutthroat theatre culture, “It’s easier to make a name for a group than for a person. Word gets out faster than if you work independently.” In the five years since its funding, Wingspace has begun to acquire the quick recognition that comes with respect in independent theatre circles. Their presence continues to evolve, and running such an outfit requires enormous energy just to fulfill the daily upkeep and demands. But the members project a mutual confidence and optimism that comes with growth. “We’re actively seeking non-Yale members,” Lee grins. This inclusivity at Wingspace is not unexpected; everyone walks through the same door to get there. Wingspace members
Scott Bolman ’03 Andrew Boyce ’09 Burke Brown ’07 Christina Bullard ’07 Joseph Cermatori ’08 Hillary Charnas ’05 Miriam Nilofa Crowe ’05 Alixandra Gage Englund ’06 Gia Forakis ’04
Susanna Gellert ’06 Dylan McCullough Isabel Milenski Jennifer Moeller ’06 Christine Mok ’05 Zane Pihlstrom ’06 Emily Rebholz ’06 Lee Savage ’05 Thom Weaver ’07
NYLon
Jamel Rodriguez ’08, Paul Westwood, Claire Cordier in the NYLon production of Alena Smith’s ’06 Plucker directed by Anna Jones ’06 at the Southwark Playhouse in London. Photo by Stefan Lacandler.
NYLon: Working transatlantically After graduating from YSD, Anna Jones ’06 and Jamel Rodriguez ’08 got married and started living the life of theatrical nomads, going where the work took them and taking any opportunity to make art. Anna hails from England but cut her teeth as a director in New York City, which is Jamel’s hometown. For a few years, the couple spent their time cultivating an artistic community in the five boroughs before relocating to London, where they’ve been since November 2009. For them, creating a company was a practical solution to the problem of having two artistic bases separated by an ocean. In homage to those two cities they called their company NYLon. “Now in our early stages, we aim to present staged readings on a monthly basis,” Anna says. Their eye is on the nurturing of young talent and the development of promising properties with the goal of eventual production. NYLon was a necessary step in making sense of their lives in the theatre. “We were working in two countries, Jamel as an actor, and me as a director, collaborating with performers and writers who didn’t know each other, but should, and we wanted a way to bridge the divide, and be a link between the two theatre communities.” They were looking for plays and musicals that provoked, challenged and pushed theatrical and thematic boundaries, with an ear for language and its complexities and an eye for interdisciplinary media.
Anna and Jamel had worked with playwright Alena Smith ’06 during their time at Yale, and with their new company’s mission to facilitate exchange between American and British artists, it seemed a perfect opportunity to pick up where they had left off. Smith traveled to London to take part in the rehearsals and ended up staying for the full run of their show, Plucker, directed by Anna Jones at the Southwark Playhouse. London’s Evening Standard named it “one of the five best plays of the season.” In addition to mounting readings and productions, Anna and Jamel are developing an affiliated dramatic literary journal, Flair, which will publish the plays NYLon produces, as well as other works of interest to an international audience. Overcoming what could have been a debilitating split in focus, the pair instead see the bounty of limitless possibility in the collaboration of British and American theatre artists. Y
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The Shock of the New... Theatre Architecture & Consultancy in the Contemporary Era By Drew Lichtenberg ’08
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The Pearl Palms Concert Theatre in Las Vegas. Photo by Barry Johnson.
...and the Comforts of the Old YSD 2010–11
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The Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, DC. Photo courtesy of Woolly Mammoth Theatre.
From the outside, the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., renovated in 2005, resembles one of the many brick-walled office buildings in its flourishing downtown neighborhood. On the inside, however, it resembles its repertory. The ceiling appears to rise as the floor seems to plummet, creating an illusion of weightlessness augmented by shafts of light streaming in through the building’s large glass facades. A dramatic, plunging, two-story staircase dominates the long, narrow lobby, leading audience members down into the 265-seat basement theatre. The theatre space is a gleaming contradiction—a Shakespearean courtyard dressed in sheer materials, like a postmodern dream of the 16th-century Blackfriars theatre. In the lobby, peaceful activity reigns amidst the architectural sturm und drang: sounds waft from the busy city street outside; patrons mill about, drinking coffee, chatting, or browsing play-scripts on sale from the company’s award-winning commissions and world premieres by Sarah Ruhl, Chuck Mee, Craig Wright, the Neo-Futurists, and dozens more. Shockingly, exhilaratingly new, it is built on theatrical principles stretching back to the ancient world. “It’s very much the theatre that [Artistic Director] Howard Shalwitz wanted,” says Gene Leitermann ’82, Managing Director of U.S. Operations for Theatre Projects Consultants, who helped plan and design the building with D.C. architect Mark McInturff. “These sorts of projects are really fun, because you get to work with someone who is really interested, and the result is like the company, idiosyncratic and different because it’s talented.”
Leitermann and his peers in the theatre consulting world—many of whom emerged from the Drama School’s Technical Design and Production department in the 70s and 80s—have presided over a shift in the thriving industry of theatre design. Architectural “specialists,” who were experienced with theatres as a result of having worked on several projects over the span of their careers,
once treated theatre design as their exclusive province. Nowadays theatre institutions routinely employ architects working in conjunction with consulting firms who have aided clients, architects, and engineers in the design and construction of hundreds of theatre spaces. These collaborative relationships have gradually refined and redefined the conception of what theatre spaces can be. Fully ornamented theatre buildings have become destinations again. Indeed, they often fulfill multiple simultaneous roles in their surrounding community as organic emanations of an institutional aesthetic, anchors for urban communities, spaces for social interaction, and ultimately cultural expressions of their geography, mirroring their audiences and onstage work in a synthetic fashion. Within this new architectural paradigm, theatres increasingly serve the many demands of the modern world and articulate the social utility of the contemporary theatrical space. In America, the theatre consultancy industry is indebted to two twin revolutions: the regional/institutional theatre-building boom of the 20th century, which hastened the development of specialists to consult and build theatre buildings throughout the country, and the pioneering work of George Izenour, who taught Theatre Design & Technology at the School of Drama from 1939 through 1977. Remembered in this magazine in 2007 for his “rock-ribbed” demeanor, vigorous work ethic, and ability to inspire students, Izenour effectively codified the principles of the mechanized theatre space. His inventions of electronic dimming and rigging systems played a role in shifting theatre from the analog era to a digital future, while his work on flexible theatre spaces defined a distinctly 20th-century typology. “George really was the father of modern theatre consulting and design,” remembers Steve Pollock ’76. “Some of his initial project work, such as the Krannert Center at the University of Illinois, relied on a number of individual spaces to satisfy a broad menu, whether it be a great hall, an amphitheatre, a studio theatre, and so on. Over time, George began to roll a lot of these functions into what was referred to as the multi-use theatre, and that’s really George’s invention, wherein technology was used to vary acoustics, move ceilings, to do all of these things with moving architecture, changing the physicality of the space itself.” Indeed, when Izenour was approached by Harvard University in the 1950s to build a proscenium that could convert easily into a thrust, the resulting Loeb Drama Center, completed in 1960, which achieves this transformation in a still-impressive period of under thirty minutes, ushered in the era of mechanized, convertible theatres.
Fully ornamented theatre buildings have become destinations again. 22
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(clockwise from below) Architectural rendering of Hartford Stage; interior of the Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, D.C. Photo courtesy of Woolly Mammoth Theatre; Signature Theatre Company in New York. Photo courtesy of the Signature Theatre Company.
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Playwrights Horizons Theatre. Photo courtesy of Playwrights Horizons
Through Izenour’s time and after, Yale School of Drama has remained intimately connected to the theatre consulting world, turning out a number of distinguished alumni who have become respected peers at firms throughout the country. Pollock is now a Principal Consultant at Auerbach Pollock Friedlander, a San Francisco firm founded in 1972, and best known for its work on four Las Vegas venues for Cirque du Soleil, as well as seminal pop culture performing arts centers including The Pearl Concert Theater at the Palms Casino Resort, which hosted the MTV Video Music Awards in 2007. Robert Long ’76 (interviewed in this magazine in 2007) worked in Izenour’s design lab in the YSD Annex basement as a student then moved to Artec in New York and spent 21 years as a Theatre Projects consultant before founding his own firm, Theatre Consultants Collaborative. The number of alumni working in the field is indeed too numerous to list, but the connection has continued. Mike Parella ’00 is a consultant at Artec, Kim Corbett ’05 is a consultant at Schuller & Shook in Chicago, and Matt Welander ’09 has followed Leitermann and other Drama School alums to the nearby Theatre Projects offices in Norwalk, CT. Leitermann also teaches a theatre consulting seminar at the Drama School, and says: “I was tired of training students and watching them go over to my competitors.”
The landscape has changed since the late 70s. Many theatre models pioneered in the 50s and 60s—especially ones built on Izenour’s Wagnerian principles of perfect sight-lines and egalitarian seating, with lobbies that are incidental or secondary to the audience experience—have fallen into disfavor, if not discredit, for their implicit diminution of the audience experience. “Some of those spaces were notorious as isolating spaces,” Pollock says, “because they were very egalitarian and provided little social space within the halls themselves. Later in his career, George began to take a lighter touch and started working with spaces, beginning to reduce the multiplicity of events in one space, realizing that one space can’t be everything to everybody. Today’s audience has 24
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evolved very rapidly since the 1970s. Kids who grow up in homes with large flat-screen video systems are not willing to sit and stare at a distant proscenium opening and applaud when they’re supposed to. They want and need visual impact. Today, we’ve actually gone back full circle to earlier times, pre-Bayreuth, where attending live performance is a much more relevant, populist event.” One of the challenges facing architects and consultants who are commissioned to renovate older theatres or design new ones is the changing face of leisure time in the contemporary city and its surrounding area. Assessments of this country’s automobile dependency aside, more and more theatres are attempting to re-integrate with local neighborhoods, or to renovate older buildings which straddle a divide between the city and the suburbs. To name one example, Hartford Stage, finished in 1975, was built directly into the side of a downtown parking garage after an earlier downtown site became unavailable. Mitchell Kurtz ’75 is an architect who runs his own firm and has built many theatres in New York, such as the New York Theatre Workshop in 1992, Signature Theatre in 1997, and the new Playwrights Horizons in 2003. Commissioned to refurbish and expand Robert Venturi’s design for Hartford Stage, Kurtz admired the architectural simplicity of that building while recognizing the ensuing paradigm shift: “It’s just a very simple box with surface ornamentation and signs. It’s pure theatre: there’s the theatre, a little lobby, little administrative office, little shop, and that’s it. Hardly any amenities at all. Just functional. Theatres nowadays are trying to reach more people and in more ways, with a multiplicity of spaces and more audience and performer accommodation. It’s an entirely different model.” A move toward multi-purpose spaces has helped to integrate theatres with the local community, animating moribund lobbies during the long hours between performances. The Young Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto, completed in 2006 by Thomas Payne, arc ’74 with consultancy by Theatre Projects, combines a multi-use infrastructure with an atmospheric found location in the center of a metropolitan cultural district. Payne says, “It lies at the intersection of the Soulpepper Theatre Company and George Brown College’s Theatre School, so it’s open to the public from early in the morning to late at night. You have people sitting on the floor, stretching during the morning, there’s a café that does pretty brisk business throughout the day.” And the look of the building, like Woolly Mammoth’s, suggests the joys of combining a postmodern weightlessness with the materials of the past. “It’s just structure and air. The lobby is captured between two preexisting, unselfconscious industrial buildings that were part of a distillery, and we left them deliberately in a stressed, found-object condition. It’s very rough, with a kind of concrete slab floor that has a little bit of power in it, and these great, neo-primitive timber trusses span between the walls and the timber roof, but it works.”
In many ways, theatre architects and consultants are looking backward to 19th-century and earlier models in order to move forward. “Look at the Brooklyn Academy of Music,” says Kurtz. “It has this wonderful synchronicity between old and new. You can see Robert Wilson or Phillip Glass in that huge white and gold Gilman opera house. It sets new, avant-garde work in a context where time is a piece of what you’re getting. If theatre is about time in the moment, theatre architecture can be about time in the moment and also the moment before. That’s why people talk about theatres as having memories or ghosts. Older buildings have their own history, and we try to retain that intersection of building memory and theatrical memory. I think a room that deals with time and the specificity of life in which all the viewers and participants are living can be a very exciting thing.” If opera houses can suggest the grandness of the past in alignment with the present, the Shakespearean courtyard model, with its audience surrounds, curvilinear seating banks, and more intimate feel, can make audiences feel alive and connected. “The factors are distance and perceived proximity and adjacency of the people to the performer, and to each other,” says Tony Forman ’83, a Project Manager at Theatre Projects. “Even how far the seats are apart, from a distance. Live theatre experience depends just as much on how those around you are responding, as opposed to your ability to see or experience the performers face-to-face. So we are very concerned with the performer-audience member experience, but we’re also very aware of putting people in a room where they feel, if not see and hear, that common experience because that makes a difference.” In the wake of the mid-century trend for brand-new, multiutilitarian spaces, contemporary theatre design is seemingly more integrative, ornamental, and social, reconnecting new spaces to the foundational principles that may have been lost. If the designs of many mid-century theatres were influenced by an aesthetic desire to depart from the past and make something new and in the present, contemporary theatre designs attempt to have conversations
with the past. “After the Second World War,” says Leitermann, “the practitioners just weren’t there anymore. You had Modernism and the disruption of the wars, and you also had movies, which in the States at least, worked against us. There was this phenomenal loss of what’s important. And the recent history has been mostly about recovering that, and I really feel like we’re right on the cusp.”
And as for the future, who knows? Perhaps the economy will continue to falter, and the theatre as a whole will return to improvisatory, site-specific, and community-oriented work; perhaps innovations in greening theatre and sustainability will create experiences that bring us ever closer to the live, outdoor, ancient world of the amphitheatre. Payne mentions Robert Lepage’s recent project, the 9-hour epic Lip-Synch, which banished spotlights: “they had no follow spots and no strong source of lighting from above, using up a ton of energy. What Lepage has done is recreate the magic of the 19th-century theatre, with footlights and candles, by using LED fixtures from inside the actual set-piece. It’s deliberately low-tech but has a sort of tech flavor to it. It was as if the light was just sort of emanating from within.” Kurtz recently saw a production of Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes at New York Theatre Workshop which combined a similarly “green” concern with a stripped-down production approach, weaving flat, lowwattage fluorescent light sources within a minimalist set. One thing is sure: people will continue to crave live experiences that linger in the memory, and gather in large places to feel together. And the past will keep on popping up in surprising ways. “I remember doing a study while I was at Yale,” Pollock says. “It was of a 10,000-seater at the Chicago World’s Fair in the 1890s, and George [Izenour] said ‘well that will never be done again.’ And I’m here to say I’ve done it multiple times now, because that’s what people want to do for rock-and-roll shows and popular entertainment values. We couldn’t have possibly anticipated the changes that have occurred since George was at Yale in the 70s.” Forty years from now, we might be saying the same thing. Y
(left) The Pearl Concert Theater at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, designed by Auerbach Pollock Friedlander. (below) The Loeb Theatre, American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, MA. Photo by Marcus Stein.
YSD 2010–11
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This Isn’t a Play An Interview with Christopher Durang
By Caroline V. McGraw ’12
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(Lights up on the Playwrights Horizons conference room, New York City. A rainy, June morning. A woman in her late 20s, Caroline V. McGraw ’12, fiddles with an electronic recorder. She is a playwriting student. She is awkward and wore a skirt today. A man, Christopher Durang ’74, sits across from her. He is a prolific, award-winning, critically-acclaimed playwright. His plays include the Pulitzer–Prize–nominated Miss Witherspoon, Why Torture is Wrong and the People Who Love Them, The Marriage of Bette and Boo, and Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You. He has also acted in a number of his own plays, as well as in films such as Housesitter and Life with Mikey. In addition, he is the co-chair of the playwriting program at the Juilliard School. He is soft-spoken and nibbles a breakfast pastry. )
CAROLINE (Fiddling with the recorder) …it’s picking something up. There’s bars, and they’re moving.
CHRISTOPHER DURANG Testing testing.
CAROLINE It’s working. I think. So I’ve been reading the introductions to your plays. As research. And you write about working with Wendy Wasserstein ’76, Sigourney Weaver ’74, Meryl Streep ’74, and your fellow playwriting student Albert Innaurato ’74, and how it informed your time at YSD.
CHRISTOPHER DURANG Albert and I both wrote comedies, and both wrote nuns quite a bit. We came from a Catholic background. And I would think to myself: is there room for these two writers? But Albert had Philadelphia Italian nuns and I had New Jersey Irish nuns, and there was a lot less hitting and violence from my nuns. We started to become friends because we laughed at each other’s jokes. (He takes a last bite of his breakfast pastry.) You know, back then, YSD playwrights were not guaranteed productions at all. (Caroline makes a horrified face.) Yes, a lot of playwrights were angry about it. So we tried to use the Cabaret as much as possible. Our first year, Albert had a play called Urlicht about a nun who kills rats in the subway, and he asked me to be in it because he had trouble finding actors…they were scared to do it. And later I had a play at the Cabaret called Better Dead Than Sorry, and Sigourney was in it and sang the title song. Her character kept getting shock treatments. I played her brother, because we had an actor withdraw. So I kept getting cast in things, even though I was in the playwriting program.
CHRISTOPHER DURANG I don’t know why we thought it was okay for us to be madcap with this assignment. We came up with a totally insane piece where Albert and I dressed up in suits and pretended that we were experts on the poets and then did purposely bad readings of their work. Then we said that Blake and Gray first met while doing a tour of The Glass Menagerie. We changed into priests’ robes and then came out and played Amanda and Laura. Albert played a gleefully sadistic Amanda who always makes fun of Laura for limping. I dressed in a black monk’s outfit and was overly meek and limped a lot. Part of the silliness, of course, is that we played women but we didn’t dress as women, we dressed as priests. We got laughs, but the Art Gallery was put off by it. I remember two women got up and one said to the other, “I don’t know about you, Gladys, but I’m offended.”
CAROLINE That’s alright. I’m Catholic, too. I totally get it.
CHRISTOPHER DURANG Oh you’re Catholic, too? Yes, I thought you looked Irish. (He makes a circle with his finger, to indicate that Caroline has a round Irish face. Which in fact she does. )
CAROLINE Yeah, actually, it’s funny. We’re both Catholic only-children? Sort of a rarity, huh? (CHRISTOPHER DURANG’s phone beeps. It is a text message. )
CAROLINE You ended up collaborating with Albert Innaurato on The Idiots Karamazov, right?
CHRISTOPHER DURANG Yes, in our second year. Howard Stein asked us to do an installation at the Yale Art Gallery. It was supposed to be inspired by drawings done by the poet William Blake that were triggered by his appreciation for the poet Thomas Gray.
CAROLINE (Confused) Sounds…interesting…?
Sigourney Weaver ’74 and Christopher Durang ’74 in Das Lusitania Songspiegel at the Westside Arts Theatre in New York, 1980. Photo by Gregory Grove. YSD 2010–11
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CAROLINE (In awe.)
CHRISTOPHER DURANG Of course.
I’m sorry, would you—
CHRISTOPHER DURANG
CAROLINE No, that’s all right.
CHRISTOPHER DURANG (Looking at his phone.) I don’t understand what this means.
CAROLINE My phone auto-fills things in, so sometimes if I make a mistake, I send a confusing message.
CHRISTOPHER DURANG Oh yes, that must be it. (Caroline smiles to herself. She has been helpful! ) Where was I?
CAROLINE The Idiots—
CHRISTOPHER DURANG Right! So at college I had made a crackpot student film of The Brothers Karamazov, and Albert saw it and said we should make it into a musical. So we put it on outside the Drama School—at Silliman College—with the undergraduates. Howard Stein came to see it and liked it and wanted to stage it with the Drama students, so it became a Drama School student production. That was Meryl’s class—and she got cast in the lead as an 80-year-old, crazy Russianlanguage translator. We wrote the play a little more coherently than the undergrad version, and the acting instructor who was directing, Thomas Haas, gave us some really great notes on it.
CAROLINE So…you were close friends with Wendy Wasserstein—
Exactly! I thought: “Who is this young woman who has these connections already?” Her play was called Every Woman Can’t, which sounded maybe didactic. But then I read the play and it made me laugh and was very funny and friendly. Her first week we had a class together taught by a playwriting fellow, and he wasn’t great at connecting with the students. So I watched Wendy during this first class, and she looked very bored. I thought, “If this were my first year, I would not have known the class wasn’t going to be so hot, but now that I’ve been here a while, I do know that.” So anyway when class was over, I walked over to Wendy and said, “You must be very smart to be bored already,” and she laughed and laughed and her sour face disappeared to the face that I knew to be Wendy’s. (A Playwrights Horizons employee pops his head into the room, indicating that CHRISTOPHER DURANG has a phone call. CHRISTOPHER DURANG steps outside for a moment, leaving Caroline with her own thoughts. We see a dream ballet that seems to spring from Caroline’s mind, visions of how cool it would be to hang out with CHRISTOPHER DURANG and Wendy Wasserstein when they were students. Then the vision morphs into a reverie on which of her classmates she will stay lifelong friends with, and the stories they will tell young writing students when they are successful and have important things to say. CHRISTOPHER DURANG re-enters, interrupting the dream ballet. Caroline returns to Earth.)
CAROLINE Can you talk about yourself as a political writer? You write for the Huffington Post, and your plays, The Vietnamization of New Jersey, and more recently, Why Torture is Wrong and The People Who Love Them, deal with war and the average person’s role in political life.
CHRISTOPHER DURANG Wendy came to the Drama School and her first year was my third year. I had a work-study job my second year in the registrar’s office. I would file the incoming applications.
CAROLINE Oh yeah, I’ve spent many an hour filing. And ushering. And selling ice cream at the Rep. And driving actors on grocery runs. (They share a moment of silent work-study commiseration.)
CHRISTOPHER DURANG I never looked in anybody’s file with the exception of Wendy Wasserstein’s. Someone told she was going to get accepted, and I decided to look. Well, her application was very daunting and not like the real Wendy I came to know. The picture she submitted with her application was scowling and she looked hostile and suspicious. And her letters of recommendations were from Joseph Heller and Israel Horowitz.
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Ralph Redpath ’75 and Meryl Streep ’75 in Yale Repertory Theatre’s production of Durang’s play, The Idiots Karamazov. Photo by William Baker ’73.
CHRISTOPHER DURANG
CHRISTOPHER DURANG
I never thought of myself as a political writer. I actually wrote The Vietnamization of New Jersey as a parody of David Rabe’s play Stick and Bones, which is about a young man coming home from Vietnam. Later, when I wrote Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You, I didn’t think of that as political either; I was just writing about what I’d been taught growing up. After the play was really very well received, I started to learn that there was a backlash, and some conservative people were offended, and picketed, and didn’t want any tax money to go to a theatre that put on the play. Phil Donahue did a whole show about it!
I got my MFA partially so I could teach, but for so much of my career I was busy with productions, and then teaching would never come up. Once I was a guest teacher, but I found it stressful in that I was in a room with playwrights I hadn’t chosen. I didn’t want to be discouraging or harsh, but I found it stressful to figure out what I had to say if I didn’t like something. Well, this job at Juilliard came up, and I was offered the position of co-teaching with Marsha Norman. We had a magical first year. We found out we got on great, and we adored our students. Sometimes we would even bring in things we were working on, if there was no other work that week —I found their responses to be really helpful. I brought in early drafts of Betty’s Summer Vacation and Why Torture is Wrong for my students to read and talk about.
CAROLINE A whole talk show dedicated to a play? Sounds like another planet…
CAROLINE CHRISTOPHER DURANG I did do a clever thing. They wanted to show footage from the St. Louis version of the show. I said Donahue could only do it with footage from the California production, because it was a really great production—that way I knew it was a good clip of my work—and once the show aired, the box office went up in New York, L.A., and San Francisco. (He laughs, a little diabolically.) Every time they went to a clip, the audience would laugh! One audience member said, “I know he shouldn’t be saying those things, but I laughed.” The protests to the play—which later happened in Boston as well—became an early harbinger of the culture wars. It got bomb threats in Florida and was canceled in Detroit. Pat Buchanan said it was the most “bigoted anti-Catholic thing that anyone had ever written.”
CAROLINE That is a bold statement.
I would love to know what you think about playwriting in general. Or playwriting as it is right now. Or playwriting as it used to be. Or, I mean, well, anything about the state of playwriting?
CHRISTOPHER DURANG I sometimes feel that I don’t have a very theoretical mind. So if somebody says to me, “What do you see as the latest trends in theatre?” I sort of don’t have an answer. So I find that in terms of beliefs about playwriting, I don’t have lots of them.
CAROLINE That is strangely comforting. (CHRISTOPHER DURANG smiles and rises, putting out his hand. She shakes it.)
CHRISTOPHER DURANG It’s been really lovely speaking with you. But I have a matinee I have to get to at 2—
CHRISTOPHER DURANG I sent him flowers. I started to become more political after that experience—there were lots of tax payers who did like my play. Later, during the George W. Bush presidency, I found listening to him to be so enraging I would shout at the TV screen, scaring my dog. The way he manipulated the truth fits the term “dry drunk” in AA—someone who is sober, but not psychologically improved. I grew up with a lot of manipulative alcoholics, so I didn’t trust him. I started to read obsessively about politics. I used to go to the theatre pages first and now I go to the Op/Ed pages. My writing for The Huffington Post came out of the blue, during the run of Miss Witherspoon. Arianna Huffington is mentioned in the play, in a passing joke about reincarnation. One day after a matinee, I checked my voicemail and this voice said, “Hello, this is Arianna Huffington.” I thought it was my partner, John, because he’s very good at imitations, but it was her! I felt like I was being offered a soapbox—an outlet for my political frustrations.
CAROLINE You know, if this were one of your plays, something crazy would happen right now. Like maybe a housewife would drop from the ceiling and start listing every pet she’s ever had in alphabetical order. Or maybe the room would split open and reveal an underground cave.
CHRISTOPHER DURANG (Kindly.) This isn’t a play, though, Caroline. (He gathers his things and exits. Caroline is left alone. She packs up her computer and electronic recording device and exits, shutting off the lights. Silence in the room. The floor splits open, revealing an underground cave. A housewife crawls out of the cave, holding an alphabetical list of every pet she’s ever owned. She looks around, disappointed, for someone to talk to. She shrugs, descends back into the cave. The floor repairs itself. )
CAROLINE
* * * The End
You teach, too. Does that inform your own writing?
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InOnReview York Street
New York Holiday Party (2009)
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Photos by Anita Shevett/Shevett Studios
1 James Bundy ’95, Carol Ostrow ’80, Jim Simpson ’81
2 Yoon Young Choi ’10 and Chuan-Chi Chan ’10 3 John Shea ’73, Fred Voelpel ’53, Charles Turner ’70, John Rothman ’75
4 Christopher Grant ’09, Brian Hastert ’09,
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Ellen Lange, Barret O’Brien ’09
5 Rick Ngoc Hô and Valérie Thérèse Bart ’10 6 Tommy Russell ’07, Tok Yulig, Alec Tok ’03 7 Chris Noth ’85, Sharon Washington ’88, Laila Robins ’84, and Robert Cuccioli
8 Jessica Barker ’10 and Bree Sherry ’10
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Alumni Events
News from the Yale School of Drama
West Coast Alumni Party (2010)
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Photos by Ryan Miller/Capture Imaging
9 Amy Aquino ’86, Regina Guggenheim ’93, Szerena Guggenheim-Schoening, Stephen Godchaux ’93
10 Peter Nelson ’53, Joseph Gantman ’53, Paul
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Lukather ’53
11 Gregory Linington, Shana Cooper ’08, Kathy Baker, Steve Robman ’73
12 Rachel Rusch ’05, YC ’00, Kate McConnell ’05 13 Steven Blye ’85, Cheryl Reeves-Hayes 14 Shawn Senavinin ’06, Joan Channick ’89 (Associate Dean), Zane Jensch, Glenn Sturgis ’06
15 Bridget Jones ’06 and Bryan Terrell Clark ’06 16 Steve Zuckerman ’79, Esther Zuckerman YC ’12, Darlene Kaplan YC ’78
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Yale Repertory Theatre
Season in Review
“The set became a vision of vertigo— a tower to be climbed— driven by the fear and act of falling.”
The Master Builder At the first design meeting the director, Evan Yionoulis, and I decided that we wanted to take a non-traditional approach to Ibsen. We both wanted to focus on the poetry in the text, which is filled with surreal images of great heights, rather than the lengthy stage directions. The set became a vision of vertigo—a tower to be climbed—driven by the fear and act of falling. The audience experiences that sense of vertigo just as the houselights go to black, when Solness is seen falling from the top. This moment establishes the perspective of the set, which looks straight up along a structure into a cloudy, sometimes smoky sky. The audience gets a glimpse of the Master Builder falling at the very beginning, so we don’t have to show it at the end. It’s an image that stays with the audience throughout the play. Creating a setting with such a warped perspective shift was risky, but it paid off. My favorite experiences were talking to audience members and being asked how I made the clouds move, or how did I make the sky smoky when Solness talked about the fire. They were always surprised to hear that nothing moved at all; the set simply came to life in their Timothy Brown ’10, set designer imagination.
The Master Builder by Henrik Ibsen, directed by Evan Yionoulis ’85. Photo by T. Charles Erickson.
Mandy Patinkin in Compulsion, by Rinne Groff yc ’90, directed by Oskar Eustis. Photo by Joan Marcus.
Stacey Sargeant, Adepero Oduye, Pascale Armand in Eclipsed by Danai Gurira, directed by Liesl Tommy. Photo by Carol Rosegg.
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2009 – 2010
Yale Repertory Theatre
Battle of Black and Dogs
Andrew Robinson in Yale Rep’s production of Battle of Black and Dogs by Bernard-Marie Koltès, translated by Michaël Attais, and directed by Robert Woodruff. Photo by Joan Marcus.
I found my role as Sound Designer for Battle of Black and Dogs an ambiguous one. Here were Michaël Attias, the imaginative and virtuosic composer, who had also translated the play from its original French, and a crafty set of engineers (Nick Pope and Eric Bolton). What more, I wondered, could a Sound Designer have to offer to such a group? The bulk of my contribution to the production was political, in that most of my work was in facilitating conversations between the collaborators, negotiating speaker positions, and acting as a liaison between musicians and technicians, and constantly anticipating the needs of a production like this one, needs that were predictably unpredictable. Collaborating with Michaël in the studio and rehearsal space was a real joy; and having a director like Robert Woodruff kept the spirit of theatrical collaboration and discovery alive throughout the process. In the end, our efforts were rewarded, and I think we succeeded in creating the menacing world in which Battle could come to life. I eagerly await my next collaboration with Woodruff this spring with the Rep’s production of Autumn Sonata. Chad Raines ’11, sound designer
Doug Kreeger, Brian Charles Rooney, Leslie Kritzer, Cristen Paige, Randy Harrison, Emily Swallow, and Danny Binstock ’11 in POP! Book and lyrics by Maggie-Kate Coleman and music by Anna K. Jacobs and directed by Mark Brokaw ’86. Photo by Joan Marcus.
POP! The cast of The Servant of Two Masters, by Carol Goldoni, adapted by Constance Congdon from a translation by Christina Sibul ’94 and directed by Christopher Bayes (Faculty). Photo by Richard Termine.
The Servant of Two Masters YSD 2010–11
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Yale School of Drama
Season in Review
This season at Yale School of Drama had pulses racing. Third-year directors had sex on the brain. New imaginings of Shakespeare pushed ethical and emotional limits. Playwrights fashioned stories of growth, loss and terror that affirmed the theatre’s ability to reflect the range of our deepest experiences.
Yale School of Drama’s 2009–2010 Season: A Dramaturg’s Impression By Ryan M. Davis ’11
Third Year Directors Projects
la ronde
orlando
Jean Racine’s tragedy Phèdre ignited the season, with director Christopher Mirto ’10 staging the Athenian queen’s searing lust for her stepson Hippolytus and the consequences of her all-consuming ardor. By turns soaring and coarse, Mirto portrayed a glutton of emotional ecstasy, hurtling inexorably on a course of self-destruction. Arthur Schnitzler’s La Ronde depicts the merrygo-round of sexual license underlying the buttoned-up culture of fin de siècle Vienna. Jesse Jou’s ’10 staging propelled the play’s cycle of ten interlocking episodes, featuring carnal trysts that flout class boundaries, each change of partners ironically set to the charm of a Viennese waltz. In her production of Orlando, Sarah Ruhl’s adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s gender-bending classic novel, Jen Wineman ’10 drew on its sensitive contemplation on sexuality and language as conditions for engaging with life. The immortal English nobleman Orlando marks time’s passage with the genders he assumes and the lovers he takes—the decrepit Queen Elizabeth I, a Russian Princess, and bumbling suitors of both genders. By show’s end, gender seems to dissolve altogether, giving way to a more universal mode of expression. Language—in conversation, poetry, and drama—emerges as the essential way we give shape to, rather than merely capture, the flickers of experience.
phèdre
La Ronde: Photo by Joan Marcus. Orlando: Rachel Spencer ’10 and Zach Appelman ’10. Photo by Joan Marcus. Phèdre: Austin Durant ’10 and Charisse Smith ’10. Photo by Joan Marcus.
Shakespeare Repertory Projects Highlighted this year was the Bard’s unparalleled knack for rendering abstract tensions as compelling conflicts. Productions by second-year directors had audiences encountering the precarious balance of opposed extremes—whether spontaneity and calculation, trust and suspicion, or control and mayhem. In Macbeth, Devin Brain ’11 staged a society in turmoil, cleaved into two ways of life: the brute forthrightness of bare-chested, tattooed warriors on the open field of battle, and the shadowy 34
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stratagems of political figureheads. Michael McQuilken’s ’11 cinematically paced Othello waged a tug-of-war between a soldier’s camaraderie and a husband’s faith. A tottering platform hanging from increasingly agitated chains struck the production’s lasting image to reflect a great leader’s shaken confidence. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, adapted by director Charlotte Brathwaite ’11 and dramaturg Catharine Kollros ’11, sharpened the divergent worlds of Athens and a twilight forest-cum-nightclub.
2009 – 2010 the droll
good goods
house of cards The Droll: Rachel Spencer ’10. Photo by Steven A. Schmidt ’12. Good Goods: Trai Byers ’11, Kevin Daniels ’10, and Lindsey McWhorter. Photo by Karen Hashley ’10. House of Cards: Alexandra Henrikson ’11 and Max Moore ’11. Photo by Bree Sherry ’10.
Yale School of Drama
Carlotta Festival The 2010 Carlotta Festival produced premieres of three new works by third-year playwrights. In Michael Mitnik’s ’10 Elijah, a young pianist embarks on a coming-of-age escapade that takes him from a humble Jewish home in Flatbush to the corrupting soirées of Parisian society in the 1920s, where he brushes against Nazi sympathizers, kindles brief and wistful romances, and searches for a reclusive composer to be his mentor. When finally confronted with his idol, Elijah must face the tangle of deceit he’s spent a lifetime entwining. Growing pains were also felt in Kimberly Rosenstock’s ’10 Every Other Hamlet in the Universe, a comic rehashing of a son’s struggle over paternal loss. Marcel is a basement-bound computer programmer, crusading on behalf of his late father, a washed-up vaudevillian who yearned to play Hamlet but never got the chance. In The Things Are Against Us, Susan Soon He Stanton ’10 turned the theatre into a ghoulish Victorian residence with a mind of its own as it ensnared the lives of its inheritors—two sisters, a young immigrant, and the seductive Spanish poet García Lorca—in a paranormal vortex. Whether slobbering on fine china, gliding wraithlike, or summoning a malevolent poltergeist, the performers proved their prowess in the face of any theatrical challenge Stanton created.
EVery Other Hamlet in the universe
Studio Series YSD’s Studio Series showcased the work of second-year playwrights. In The Droll Meg Miroshnik ’11 created a hostile world of theatrical censorship under a puritanical regime. But the familial warmth exuded by the play’s ragtag troupe of underground performers reminded us of the resilience of humanity’s essential craving for dramatic expression. With House of Cards, Dipika Guha ’11 landed her audience in an unspecified “Old Country,” where a betrothal ends in murder, a clergyman scours the Internet for a soul mate, and various attempts at reincarnations assure us that finding the perfect mate is a cosmic mystery. Christina Anderson’s ’11 Good Goods depicted a grim factory town steeped in arcane mysticism, where residents and strangers alike grappled with the costs of a disastrous town history, unresolved romantic entanglements, and the possession of a sweet young thing by an incensed blue-collar spirit.
THE THINGS ARE AGAINST US
elijah
Every Other Hamlet in the Universe: Shannon Sullivan ’11, Fisher Neal ’12, Laura Gragtmans ’12, William Cobbs ’11, Tomas Andrén ’11. Photo by Carol Rosegg. Elijah: Brian Lewis ’12. Photo by T. Charles Erickson. The Things are Against Us: Hallie Cooper-Novack ’12. Photo by T. Charles Erickson. YSD 2010–11
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Yale Cabaret
Season in Review Cab 42 Yale Cabaret’s 2009–2010 Season
For Yale Cabaret’s 42nd Season, co-artistic directors Devin Brain ’11 and Christopher Mirto ’10 and managing director Alyssa Anderson ’10 invited work that would be “a gauntlet thrown in the face of our future.” With Cab42’s provocative logo—a ballerina dancing with a stick of dynamite—hanging above 217 Park all year, and this challenge to YSD artists hovering in the air, it’s fitting that this was a season of extreme collisions, uniting violence and beauty, despair and faith, terror and laughter.
By Elliot Quick ’12 Photos by Steven Schmidt ’11
salome Adina Verson ’11
salome
A brash, smart and exhilarating riff on the biblical myth that left audiences totally baffled and screaming for more.
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Inspired by the Oscar Wilde play and devised by director Lileana Blain-Cruz ’12 and her company, Salome, invited audiences to the deranged birthday party of King Herod. A whirlwind collage that included Miley Cyrus karaoke, Tom Cruise impersonations, live streaming of the sometimes-smutty voyeuristic website Chatroulette, a nightclub get-up that was both penis and vagina, and a stomachturning deed with a goldfish, Salome was a brash, smart and exhilarating riff on the biblical myth that left audiences totally baffled and screaming for more.
YSD 2010–11
2009 – 2010 A web of lost, lovelorn souls orbiting around each other. missed connections Chad Raines ’11
Yale Cabaret
Host to all these and other dramatic collisions, Cab42 confirmed why the basement of 217 Park is among the most beloved spaces on our campus. With a hearty dose of talent and a bit of theatrical magic, the Cabaret reminds us that the theatre is where even the strangest of bedfellows can sit side-by-side—a space where truly anything is possible.
radio station Brenna Palughi ’10
missed connections On Valentine’s Day, the Cabaret throbbed with unconsummated romance in the new musical Missed Connections by Chad Raines ’11. Drawing from actual posts in the Missed Connections section of New Haven Craigslist, Raines unearthed a web of lost, lovelorn souls orbiting around each other (and rocking out to the electro-pop of Raines’ band The Simple Pleasure), but never quite colliding.
passing Passing, by Dipika Guha ’11, was part drama and part museum exhibition. Surrounded by the art and artifacts of one woman’s life, curated and hung on the walls of the Cabaret, Passing delved into a strained marriage and the strange girl the couple adopt. A thoughtful meditation on the tangled knot of race, colonization and history, Passing emerged from Cab42’s After Dark series, a program that gave Guha and her collaborators time and resources to develop the piece in the fall before it was programmed for the spring season.
surrender Tree Irene Lucio ’11 and Blake Segal ’12
a day in dig nation Will Connolly ’10
passing Irene Lucio ’11
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In the Wings
Congratulations to our newest alumni— the Class of 2010! Master of Fine Arts / Certificate in Drama Acting Christina Maria Acosta Zachary S. Appelman William Patrick Connolly Kevin Michael Daniels John Patrick Doherty Austin S. Durant John Bryan Earle Slate Roy Holmgren Aja Naomi King Ryan Lockwood Aaron Hubert Moss, Jr. Brenna Russell Palughi Charise Kathleen Smith Rachel Elizabeth Spencer Elizabeth Blackburn Wisan Design Valérie Thérèse Bart Andrew Howard Becker Timothy Michael Brown Germán Cárdenas Alaminos Chuan-Chi Chan Yoon Young Choi Katherine Akiko Day Elizabeth Anna Barrett Groth Soohee Kim Lisa Carol Loen Ying Song Marie Yokoyama Sound Design Katherine A. Buechner Scott Leigh Nielsen Nathan Alan Roberts Directing Jesse Yi-Teh Jou Christopher Robert Mirto Jennifer L. Wineman
Dramaturgy Sarah Bishop-Stone Maya Maria Cantu Byongsok Chon Colin Poulsen Mannex Donesh Charles Olyaie Jorge Juan RodrÍguez Carreras Brian David Valencia
Aaron Moss ’10. Photo by Debbie Ellinghaus
Playwriting Michael Charles Mitnick Kimberly Rosenstock Susan Soon He Stanton Stage Management Jessica Lynn Barker Karen Louise Hashley Bree Danielle Sherry Jennifer Lynn Woods Technical Design & Production Andrew Howard Becker Amanda Jane Haley Kellen Christopher McNally Ryan Patrick Retartha Tien-Yin Sun Christopher Francis Swetcky Theater Management Luis P. Abril Alyssa Marie Anderson Michael Barker Whitney Adalist Estrin Jane Kyungwon Jung Belina Esther Mizrahi Meghan Moreland Pressman Shinhyoung Sohn Technical Internship Certificate Michael Frederick Backhaus Nishi Palmer Hefferan Jennifer Lauren Herbert Amy Elizabeth Jonas Nicholas John Pope Robert C. Snipes Doctor of Fine Arts Katherine Ann Profeta (awarded in December 2009)
GRADUATION PRIZES Prizes are given each year to members of the graduating class as designated by the faculty.
ASCAP Cole Porter Prize Kimberly Rosenstock ’10 Edward C. Cole Memorial Award Kellen Christopher McNally ’10 Christopher Francis Swetcky ’10 John W. Gassner Memorial Prize Ryan Davis ’11 Bert Gruver Memorial Prize Jennifer Lynn Woods ’10 Morris J. Kaplan Award Meghan Moreland Pressman ’10 Julian Milton Kaufman Memorial Prize Jennifer L. Wineman ’10 Jay and Rhonda Keene Scholarship Prize Elizabeth Anna Barrett Groth ’10 Leo Lerman Graduate Fellowship Award Valérie Thérèse Bart ’10 Ying Song ’10
Dexter Wood Luke Memorial Prize Ryan Retartha ’10 Donald and Zorka Oenslager Fellowship Award Timothy Michael Brown ’10 Katherine Akiko Day ’10 Pierre-André Salim Prize Rachel Elizabeth Spencer ’10 Frieda Shaw, Dr. Diana Mason OBE and Denise Suttor Prize Nathan Alan Roberts ’10 Oliver Thorndike Acting Award Zachary S. Appelman ’10 George C. White Prize Jane Kyungwon Jung ’10 Herschel Williams Prize Christina Maria Acosta ’10 Austin S. Durant ’10
The Class of 2009
YALE SCHOOL OF DRAMA FELLOWSHIPS AND SCHOLARSHIPS The recipients for the 2009–2010 Academic Year were:
The John Badham Scholarship Devin Brain ’11 The John M. Badham Fund Christopher Mirto ’10 The Mark Bailey Scholarship Justin Elie ’11 The George Pierce Baker Memorial Scholarship Anne Erbe ’11 Maya Cantu ’10 The Herbert H. and Patricia M. Brodkin Scholarship Kevin Daniels ’10 The Patricia M. Brodkin Memorial Scholarship Jessica Barker ’10
The Randolph Goodman Scholarship Lisa Loen ’10
The Benjamin Mordecai Memorial Fund Meghan Pressman ’10
The Jerome L. Greene Scholarship Aja King ’10 Rachel Spencer ’10 Liz Wisan ’10 John Doherty ’10
The Kenneth D. Moxley Memorial Scholarship Chris Swetcky ’10
The Pamela Jordan Scholarship Jennifer Salim ’11 The Sylvia Fine Kaye Scholarship Fund Emily Trask ’11 The Jay and Rhonda Keene Scholarship for Costume Design Leon Dobkowski ’11 The Ray Klaussen Design Scholarship DeDe Ayite ’11 The Gordon F. Knight Scholarship Jennifer Johnson ’11 The Lotte Lenya Scholarship Fund Da’Vine Joy Randolph ’11 The Lord Memorial Scholarship Alyssa Anderson ’10
The Paul Carter Scholarship Drew Becker ’10
The Virginia Brown Martin Scholarship Blake Segal ’11
The Caris Corfman Scholarship Shannon Sullivan ’11
The Stanley R. McCandless Scholarship Chuan-Chi Chan ’10 Marie Yokoyama ’10
The Cheryl Crawford Scholarship Dipika Guha ’11 The Edgar and Louise Cullman Scholarship Jesse Jou ’10 The Cullman Scholarship in Directing Lileana Blain Cruz ’12
The Alfred McDougal and Nancy Lauter McDougal Endowed Scholarship Fund Katherine Day ’10 Slate Holmgren ’10
The Donald M. Oenslager Scholarship in Stage Design Katherine Day ’10 The Donald and Zorka Oenslager Scholarship in Stage Design Valérie Bart ’10 Yoon Young Choi ’10 Elizabeth Groth ’10 The Eugene O’Neill Memorial Scholarship Kim Rosenstock ’10 The Mary Jean Parson Scholarship Charlotte Brathwaite ’11 The Mark J. Richard Scholarship Christina Anderson ’11 The Lloyd Richards Scholarship in Acting Andrew Kelsey ’11 The Barbara Richter Scholarship Jennifer Woods ’10 The Pierre-André Salim Scholarship Yi Zhao ’12 Hsiao Ya Chen ’11 The Scholarship for Playwriting Martyna Majok ’12 The Richard Harrison Senie Scholarship Summer Jack ’11 Ana Milosevic ’11
The Holmes Easley Scholarship Timothy Brown ’10 The Eldon Elder Fellowship Stéphanie Hayes ’11 Germán Cárdenas ’10 Po-Lin Li ’11 Chien-yu Peng ’11 Ying Song ’10 Walter Byongsok Chon ’10 The Wesley Fata Scholarship Brett Dalton ’11 The Foster Family Graduate Fellowship Belina Mizrahi ’10 Brian Valencia ’10 The Annie G.K. Garland Memorial Scholarship Karen Hashley ’10
Alyssa Anderson ’10 and Whitney Estrin ’10
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The Daniel and Helene Sheehan Scholarship Michael Barker ’10 The Howard Stein Scholarship Meg Miroshnik ’11 The Richard Ward Scholarship Jane Jung ’10 The Zelma Weisfeld Scholarship for Costume Design Aaron Mastin ’11 Jennifer Salim ’11 The Constance Welch Memorial Scholarship Babak Gharaei-Tafti ’11 Benjamin Horner ’11 The Rebecca West Scholarship Christina Acosta ’10 Brenna Palughi ’10 The Audrey Wood Scholarship Michael Mitnick ’10 Susan Stanton ’10
Spotlight On
Alumni and Faculty Honors and Awards 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards January 2010 Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture—Comedy or Musical
Meryl Streep ’75, HON ’83 Nominee, It’s Complicated Winner, Julie & Julia Best Actress in a Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television
Sigourney Weaver ’74 Nominee, Prayers for Bobby
82nd Annual Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Awards March 2010
Sandra Goldmark ’04 Drama Desk nominee for Outstanding Set Design for The Boys in the Band. Photo by Sandra Goldmark.
Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
Meryl Streep ’75, HON ’83
Outstanding Set Design
64th Annual Tony Awards June 12, 2010
Nominee, Julie & Julia
Derek McLane ’84
55th Annual Drama Desk Awards May 2010
Outstanding Set Design
Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play
Sandra Goldmark ’04
Liev Schreiber ’92
Outstanding Actor in a Play
Nominee, The Boys in the Band
Liev Schreiber ’92 Winner, A View from the Bridge Outstanding Sound Design
Fitz Patton ’01 Winner, When the Rain Stops Falling
Nominee, Ragtime
Nominee, A View from the Bridge
Lucille Lortel Awards May 2, 2010
Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play
Outstanding Play
Nominee, Race
Tarell Alvin McCraney ’07
David Alan Grier ’81
Nominee, The Brother/Sister Plays
Best Scenic Design of a Play
Outstanding Scenic Design
Nominee, The Royal Family
John Lee Beatty ’74
Michael Yeargan ’73 (Faculty) Nominee, The Glass Menagerie Outstanding Costume Design
Miranda Hoffman ’00 Nominee, Stunning Outstanding Costume Design
Ilona Somogyi ’94 Nominee, Clybourne Park Outstanding Costume Design
Anita Yavich ’95 Nominee, Venus in Fur Outstanding Sound Design
Fitz Patton ’01 Winner, When the Rain Stops Falling Outstanding Lighting Design
Paul Gallo ’97 Nominee, The Pride Outstanding Sound Design
Robert Wierzel ’84, Tony nominee Best Lighting Design of a Musical for Fela. Photo courtesy of the production.
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YSD 2010–11
Shane Rettig ’99 Nominee, A Lie of the Mind
Alexander Dodge ’99 Nominee, Present Laughter
Santo Loquasto ’72 Nominee, Fences Best Scenic Design of a Musical
Marina Draghici ’88 Nominee, Fela!
Derek McLane ’84 Nominee, Ragtime Best Costume Design of a Play
Constanza Romero ’88 Nominee, Fences
Catherine Zuber ’84 Winner, The Royal Family Best Costume Design of a Musical
Marina Draghici ’88 Winner, Fela! Best Lighting Design of a Musical
Donald Holder ’86
Awards
Nominee, Ragtime
Robert Wierzel ’84
Princess Grace Awards 2010
New York Innovative Theatre Awards July 2010
Anna D. Shapiro ’93
Outstanding Solo Performance
Nominee, Fela! Best Revival of a Play (Producer)
Lynne Meadow ’71 Nominee, The Royal Family
26th Annual Helen Hayes Awards January 25, 2010 Outstanding Costume Design, Resident Production
Santo Loquasto ’72 Winner, Ragtime
Linda Cho ’98
Winner, Princess Grace Statue Award
Brian McManamon ’06 Nominee, It or Her
Charlotte Brathwaite ’11
Winner, Theater Scholarship, George C. Wolfe Award
College of Fellows of the American Theatre
Shana Cooper ’08
Inductee
Winner, Theater Fellowship, Robert & Gloria Hausman Award
A. Rey Pamatmat ’03
Winner, Playwriting Fellowship, New Dramatists Inc.
William Ivey Long ’75 Zelda Fichandler Award First Recipient
Jonathan Moscona ’93 Brian McManamon ’06. Nominee for Outstanding Solo Performance by New York Innovative Theatre Award.
Nominee, The Dog in the Manger Outstanding Sound Design, Resident Production
Veronika Vorel ’08 Nominee, Arcadia Nominee, Black Pearl Sings! Nominee, Fever/Dream The Robert Prosky Award for Outstanding Lead Actor, Resident Play
Stacy Keach ’66 Winner, King Lear
61st Primetime Emmy Awards September 2009 Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series
Tony Shalhoub ’80
Yale Repertory Theatre received 17 nominations and five awards from the Connecticut Critics Circle! Founded in 1990, the Connecticut Critics Circle is a statewide organization of critics who gather at the end of each theatre season to celebrate excellence. “Our colleagues at other theatres in the state are generous and inspiring fellow-travelers in our art form, and I am pleased that Yale Rep has been recognized among so many other outstanding organizations and practitioners. Above all, I am deeply grateful to the artists whose visions were represented on our stages, and to the dedicated managers and members of our staff who keep Yale Rep’s standards of production so high from show to show.” — James Bundy ’95, Dean/Artistic Director Yale Rep was honored as follows:
2009–10 Nominations
2009–10 Awards
Mandy Patinkin in Compulsion
Nominee, Monk Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie
Sigourney Weaver ’74 Nominee, Prayers for Bobby
Outstanding Production of a Play
Nominated for Outstanding Actor in a Play
Yale Rep for Eclipsed by Danai Gurira
Nominated for Outstanding Actor in a Musical
Outstanding Production of a Musical
Randy Harrison in POP! Nominated for Outstanding Director of a Play
41st Annual Joseph Jefferson Awards October 2009
Yale Rep for POP! by Maggie-Kate Coleman and Anna K. Jacobs
Production—Play—Large
Outstanding Actor in a Musical
Lynn Nottage ’89 (Faculty)
Brian Charles Rooney in POP!
Nominated for Outstanding Director of a Musical
Outstanding Lighting Design
Mark Brokaw ’86 for POP!
Winner, Ruined Lighting Design—Large
Christopher Akerlind ’89 Winner, Rock ’n Roll
Kevin Adams for POP! Outstanding Sound Design
Chad Raines ’11 for Battle of Black and Dogs
Liesl Tommy for Eclipsed
Nominated for Outstanding Choreography in a Musical
Denis Jones for POP! Nominated for Outstanding Set Design
Valérie Thérèse Bart ’10 for POP!
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Nominated for Outstanding Set Design
Timothy Brown ’10 for The Master Builder Nominated for Outstanding Set Design
Germán Cardenás ’10 for Eclipsed Nominated for Outstanding Lighting Design
Marcus Doshi ’00 for Eclipsed Nominated for Outstanding Costume Design
Ying Song ’10 for POP! Nominated for Outstanding Sound Design
David Budries (Faculty) for POP! Nominated for Outstanding Ensemble
Pascale Armand, Zainab Jah, Adepero Oduye, Stacey Sargeant, and Shona Tucker in Eclipsed
In Memoriam
After being jailed in Istanbul in 1982 because of his activities with the Turkish Peace Association, Ali Erol Taygun ’73 won the first Prize for Freedom given by the PL Foundation of Denmark for having made significant contributions to the cause of human rights. He was also honored as one of the ten human rights monitors of the world by Human Rights Watch in 1989. Born in Istanbul in 1943, educated there at Roberts College and Bosphorus University, Ali, who died on December 16, 2009, received his MFA in directing from Yale School of Drama in 1969. His professional life began in American regional theatres, including Yale Rep, where he spent a season as Resident Director. Upon his return to Turkey he became Resident Director at Istanbul Metropolitan Theatres. Ali’s directing career includes productions of Three Sisters, his translation of Measure for Measure, Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni, M. Butterfly, The Maids and many others. One of his fellow students from his Yale days, Joanna Kyd ’73, remembers him as “charming, articulate, generous, smart and vastly entertaining. He didn’t talk much about his past but he did tell me that he learned a lot during his years as a political prisoner and that his time at YSD had been wonderful in every way.” Robert Brustein (’51, ’66 hon, Former Dean), Ali’s teacher while he was a student at YSD, wrote the following: “I learned of Ali Taygun’s death with a heavy heart. He was in the first class that graduated under my Deanship at the Drama School in 1969, after he had quickly established himself as a director of taste and imagination. I still remember his wonderful interpretations of Brecht and Chekhov. He was a world-class director with a very catholic interest in all varieties of world drama. His courage and persistence in resisting an oppressive regime cost him many years of freedom, but he never wavered in his commitment to free expression. In 1985, John Hersey, Susan Sontag, Robert Wilson and I published a letter in the New York Review of Books protesting his treatment at the hands of the Turkish authorities. I would like to quote it in part in order to give some measure of this remarkable man: The undersigned wish to protest the treatment of Ali Taygun, a Turkish prisoner of conscience in Istanbul prisons for over two years. His “crime?” Membership in a peace movement called The Turkish Peace Association which—until the military came to power and declared it subversive—was regularly considered a legitimate organ
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of political protest. A directing candidate at the Yale School of Drama from 1966–69—while still a student there he directed professionally with the Yale Repertory Theatre—Ali Taygun returned home in the early Seventies to become one of the most important figures of the Turkish stage. His arrest resulted in a trial where he and his companions were found guilty of membership in an illegal organization. Taygun was sentenced to eight years in prison. Although the sentence was overturned last fall and a new trial ordered, the judge, a military man, ruled that Taygun and several other defendants had to remain in prison indefinitely pending the new trial. Ali Taygun’s behavior throughout his incarceration has been remarkable, despite provocations, despite the continual anguish he has suffered over the frustrating disappointments of his case. He shows not anger or hatred over his fate but rather a kind of stoicism extraordinary in its patience and forbearance; astonishingly, he continues to reflect on theatre and society under the most daunting conditions. We have lost a courageous man of conscience and a wonderful man of the theatre, one who will remain a model of the highest standards of artistry.”
A Designer for All Seasons A. Clark Duncan ’60 After a long and successful career as a set designer, A. Clark Duncan ’60 became a teacher and designer in the Performing Arts Department at the College of Santa Fe. He worked there from 1986 to 2006, when he retired to Wayne, PA, near his birthplace of Bryn Mawr. After studying scenic design at Yale School of Drama, Duncan worked in professional theatres for more than 20 years, achieving most of his success on the West Coast. He was nominated for best set design in 1981 for The Hasty Heart, 1982 for Journey’s End and 1985 for Inadmissible Evidence by the Los Angeles Drama Critics. Once he joined the faculty in Santa Fe, Duncan became a familiar figure on the campus, his shoes and shirt splashed with paint, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, usually accompanied by his dog Wheels. He designed regularly for theatre productions at the school, among them The Diary of Anne Frank, Dracula, The Time of Your Life, and Urinetown. Duncan had the reputation of being a good-natured man, and a designer whose work ran the gamut from wildly theatrical to simple and elegant. His students were inspired by the fact that in his classes, the focus was on the art and not on the commercial aspects of a potential career in theatre. In addition to his reputation among young designers as being a fount of creative ideas, Duncan loved to cook and would often host elaborate Thanksgiving dinners for people who were far from home. He always made himself available to his students and maintained contact with many of them long after his retirement. Duncan died in Bryn Mawr on October 4, 2010. He was 74 years old.
Taygun photo courtesy of Joanna Kyd ’73; Capalbo photo courtesy of Marco Capalbo; Hurwitz photo courtesy of Albert Hurwitz ’49.
A World-Class Director Ali Erol Taygun ’73
Alumni Notes
The Threepenny Opera’s Carmen Capalbo ’48 In 1954, producer and director Carmen Capalbo ’48, who died on March 17, persuaded Lotte Lenya, widow of composer Kurt Weill, to reprise the role of Jenny Diver she created in the original 1928 production of the Brecht/ Weill musical, The Threepenny Opera. She agreed; the New York production earned rave reviews and went on to become one of off-Broadway’s biggest hits. With a cast that included Bea Arthur, Scott Merrill and Jo Sullivan, Threepenny played a record-breaking 2,611 performances at the Theatre de Lys—surpassed only by The Fantasticks—and won special Tony awards for Lenya and for the production itself. After the success of The Threepenny Opera, Carmen directed the original Broadway productions of Graham Greene’s The Potting Shed, William Saroyan’s The Cave Dwellers and Eugene O’Neill’s A Moon for the Misbegotten, starring Wendy Hiller and Franchot Tone. In partnership with Leo Lieberman ’48, Carmen formed the Spur, a repertory company that produced plays at the Cherry Lane Theatre, where he directed Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock and Clifford Odets’ Awake and Sing. In 1961, he directed the Brecht-Weill opera, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, with Barbara Harris and Estelle Parsons, at the Anderson Theatre on Second Avenue; it was not a critical success. Carmen’s son Marco has said that his father never recovered from it. Carmen continued to work into the 1980s. He acquired the stage rights to the Nelson Algren novel A Walk on the Wild Side and worked on turning it into a musical, but all that came out of the project was the Lou Reed song. His last project in the theatre was the direction of a musical of The Chosen, from the novel by Chaim Potok. He left the production after two previews. Born on November 1, 1925, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Carmen acted in community theatres as a child. As a high school student, he directed and acted in a local Sunday-morning show, Children’s Playhouse. During World War II, he fought in the Battle of the Bulge and earned a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. He was married to and divorced from ballerina Patricia McBride. As a sideline to his work in the theatre, he was an expert on George V stamps issued in Britain during World War I, a hobby that earned him membership in the Royal Philatelic Society. Carmen Capalbo was 84.
An Actor for the Ages Charles Nolte ’46 International stage and screen actor Charles Nolte ’46, who also directed, wrote and taught, died January 14, 2010, in Minneapolis. Born in Duluth, Nolte moved to Wayzata where he was voted “most likely to succeed” by the 1941 graduating class of Wayzata High School. He enrolled at Yale School of Drama after two years at the University of Minnesota and two more in the U.S. Navy. At Yale, he was elected VicePresident of the Yale Dramatic Association. He moved to New York in 1946 and made his debut with Julie Harris in a revival of Tin Top Valley with the American Negro Theatre in Harlem. Soon after that came his Broadway debut in Antony and Cleopatra, with Katherine Cornell and featuring Maureen Stapleton, Tony Randall, Eli Wallach and Charlton
Heston. High points of his Broadway career include Mr. Roberts and The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, both with Henry Fonda, and the title role of Billy Budd, an adaptation of Melville’s novel, a role he repeated on television’s Schlitz Playhouse of Stars in 1952. Nolte’s films include War Paint (1953) with Robert Stack and Peter Graves, The Steel Cage (1954) with John Ireland, and The Vikings (1958) with Kirk Douglas and Janet Leigh. He acted on the stage in Europe in the early 60s and when he returned to the States, earned a doctorate at the University of Minnesota, where he joined the faculty. His play Do Not Pass Go was produced off-Broadway. He also wrote libretti for two operas by Dominick Argento: The Voyage of Edgar Allan Poe and Valentino. As Professor Emeritus, Nolte donated his journals to the University of Minnesota, which named a theatre space after him in 1997. Nolte’s last stage appearance was in the 2008 production of Exit Strategy by Bill Semans and Roy M. Close at Mixed Blood Theatre. According to friends, Nolte died while listening to a recording of Bellini’s Norma, one of his beloved operas. He was 87 years old.
A Home for Artists Helen Hurwitz ’51 It’s a long way from a farm in Iowa to Yale School of Drama, but Helen Trilhus Hurwitz ’51, who died on February 2, was determined to make the journey. She was a graduate of Luther College in Decora, IA, where she majored in drama and music. Called Tula in those days, she taught speech and English in Iron Mountain, MI, before moving East to act in summer theatre in Plymouth, MA, Saranac Lake, NY, and Cooperstown, PA. In 1948 Helen Trilhus met Al Hurwitz ’49 at Yale School of Drama, where they were both students, Helen an acting major, Al receiving an MFA in general theatre studies. They married and moved to Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village and were active in the off-Broadway theatre scene of the early 1950s. When they relocated to Miami, Helen appeared at the Coconut Grove Playhouse in a play with Imogene Coca. With the birth of their three children she became a serious cook and won a trip to the Waldorf Astoria Hotel as a Pillsbury Bake-off finalist. In the 1960s Helen and her family moved to Newton, MA, where she studied at the Al Saxe Acting Studio and led workshops in theatre games for Newton’s Arts Six Project. Due to her involvement in local theatre, the Hurwitz home became a gathering place for artists, actors and educators from around the world. Helen was 86 when she died at her home in Chilmark, MA, surrounded by her loving family. To honor her, the Helen Trilhus Scholarship Award in Art Education was established at Maryland Institute College of Art.
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In Memoriam In the Winter 2009–2010 issue of this magazine, we profiled the inspiring work of James MacLaren ’89, yc ’85 and so it is with much sadness that we are now reporting of his August 26, 2010, passing. As an undergraduate at Yale College Jim earned varsity letters in football and lacrosse. Soon after graduation from Yale he was hit by a New York City bus, and as a result lost part of his left leg. The accident prompted Jim to overcome what others might have accepted as an insurmountable limitation. He was accepted to and graduated from Yale School of Drama, and landed a part on the soap opera Another World. He competed in running events to see what his body could do, and wound up holding the world record for fastest amputee marathon runner and tri-athlete. He also competed against—and often finished in the top third of—able-bodied athletes and was inducted into the Ironman Hall of Fame. In 1993, Jim was competing in a tri-athalon on the West Coast, when the unthinkable happened: while running along the side of the road, he was hit by a van, an accident that left him a quadriplegic. Once again, Jim came back, regaining some use of his limbs along with his independence. He became a motivational speaker and toured with his one-man show based on his own experiences. Jim received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award, which goes to athletes who embody Ashe’s toughness of spirit and never-give-up attitude. “Live each moment like it’s the last moment in your life,” was the motto Jim lived by and inspired the sentiment in others. He taught people that adversities may turn out to be our greatest gifts. Jim was 39 years old when he died. His roommate as a Yale undergraduate, playwright Doug Wright yc ’85, had this to say of his longtime friend: Jim’s life was beset by not one but two traumatic accidents and he triumphed over both of them with an almost super-human tenacity that humbles us all. That said, we mustn’t define him by the catastrophes that ultimately brought his time among us to a premature end; we must remember who he was: a sensitive and nuanced artist with the core strength of an athlete; a generous, inclusive spirit with a contagious laugh; a mischief-maker and a ladies’ man. A “big brother” to many of us, an original thinker, a selftaught philosopher, and an inspiring advocate. It’s well documented that Jim was a hero; let it be known that first and foremost, he was a beloved friend. We will miss him.
Actor and Professor of Acting John David Sydow ’50 John David Sydow ’50, who began his career directing and acting in Rockford, IL, community theatre, died on May 28, 2010. While in the military, he co-created Hump Happy, a satirical musical review that featured him as one of three cross-dressing Andrews sisters. After receiving an M.F.A. from Yale School of Drama, John began directing in New York, beginning at the Little Orchestra Society of Hunter College. In 1958 he received an OBIE Award for his theatrical adaptation of The Brothers Karamazov, with Boris Tumarin, produced at the
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Gate Theatre and the Williamstown Theatre Festival. In 1959, John was assistant director to George Abbott on the Broadway production of Once Upon a Mattress, starring Carol Burnett. He went on to direct the national tour, then returned to New York to direct the Broadway revival of Annie Get Your Gun with Ethel Merman, for which he received a Tony Award nomination. Throughout the 1960s, John directed touring productions for the American and National Repertory Theatres: Mary Stuart, Elizabeth the Queen, Ring Round the Moon and The Crucible, with casts that included Tallulah Bankhead, Eva Le Gallienne, Pat Carroll, Farley Granger and Denholm Elliott. His production of John Brown’s Body for the National Repertory Theatre reopened Washington, D.C.’s Ford’s Theatre in 1968. In 1970, John moved to Seattle to head the directing program at the University of Washington and directed at Seattle’s A Contemporary Theatre and Intiman Theatre. After retiring as Professor Emeritus, he relocated to Los Angeles and returned to acting, guest-starring on such television shows as Frasier and Touched by an Angel, and onstage in the South Coast Repertory Theater productions of Shadowlands and The Importance of Being Earnest. John was 88 years old when he died.
Actress and Patriot Mary Jane Chiles McDaniel ’42 Mary Jane McDaniel, who died on July 6, 2010, began her education in a one-room country schoolhouse and completed it at Yale School of Drama where she was awarded the Lord Memorial Scholarship for her second and third years of study. Immediately upon graduation from Yale in 1942, she played the role of “Miss Victory,” the narrator—and only female performer—of a traveling wartime patriotic revue entitled Here’s Your Army, which toured the nation’s largest cities and featured 1,200 soldiers and a large assortment of artillery, anti-aircraft guns, tanks, armored cars, jeeps and airplanes. The opening night performance in Baltimore was attended by Eleanor Roosevelt, Vice President Henry Wallace, Secretary of War Henry Stimson, General George C. Marshall, representatives of the Allied Nations and many other dignitaries. Mary Jane taught classes in theatre as part of the faculty of Allegheny College in Meadville, PA, directing and appearing in dramatic productions during the summers. After her marriage in 1946 to Dr. John R. McDaniel, she acted in Guest in the House and State of the Union in Ashville, NC, directed by Charlton Heston. In Kansas City, she played Portia in The Merchant of Venice opposite Shakespearean and Broadway actor Clarence Derwent. She eventually settled in St. Joseph, MO, and was the first woman to be appointed Commissioner on the St. Joseph Park Board. She was also assistant professor of speech at the predecessor institution to Missouri Western State University, and played an active role in the effort to establish that institution as a four-year college. Mary Jane died in Fresno, CA, just eight days before her 94th birthday.
McDaniel photo courtesy of the McDaniel family; MacLaren photo courtesy of the MacLaren family; Sproat photo courtesy of Dorick Wilson.
Athlete, Actor, Inspiration James MacLaren ’89, yc ’85
Alumni Notes
Cult Hit Creator Ron Sproat ’58 Ron Sproat ’58 was probably best known for creating the character of the vampire, Barnabas Collins, for the 1960s ABC daytime series Dark Shadows. The show was on its way to cancellation when Ron came up with a story arc for Barnabas Collins, played by Jonathan Frid ’57, and wound up creating the show’s most enduring character, as well as a pop culture cult figure. Ron passed away in Manhattan on November 6, 2009. While at Yale School of Drama, Ron studied playwriting with John Gassner (Former Faculty). His classmates included playwrights A.R. Gurney ’58 and Romulus Linney ’58. Ron’s television writing career began during the last years of the Golden Age of television. He wrote for the United States Steel Hour and General Motors Presents. His early television
plays include Rachel’s Summer with Martha Scott and Patty McCormack and The Great Gold Mountain with Polly Bergen and Ed Begley, both dramatic adaptations of stories by Charles L. Jackson, author of The Lost Weekend and Ron’s mentor. He also wrote for the daytime series Love of Life, The Secret Storm, The Doctors, Where the Heart Is, Flame in the Wind, Never Too Young, Capitol and Strange Paradise. Ron’s theatre writing includes libretti for musicals developed and produced by the BMI Theater Workshop: Back Home, which played at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in 2007, and which The Philadelphia Inquirer called “the little musical that could” and The Norwich (CT) Bulletin honored as “Best of the Year;” and Abie’s Island Rose, a racially mixed musical inspired by the long-running Abie’s Irish Rose, produced at the Jewish Repertory Theatre in 2000. Ron was also a contributor to New York Magazine and Paris Match. He is survived by his frequent musical collaborator and partner of 40 years, Frank Evans. Ron was 77.
Farewell Ethan T. Allen ’58 9.14.2010
James E. Edmonds ’37 8.28.00
Margaret E. Hand ’57 4.20.10
G.C. Niemeyer ’42, ’42 phd 6.16.2009
Don S. Anderson ’69 8.15.2010
Anthony Fichera ’89 3.10.2010
Adrian S. Harris ’53 11.11.2009
Charles Nolte ’46 1.14.2010
Paul Baker ’39 10.19.2009
F. Ken Freedman ’67 4.30.2010
Hugh M. Hill ’53 11.3.2009
Michael Barnes ’39 10.26.2009
Alfred D. Geto ’39 6.27.2007
Nancy K. Holland ’43 8.4.2009
Mary Winifred Hanley O’Donnell ’37 11.17.2007
Jacqueline Beymer ’57 3.7.2010
J. Louis Golden ’52 10.9.09
Agnes B. Hood ’44 7.19.2009
George Blake ’50 9.27.2010
Eleanor B. Gordon ’48 1.19.2010
Helen Hurwitz ’51 2.2.2010
John Callahan ’60 5.23.2010
David Gorton ’48 1.6. 2010
Robert M. Jaffe ’78 7.16.2010
Carmen Capalbo ’48 3.17.2010
Ray T. Graham ’43 4.22.2010
Joseph Norbert Carner ’55 9.22.2010
Russell Earl Green ’56 8.29.10
Jacqueline Beymer Lebenthal ’53 3.7.2010
Henry N. Clauss ’57 9.23.2010
Pierre Henri “Pete” Grelet ’53 9.9.2009
George Ralph DiCenzo ’65 8.9.2010
Don A. Haldane ’41 9.22.2008
A. Clark Duncan ’60 10.4.2010
Robert B. Hamlin ’61 2.28.1999
John W. Paul ’48 10.9.2009 Jack J. Shaw ’47 12.27.2004 Ronald Fleming Sproat ’58 11.6.2009 Robert E. Thayer ’50 11.18.2009 Janet Stevenson ’37 6.9.2009
Bertram N. Linder ’39 10.7.2010
John David Sydow ’50 5.28.2010
Michael Logothetis ’53 11.4.2010
Ali Erol Taygun ’73 12.16.2009
James MacLaren ’85 yc, ’89 8.26.2010
Roy S. Waldau ’56 8.19.2008
Mary Jane Chiles McDaniel ’42 7.6.2010
Robert E. Wilkins, Jr. ’54 2.5.2009
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The Art of Giving at YSD New Gifts Help Grow Yale Center for New Theatre
Ocean Thin Films Lights up our Stages Ocean Thin Films has chosen Yale School of Drama to receive $25,000 worth of cutting-edge lighting equipment known as the SeaChanger. The equipment has filters that eliminate the need for noisy cooling fans, and provide silent, swipe-free color transitions in less than a second. The SeaChanger also provides seamless dichroic color mixing, hard-edged intense color output and is energy efficient; one fixture can replace banks of gel scrollers. In explaining why he chose Yale as the gift recipient, Phil Buchsbaum, President of Ocean Thin Films & SeaChanger Products, said, “We see our contribution as an investment in the future of our industry. What better way to invest than to donate to an institution that has a history of incubating the best and the brightest in a wide array Jenn Gambatese and Sean Palmer in of entertainment industry Yale Repertory Theatre’s production of disciplines? Enabling We Have Always Lived in the Castle, student creativity is what book and lyrics by Adam Bock and will keep great works music by Todd Almond, and directed current and audiences on by Anne Kauffman, the first Yale Rep production to make use of lighting equip- the edge of their seats for ment donated by Ocean Thin Films. years to come.”
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and musicals and also facilitates residencies of playwrights and composers at Yale School of Drama. The most unique component of the Center is its commitment to the production of Yalecommissioned plays at Yale Rep and theatres across the country. Over the next four years, the Center’s production fund will devote over $600,000 to this project. To date, the Yale Center for New Theatre has supported the work of more than two dozen commissioned artists as well as the world premieres and subsequent productions of six new Jennifer Kiger American plays and musicals.
Associate Artistic Director, Yale Repertory Theatre
Stephen Timbers Supports Playwrights Stephen Timbers yc ’66 has a long and deep tradition of support for programs at Yale and this year established the Stephen B. Timbers Family Scholarship for Playwriting. Stephen’s interest in the arts was evident during his time as Stephen and Elaine Timbers an undergraduate. His particular interest in the School of Drama was piqued by the emergence of his son, Alexander Timbers yc ’01, as a playwright and director whose critically acclaimed off-Broadway show, Blood Bloody Andrew Jackson, is the second most successful show ever to run at the Public Theater in New York, and recently ran on Broadway. “There is nothing to compare with the excitement, immediacy, and challenge of live theatre,” Stephen says. “Unfortunately, many aspiring playwrights finish their academic training with a mountain of debt. Then they face the financial reality that the early years of their careers offer small remuneration. Hopefully, our fund will help lessen the financial burdens of a few talented students. We would hope that other alumni would likewise consider the similar needs of prospective actors, directors, dramaturgs, stage managers, and set, lighting, Barry Jay Kaplan costume, and sound designers.”
Ocean Thin photo by Joan Marcus; Timbers photo courtesy of Stephen Timbers.
Two new gifts, nearly $2 million, will play a major role in the production and development of new plays and musicals in New Haven and across the country. In July 2010, Yale Repertory Theatre announced that the Minnesota-based private grant-making Robina Foundation has given $950,000 to the Yale Center for New Theatre. The gift is an addition to the Foundation’s 2008 grant of $2.85 million, which established the Center. The same month, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded $1 million to support the activities of the Center over the next five years. The Yale Center for New Theatre devotes major resources to the commissioning, development, and production of new plays
An Appreciation of the Actor
Greene photo courtesy of the Jerome L. Greene Foundation.; Kaplan photo courtesy of Edward Martenson (Facutly); Sirot photo courtesy of Carol Sirot.
The faculty, staff and students of Yale School of Drama were deeply saddened by the passing of Dawn Greene. Her dedication to the theatre and sensitivity to the needs of actors led her to establish the very generous Jerome L. Greene Scholarships for students studying acting at the School. This gift she made to YSD was done with a true appreciation of the theatre and the significance of the place of the actor in it. The Jerome L. Greene Scholarship demonstrated empathetic
Dawn Greene
understanding of the life of the student actor. Mrs. Greene knew that support covering tuition, living expenses and medical insurance would allow gifted young artists to dedicate themselves to developing their talents, unencumbered by financial worries. This is a clear and beautiful manifestation of the true spirit of philanthropic giving.
Morris J. Kaplan Prize Morris J. Kaplan was a labor lawyer and the original counsel to the League of Resident Theatres (LORT). In this seminal role, he became a mentor to most of the people who were managing directors of LORT theatres, representing the theatres in their dealings with Actors Equity, and helping to devise a national collective bargaining agreement. Morris Kaplan “Morris Kaplan negotiated contracts and handled our disputes,” says Edward Martenson (Faculty). “That was his job. But his function went beyond that. The word ‘avuncular’ was invented to describe him.” Martenson recalls his time at the McCarter Theatre, getting ready to transfer his first play to Broadway. “Morris walked me through the contracts and essentially gave me the education that students today get in coursework. He was such a warm, wise, generous man, I didn’t even realize he was teaching me.” To honor the timeless contribution Morris Kaplan made to the formative development of the nonprofit theatre field, and as a way to recognize outstanding achievement among the Theater Management Department’s graduates, the Morris J. Kaplan Prize was established. The Prize was conceived by former Theater Management co-chairs Benjamin Mordecai (Former Faculty) and George White ’61 (Former Faculty). It was Ed Martenson who reached out to past recipients of the Prize and to friends of Morris Kaplan to create an endowment to support the Prize in perpetuity. The Prize pays tribute to Kaplan’s twenty years as counsel to LORT where he not only dispensed legal advice, but also acted as guide and mentor to many young theatre managers who today number among the field’s leaders. Morris Kaplan’s influence throughout the entire industry is felt to this day and, through the Prize, will continue to resonate in the work of generations of Yaletrained theatre managers to come.
Assisted Listening Becomes Clearer Yale Rep patron Carol Sirot made a generous gift to the theatre to replace and upgrade the assisted listening system in the Rep, the University Theatre and the Iseman Theatre. In addition, the best parts of the old system were able to be reconfigured and then employed in the Yale Cabaret. This will have a significant impact on those audience members with hearing limitations. “The old system had seen better days,” says Ruth M. Feldman, Director of Education and Accessibility Services. “What the new system does is give higher quality sound to patrons listening to the enhanced system or to the audio description. Accessibility services should be as high in quality as the art they are in the service of.”
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Carol Sirot
On York Street Bookshelf
News Yale School of Drama Publications by from Yale School of Drama Alumni Plays
Non Fiction
America the Edible: A Hungry History, from Sea to Dining Sea By Adam Richman ’03 Rodale Press, Inc., November 2010 Foodie portraits of nine American cities—including Los Angeles, Honolulu, Brooklyn, St. Louis, Cleveland, Austin, San Francisco, Portland, Maine, and Savannah—and the time the author spent there, eating. It’s the Culture..!: Why We Don’t Understand the Middle East and Its Terror, and its sequel: Multiculturism, America and The Middle East: An Exposé, An Indictment By Alfred S. Golding ’49
Nineteenth-Century American Designers and Engravers of Type By William Loy Co-edited by Stephen O. Saxe ’54 Oak Knoll Press, 2009
Theatre Private Parties By Allan Havis ’80 Broadway Play Publishing, July 2010
How Long to Visiting Day? Creative Role-Playing for Training Camp Counselors By John James Hickey ’95 A soup-to-nuts guide to creating engaging, informative, and inspiring training sessions for counselor staff at children’s camps. The book combines his training and experience in theatre with his nearly three decades of experience as a camp counselor.
Night Sky By Susan Yankowitz ’68 Samuel French (re-published) The Odyssey Adapted by Bob Sandberg ’77 Dramatic Publishing, 2010 American Political Plays After 9/11 Edited and introduction by Allan Havis ’80 Southern Illinois University Press, June 2010 These six plays include his World Trade Center drama, Three Nights in Prague.
Change Your Life!: A Little Book of Big Ideas By Allen Klein ’62 Viva Editions The introduction to the book is by Jack Canfield, co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. Allen has four stories in those books.
Novels
Notable Women— and a Few Equally Notable Men By Ruth Wolf ’57 Nine biographical plays by Ruth Wolf Calderón de la Barca: Four Great Plays of the Golden Age By Rick Davis ’83, DFA ’03 2009 Ibsen in an Hour By Rick Davis ’83, DFA ’03 and Brian Johnston 2010
Poetry
Abducted by Circumstance By David Madden ’61 University of Tennessee Press
Julia Fulton ’84 won first place in The Fourth River Press’ 2009 Non-Fiction contest.
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Der Letzte Kodex By Tom Isbell ’84 Rowohlt Verlag, Germany The Deception of Surfaces By Benjamin Lloyd ’88 Allworth Press, 2006 A sequel to The Actor’s Way
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Dead Birds or Avian Blues By Howard Pflanzer ’68 Fly by Night Press, this coming fall
Blood on the Stage, 1925–1950 By Amnon Kabatchnik ’57 Blood on the Stage was recently selected as a nominee for the Agatha Award. This is the second in a series, containing 850 pages of plot summaries, production details and scholarly critiques of 150 plays of crime, mystery and detection. Among the playwrights included are Bertolt Brecht, Eugene O’Neill, Federico García Lorca, and Daphne du Maurier. Theatre By Robert Cohen, DFA ’65 McGraw-Hill, ninth edition, 2010 Working Together: Leadership and Collaboration in Theatre By Robert Cohen, DFA ’65 Palgrave-MacMillan, November 2010 Beyond the Golden Door: Jewish American Drama and Jewish American Experience By Julius (aka Jay) Novick ’66 Reissued in paperback The book explores how American playwrights, including Clifford Odets, Arthur Miller, Neil Simon, Wendy Wasserstein ’76, Donald Margulies, and many others, have dramatized the Jewish encounter with America, with implications for all ethnic groups. Artaud and His Doubles By Kimberly Jannarone ’96 University of Michigan Press, October.
Around the World International Alumni work in communities all over the country and, with increasing frequency, all over the world. On these pages we’ve highlighted some of the alumni who have extended the reach and influence of YSD well beyond the boundaries of New Haven.
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Alfred S. Golding ’49 tells us that he continues writing in his retirement, but has switched from the subject of theatre—which occupied the bulk of his professional career over the last 50 years—to another major interest: the Middle East (see Bookshelf, p. 48). This year marks the 40th in journalism for Joan Kron ’48, the last 20 at Allure magazine where she is a contributing editor-at-large, covering cosmetic surgery. She has posted a memoir of her career on her new website joankron.com. One of her books, Ms. Faux Pas: A Non Guide to Glitterati Manners, has been optioned for a Hollywood feature film. Inspired by a course in documentary filmmaking, Joan writes, “I’ve been auditing classes at the School of Visual Arts and developing a documentary film on a subject related to cosmetic surgery.”
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Bob Barr ’52 writes that in 2008, he “finally joined Actors Equity.” And now he has just finished shooting his first Screen Actors Guild film, Queens of Country, starring Ron Livingston yc ’89 and Lizzy Caplan, scheduled for release in 2011. Still writing plays, he has three in circulation, with Inconstancy currently a semi-finalist in the Lionheart Theatre contest. Recently Bob has been writing ten-minute plays; one was done at Panoply Arts Festival in Huntsville, AL, and a second at the Singapore Short+Sweet Festival, July 14–August 1, 2010, at The Arts House.
Alumni Notes Geoffrey Johnson ’55 just completed his sixth year as an American Theatre Wing/ Broadway League Tony Award nominator. In 2003 he was awarded a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Career Achievement as one of theatre’s foremost casting directors. Geoffrey cast Broadway’s three longest running productions: Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, and Cats. He was given a Special Tony “for finding the perfect match between performer and role on Broadway for more than thirty years.” Since his retirement as the co-founder of Johnson-Liff Associates, Geoffrey writes, he has been active as a Trustee of the Noel Coward Foundation, a charitable trust set up to advance various educational projects in the theatre arts which has already given grants to numerous institutions in England and the U.S., including Yale School of Drama. He has been part of two Coward exhibitions, in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and conducted a symposium—The Playwright’s Role: Coward, the Man Himself—at The Shaw Festival at Niagara-On-the-Lake in Canada. When Brief Encounter, the new dramatization of the film and Coward one-act play, opened at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, he chaired the panel Acting Noel Coward. The Troon Mountain Health and Fitness Center in Scottsdale, AZ, featured the exhibit entitled Beyond Photography by Jay Keene ’55. Many of the pieces were sold on the spot. The works are giclée prints of photographs Jay has taken around the world, photoshopped to varying degrees and printed on canvas using a 17" Epson Color Pro printer. Lucile Makowsky Lichtblau ’56 saw the premiere of her play, Car Talk, at Stageworks, an Equity theatre in Hudson, NY, in July 2009. Another play, The Interview, was one of five short plays performed at the Eastbound Play Festival in Milford, CT, in July 2010. Lucile and another writer started a play development group, Plays in Progress, which meets monthly at Stageworks. She and her husband Sheldon have nine grandchildren and a tenth on the way. A Holocaust survivor, a penniless immigrant, and a US Air Force artist, Henry Lowenstein ’56 was honored when Yale accepted him for admission and he earned an
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MFA. This year, he had an exhibition of scene and costume designs at Denver’s Main Public Library. In addition, Henry writes, the Colorado Theatre Guild has chosen to call their annual awards the “Henrys.” Now 85 years old, he looks forward to completing his autobiography. Married in Toronto last November, Gordon Micunis ’59 and Jay Kobrin ’61 recently celebrated 51 years together. They write that they divide their time between New York City and Santa Fe, NM. Gordon’s new line of art jewelry is featured in three galleries; Jay is creating knitwear fashions. The annual Frances and Philip Hofer Lecture on Graphic Arts was given in April at Harvard’s Houghton Library by Stephen O. Saxe ’54. The subject was Turning Lead into Gold: Nineteenth-Century American Designers and Engavers of Type (see Bookshelf, p. 48). Retired and living in Hawaii, Mary Aley Wilkinson ’54 remains busy with church activities, writes for the Essence of Faith column in the Honolulu Advertiser, and is a volunteer speaker for Hawaii Kai Retirement Community. She writes: “My training at Yale has enriched my life in many ways, mainly the ability to communicate effectively and with many people.” One of the most treasured things in the life of Jo Young ’52, has been his education, particularly his three years at Yale where he studied with Robert Penn Warren, Bunny Esler, Leo Larandero, James Light, James Fox ’49 and audited the acting class of Constance
Name, Address or E-mail Change We’d love to see you at our Alumni parties and celebrations, but we can’t invite you if we don’t know where you are! If you’ve recently moved, changed your name or email address, please let us know! Contact us at ysd.alumni@yale.edu or (203) 432-1559. You can also make changes to your contact information through your Yale Alumni online account: www.aya.yale.edu
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Alumni Notes
Welch (Former Faculty). Jo is 81 years old and has directed some sixty plays, musicals and operas. “I’ve earned $570 from my plays, more from acting and directing,” he writes. His favorite film appearances are in RoboCop and Love Hurts. He still gets residuals from RoboCop: “My last check was for 14 cents.”
Playscripts, Inc. If anyone is interested in reading it, contact Playscripts or Leslie himself at leslieep@bu.edu. Leslie tells us that he has just finished a stage adaptation of his autobiographical novel, San Remo Drive, which will be produced in Los Angeles later this year. He has just completed the third of his Lieb Goldkorn novels, Liebstod, which will be out early next year. . ........................... James Flannery ’61 is Winship Professor of Arts and Humanities and Director of the W.B. Stephen Arnold ’60 writes that he’s been Yeats Foundation at Emory University. He was retired since his final stint of nine years with just named an International Associate Artist Jarzenie produced by Teatr Palmera Amalia Hernandez’s Ballet Folklorico of at the Abbey Theatre, the National Theatre of Eldritcha at the 2009 Malta International Mexico. He was General Manager when they Ireland. In announcing the appointment, Theatre Festival in Poznan, Poland. Photo by were at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City, Fiach Mac Congail, the Artistic director of the Howard Pflanzer ’68 who is developing a and for their annual United States Tour. Abbey, described James as “the world’s leading theatre piece with the company. Stephen now lives outside Philadelphia, expert on the dramatic work of Yeats.” While where, as he says, “the suburbs meet the in Dublin on a sabbatical leave from Emory, countryside.” James conducted a master class for artists conwhich he informs us was staged on the The documentary film, Bill’s Mountain, had a University of California Irvine campus in nected with the Abbey Theatre, as well as showing at last year’s Singapore Film Festival. September 2010 (see Bookshelf, p. 48). University College Dublin graduate students, It’s a project Dyanne Asimow ’67 tells us on the challenges and rewards of producing At the Arden Theatre, F. Mitchell Dana ’67 she’s been working on for 12 years. This year Yeats. He has also advised the Abbey in develdesigned the lighting for History Boys and a the film was shown at a Buddhist Film new play, Barrymore Award-winner Something oping a Yeats Studio designed to train direcFestival in Bangkok, Thailand, and the Delray Intangible. He also designed the lighting for tors, actors, dancers, designers and musicians Beach Film Festival in Florida. Information in the techniques involved in performing Barefoot in the Park at Two River Theatre, about it can be seen at dyanne.org. Les Yeats. Turandot at the Washington National Opera, Attitudes, her new play with dance, had an ini- 42nd Street, Annie, Meet Me In St. Louis, and After thirty-two years as professor of tial reading at Heritage Square, thanks to Yale Godspell at the St. Louis Muny, where he did Costume Design at the University of Cabaret Hollywood, directed by Eric Gould three more plays this summer, as well as Peter Wisconsin-Madison, Marna King ’64 has ’98, and a subsequent staging at the Lounge retired. Summer and semester grants over 19 Pan at the Paper Mill Playhouse in June 2010. Theater. She is the grandmother of two-yearof those years provided her with the opportuMitchell continues to teach full time at old twin girls. nity to witness and document onsite perforRutgers University and is still Vice President After traveling in Japan for three weeks, mances of both West and East German proof usa 829, and Trustee to the P&W Board. Vienna Cobb-Anderson ’58 went to France. Mitchell’s wife Wendy Dana ’68 is retired. He ductions that used an associational, montage/ The choir she sings with performed at the collage theatre aesthetic to reach their audiwrites: “Both our sons are healthy and workAmerican Cathedral in Paris, La Madeleine, ing, and we’re very fond of our two grandchil- ences. She used the materials to design, teach Chartres Cathedral, Rouen Cathedral, and at dren, Sophia, seven, and Luke, five and a half.” and advocate this aesthetic through academic the major service of worship at Notre Dame in presentations and publications. Upon her This past year Bob Einenkel ’69 directed Paris. Vienna writes: “I’m working on a new retirement, Marna assembled her 436 individBells Are Ringing and a play about Madoff-like book, fusing glass to make bowls, and creating financial chicanery, The Voysey Inheritance. He ual working files into the Marna King Theatre one-of-a-kind necklaces.” Collection, which she donated to the theatre is still teaching full time at Nassau Comm Chicago’s Sideshow Theatre Company prounity College where he is going into his third performance archive at the Akademie der duced Medea with Child, by Janet Burroway Künste in Berlin: adk.de. year as Chair of the College’s self-governance ’63 this past spring. Instant Replay was proAfter thirty-three years in the Department of Curriculum Committee. Bob also continues to duced by Bloomington Playwrights Project Theatre at the University of Victoria in British co-teach Shakespeare: Page and Stage, a course and will be reprised in their Summer Shorts Columbia, John Krich ’61 retired and is now that, in his words, “is designed to make stuand again at Indy Fringe. Her children’s book, Professor Emeritus. He still acts—and directs dents aware that Shakespeare is primarily Truck on the Track, adapted as a symphony for occasionally—for several theatres in the area: intended to be performed and not just read.” children, had its premiere in June with the Belfry Theatre, Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre, His adaptation of his novel King of the Jews Iowa City String Orchestra. She’ll be teaching marks Leslie Epstein’s ’67 return to playwrit- and the Chemainus Theatre Festival. He is fiction again this fall at Northwestern currently on the Board of Directors of the ing after a forty-year detour into fiction. The University. Canadian College of Performing Arts, one of play has been performed in an Equity workRobert Cohen DFA ’65 directed the preCanada’s leading schools for musical theatre shop production by the Boston Playwrights miere of Bryan Reynolds’ Eve’s Rapture at the training. John writes that he spends free time Theatre and had its official world premiere Hayworth Theatre in Los Angeles, and wrote a last spring at the Olney Theatre in Olney, MD. visiting his children in Vancouver and Seattle. new play, Abraham and Isaac in Jerusalem, Ev Lunning, Jr. ’69 appeared as Gayev in The play has just been published by
Poland
60s
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YSD 2010–11
Alumni Notes Graham Schmidt’s adaptation of The Cherry Orchard at Austin’s Blue Theatre. He directed the Robert Bly adaptation of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt for the Mary Moody Northen Theater of St. Edward’s University. His production of Long Day’s Journey into Night was nominated as Best Drama by the Austin Critics’ Table. Ev also sang the part of Zurga in the duet from Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers for SEU’s Spotlight on Opera. David Madden ’61 has retired as Robert Penn Warren Professor of Creative Writing Emeritus at Louisiana State University, and has moved to Black Mountain, NC (see Bookshelf, p. 48). While continuing to lecture in Theatre at Coe College, Joe Nassif ’63 was guest director for Iowa Repertory Theatre, a small equity company near his home, and was a guest artist for the Iowa Opera Society. “This is my forty-seventh year as a Class Agent for Yale School of Drama ’63,” he writes. Working within Artichoke Dance Company’s Recession Dances, Richard Olson ’69 performed The Audition, at University Settlement in May 2009, and Falling for You at Dance Theater Workshop in October 2009. In June 2010, Richard directed Benjamin Britten’s opera, Noye’s Fludde, at The Little Church around the Corner, home of the Actors Guild, where he also started a showcase for young performers called The Yo Pro Show. In November 2010, he directed Dance of the Stones, a new chamber opera by Brian Schober, for which he wrote the libretto, at Theatre 80 in the East Village. His wife, Claudia Dumschat, conducted. Richard writes that his grandson, Bryce Olson Farley, was born in New York City in June 2009. Paul Pierog ’68 has a television show on
Canada
John Krich ’61 as Kris Kringle in Canada’s Chemainus Theatre Festival’s production of Miracle on 34th Street, with Audrey Sheppard. Photo by George F. Blumel.
Manhattan Neighborhood Network, a nonprofit organization that broadcasts programming on four public access stations in Manhattan, and provides a community media center that enables individuals and groups to produce shows for its network. His show runs on alternate Thursdays at 8pm on Channel 56 on Manhattan Cable and on the internet at mnn.org. He expanded the reach of his show with YouTube and Vimeo, as well as his own video blog, paulpierognotyourpresident.blogspot.com. As part of the 2009 Malta International Theatre Festival in Poznan, Poland, Howard Pflanzer ’68 lectured on Jerzy Grotowski, Judith Malina and the Living Theatre and Alternative Theatre in the US under the auspices of Theatre of the Eighth Day. He was also a guest critic at the festival and wrote an article, “2009 Malta International Theatre Festival: Theatrical Spaces,” published this past winter in Slavic and East European Performance. Other work includes the Polish translation of his play, The Teacher’s Room; a staged reading of Poetry Class with Serial Killer at the Medicine Show Theatre in February 2010; and the world premiere production in Spring 2011 of Living with History: Camus Sartre De Beauvoir to be directed by Barbara Vann, artistic director of Medicine Show (see Bookshelf, p. 48). A book on her design work will be published in Spring 2011 by Broadway Press and United States Institute of Theatre Technology, writes Carrie Robbins ’67. Carrie is currently designing a new production of The Nutcracker for the Cincinnati Ballet, opening December 2011. Carrie was co-curator of a large exhibit at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, sponsored by the library and the League of Professional Theatre Women: Curtain Call: Celebrating a Century of Women Designing for Live Performance. This comprehensive exhibit ran for six months in 2008– 2009, featuring the work of over 130 designers and more than 500 sketches and 75 actual costumes, as well as many set models and production photos. The 100-plus pages, abundantly illustrated catalog that Carrie co-wrote is available at the Library of the Performing Arts. She designed costumes for a stage adaptation of An American in Paris at the Alley Theatre in Houston. In 2008, she designed the sets for the Edward Albee’s The American Dream and The Sandbox at the Cherry Lane Theatre, directed by the author. Carrie’s own play, The Death & Life of Dr. Cutter, was chosen by Abingdon Theatre Company to be part of
YSD 2010–11
Ireland
James Flannery ’61 with a sculpture by John Behan called Cuchulain Hurling the Javelin. Flannery directed a production of The Cuchulain Cycle by Yeats. Photo by Ann Borden.
its First Readings Series in September 2009 and again in August 2010. With 113 audio programs produced in 2009 for publisher clients all over the country— including Audible Inc., Blackstone Audio, Zondervan, Random House and MacMillan— Stefan Rudnicki ’69 has had a busy year. He narrated all or part of 61 of the 113 programs, many of which have won awards. His production of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, read by Harlan Ellison, was a Grammy nominee this year; three others are Audie finalists. Recent AudioFile Earphones Award winners, all narrated by Stefan, include Burn Me Deadly by Alex Bledsoe, Cry Dance by Kirk Mitchell, and Genghis by Conn Iggulden. The short film he produced, The Delivery, has been seen in six festivals and won First Place in Fantasy at Dragon*Con. The film was written and directed by Gabrielle de Cuir and stars Michael York, John Rubinstein, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. yc ’40, Stephanie Zimbalist, Harlan Ellison and Orson Scott Car. The film’s trailer and audio samples can be seen and heard at skyboatroad.com. Performing multiple roles in a staged reading of the tenth anniversary of The Laramie Project, Leslie J. Stark ’62 then appeared the next day in the full-length sequel. This was done in autumn 2009, simultaneously with more than 200 theatres around the world, including a live hook-up from Lincoln Center. In the Vineyard Playhouse’s Shakespeare for the Masses series, he was Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, repeating a role he played exactly fifty years ago, the year before he came to Yale. During the Christmas holidays, Leslie reprised his nine roles in the Vineyard
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Around the World revival of the Philip Grecian radio adaptation of the Frank Capra classic, It’s a Wonderful Life. This spring, for the fourth consecutive year, he directed and performed in the annual short play festival at the Katharine Cornell Theatre. He continues in his fifth year of presenting a series of classic jazz appreciations with new compilations of piano and Broadway jazz, and the greatest jazz performances of works by Gershwin. King Lear and The Miracle Worker will run in repertory at the Globe Theatre in Odessa, TX, with Night Sky by Susan Yankowitz ’68. Susan writes: “I’ve just appeared for the second time as the answer to a clue in the Times Literary Supplement crossword puzzle!” (see Bookshelf, p. 48)
70s
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The Perfect Moment recently enjoyed a 12-week run in Los Angeles. Co-written by Chuck Bartlett ’90 with his partner Jack Cooper, the play first ran six weeks at the NoHo Arts Theatre in North Hollywood then moved to the Victory Theatre in Burbank for another six weeks. The play has four original rock and roll songs by 60s /70s songwriter, Sky Keegan. The story centers on four middle-aged band members who get a chance for a comeback. Bruce Katzman ’88 performed one of the roles, with assistance and support from Walt Klappert ’79. Steve Mendillo ’71 was in an
earlier reading of the play. Susan Blatt ’76 tells us that an authorized biography is being written about her friend and classmate, Wendy Wasserstein ’76 and she is helping the author gather photos of Wendy during her YSD years (1973–1979). If YSD alumni have any photos and would like to share with Susan, please email her at suse330@gmail.com. She is particularly interested in a photo of the 1976 graduating class! The Cumberland County Playhouse celebrated its 45th anniversary in summer 2010. Jim Crabtree ’71 celebrated his own 40th season with the theatre that was founded by his family and the rural Tennessee community of Crossville in 1965. Recent original musicals rooted in rural America performed at the playhouse include Flight of the Lawnchair Man, Duck Hunter Shoots Angel, A Homestead Album, Tinyard Hill and Captains Courageous. The company produces over 425 performances and presents 1,400 classes each year, in a town of 12,000, in a county of 50,000, in the area between Knoxville, Nashville, and Chattanooga. Marc Flanagan ’70 tells us that he has been spending a great deal of time in Ireland this year, where he participated in the Dingle Film Festival at the invitation of the festival’s founder and the Irish Film Board. While there Marc appeared on several panels and gave a workshop in writing comedy for the screen. He is now a sponsor of the festival and looks forward to the upcoming presentation in
Patricia Heaton, Barnett Kellman ’72, and Marsha Mason.
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YSD 2010–11
China
Stephen R. Woody ’76 has begun his first year in Beijing as the Language Learning Director at one of the first four English language schools to be opened by Disney English in Beijing. Photo by Allan Li.
spring 2011. He is writing a screenplay that takes place in Ireland about an American in his forefathers’ homeland—The Quiet Man meets Local Hero—and is hoping to do a sitcom for Irish television. He enjoyed mingling with the 2010 acting class and alumni at the home of Sasha Emerson ’84 in early May. Since he retired as Chair of Bucknell University’s Department of Theatre and Dance, Bob Gainer ’73 has appeared in Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble’s production of The Playboy of the Western World. Bob also performed with the Bucknell Dance Company in 2009–2010 and provided the narration for Tubby the Tuba. He has also served as a director or coordinator for select performance events. After he left YSD and later earned an MFA from Carnegie Mellon, Stephen Goldman ’71 went to work at South Coast Repertory Theatre in Costa Mesa, CA. He recently became Executive Director of the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, MI. Since autumn 2009, Robert Gulack law ’78, ’91 has been teaching English and Creative Writing at the State University of New York Rockland. His comedy, Mark Antony Entertains, with music by Emmy Award-winning composer Larry Hochman, had two staged readings last year. He lives with his wife, Zdena, his son, Darrow, and his daughter, Anna, in Fair Lawn, NJ.
Alumni Notes Jon Huberth ’70 is producing and directing series, My Boys and The George Lopez Show, are a television documentary based on the offrunning in syndication on Nick at Nite. Broadway show he directed, A Jew Grows in Producing 17 patent applications in 2009, Brooklyn. his return year to Rovi Corporation as James F. Ingalls ’75 did the lighting design “Inventor” left less time for the Yale Cabaret for Pacific, choreographed by Mark Morris for Hollywood, yet Walt Klappert ’79 still manthe Washington Ballet; Onegin for the aged to produce three readings last season: National Ballet of Canada, with scenery and Touchdown Jesus by Alex Maggio yc ’07 at the costumes by Santo Loquasto ’70; A Parallelo Café Metropol; followed by Noir—Face the gram by Bruce Norris at Steppenwolf, directed Music, an interactive television script by Ray by Anna D. Shapiro ’93 and scenery by Todd Malus, featuring Chuck Bartlett ’90, Barbara Rosenthal ’93; Marcus or the Secret of Sweet by Bragg ’87, Nicholas Hormann ’73, and Tarell Alvin McCraney ’07 at American David Stifel ’74 at Heritage Square; and The Conservatory Theatre, directed by Mark Trials Of the Oscillating Marble Man by Rucker ’92; and Nixon in China for the William Ludel ’73, directed by Nicholas Metropolitan Opera, with scenery by Hormann ’73 and featuring Michael Gross Adrianne Lobel ’79 and costumes by Dunya ’73. Other readings spawned two outside proRamicova ’77. ductions which the YCH helped promote: Les Adding to his schedule of directing televiAttitudes by Dyanne Asimow ’67 went on to sion—most recently ABC’s The Middle and the Lounge Theatre where Walt’s wife Gigantic, a new Teen Nick series starring Yolanda Klappert mus ’77 was music director Grace Gummer, daughter of Meryl Streep and pianist; and That Perfect Moment by ’75—Barnett Kellman ’72 is teaching directChuck Bartlett ’90 and Jack Cooper, which ing at the American Film Institute and ran for twelve weeks in theatres in North University of Southern California’s School of Hollywood and Burbank. Cinematic Arts. He is in frequent contact with The Joseph Brodsky Papers at Yale includes Yale alumni in Hollywood and plays tennis The Names of the Decades, an essay by Alan every Sunday with Steve Mendillo ’71, after Marlis ’70. Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Poetry: An which he has his weekly phone call with Analysis, includes his study The Sirens of Dr. David Epstein ’69. His two long-running TBS Marlis. The Rest of Oedipus—after Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus—by Robert Montgomery ’71 was produced in summer 2009 in the theatre in Kolonus, Greece. His play Electra was Leave Your Legacy published in Third Coast Magazine (spring By including Yale School of Drama in your 2010). Three short plays from Sampled financial plan, you make a significant Shakespeare—Romeo and Cleopatra, King Lear commitment that will strengthen the School That Ends Well and Macbeth Othello Hamlet and, through faculty and students, touch and Night’s Dream—were given a concert preseninspire countless lives. tation at The Actors Studio in April 2010. Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking at A life income gift can offer you the best of many worlds: dependable income for you and England your family, current and future tax savings, and a means to support scholarships and the unique programs that have made Yale School of Drama a leader in arts training for more than eighty years. Whether planning for retirement, the educational expenses of children, or the care of loved ones, life income gifts are an excellent way to balance your goals. . . . for you and for the School. To learn about these opportunities, please Margaret Glover ’88 at a writing workcall Debbie Ellinghaus at (203) 432-4133 or shop for student filmmakers at the London Film School. Photo by Chi Yu. debbie.ellinghaus@yale.edu.
YSD 2010–11
Hungary
Dragan Klaic ’76 teaches cultural policy at the Central European University in Budapest. Here he is on a lecture tour in Cork, Ireland. Photo by Darragh Kane.
Milwaukee Repertory Theatre starred Elizabeth Norment ’79. Elizabeth was also in Oedipus the King at the Clarence Brown Theatre, directed by John Sipes, with lighting design by Jennifer Tipton (Faculty): and an off-Broadway revival of Lillian Hellman’s Another Part of the Forest, directed by Dan Wackerman. William Otterson ’76 writes that he is currently producing commercials for “Lincoln Center is Fashion” and won an Emmy Award for the Tiny Diner Commercials he produced for NBC promoting Today in New York. He has played 80 principal roles in the last few years and has been cast in a key role in a major motion picture that will begin shooting soon. His screenplay, Why Save, will be produced later this year. William has just been named Co-Chair of the New York Table, dedicated to helping its members prosper in all disciplines in the fields of art and entertainment. William writes that he is giving free on-camera workshops for Yale School of Drama Alumni, using small pro camcorders. He can be reached at Otterson TV, 251 West 30th Street, Suite 14W, New York City, 10001. For his latest project with the Conservatory for Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, Steve Pollock ’76 traveled back and forth to Canada. He wants to let those who knew of his bout last year with prostate cancer that he is working full time and managing well. The time spent with former classmates and colleagues at USITT—especially Robert Long ’76, Bill Conner ’79 and Ben Sammler ’74 (Faculty)—reminded him of the common values and experiences they shared in New Haven in the 70s. In September 2008, Bill Purves ’71 married his partner of 17 years, Don Schmidt, during the short window of opportunity when it was
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Around the World possible in California. Bill continues as VicePresident of Harris Goldman Productions in San Diego, producing industrial shows for corporations and associations nationwide. Bill writes: “I enjoy running into the many YSD alums that regularly cycle through the theatres of San Diego.” Bob Sandberg ’77 directed The Heidi Chronicles by Wendy Wasserstein ’76 for Princeton Summer Theater. He also directed The Cage for the McCarter’s Youth Ink Festival and Fires in the Mirror at Princeton. He writes that after eleven seasons, George Street Playhouse finished the final tour of his play In Between. His newest play, IRL (in real life), focuses on friendship and cyber-bullying, and will continue to tour for George Street (see Bookshelf, p. 48). Michael Sheehan ’76 tells us Sheehan Associates celebrated its 29th anniversary in August. Michael’s oldest son, Ben, graduated from New York University with an MBA in Music Business. His younger son, Jonathan, finished his junior year at Wesleyan University, as a Government major and starting second baseman on its baseball team. In addition to his business clients, Michael continues to consult for major speeches and interviews at the White House with President Obama and Vice President Biden. He was the recipient of the Freeing Voices, Changing Lives lifetime achievement award from the American Institute for Stuttering, along with actor Harvey Keitel and journalist Clarence Page. The award was presented to Michael by his long-time friend George Stephanopoulos, and there was a special filmed message by former President Bill Clinton law ’73. Professor of Theater and Resident Designer at Union College in Schenectady, NY, Charles Steckler ’71 was recently appointed to the Dwane W. Crichton Professorship. During the past academic year Charles designed the sets for Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa, Carlo
Michael Sheehan ’76 consulting with President Barack Obama. Photo courtesy of Michael Sheehan.
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Goldoni’s The Servant of Two Masters, and an original dance/performance concert, Red-Roja, created by choreographer Miryam Moutillet. Charles writes to tell us that last June he received a fellowship to attend the Vermont Studio Center where he spent the month creating shadowbox dioramas: “These were the childhood source of my fascination with the mystery of theatrical space.” Charles is married to the award-winning pipe-cleaner artist Ginger Ertz, with whom he shares a studio in Schenectady, NY. He can be found on Facebook and at charlessteckler.com. The world premiere of Charles Evered’s Class was directed by Roy B. Steinberg ’78 at Cape May Stage, where he is the Artistic Director. The play starred Heather Matarazzo and Thaao Penghlis, with a set designed by Sarah Lambert ’90. Roy also directed Lynn and Ron Cohen in Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days, and David Birney in Paul Rudnick’s I Hate Hamlet. Jaroslaw Strzemien ’75 directed Tchaikovsky’s Onegin for the Connecticut Lyric Opera last year, and will direct Tosca in April. He is living in Branford, CT, which is close to Yale, his daughter Anya in New York, and the Long Island Sound, where he kayaks. He still teaches part- time at Central Connecticut State University, translates American plays into Polish, and every winter takes students on theatre trips to London. It’s been a busy year for Charles Turner ’70, performed at American Repertory Theatre in the musical Johnny Baseball. He acted in Horton Foote’s The Orphan’s Home Cycle at Hartford Stage and the Signature Theatre in New York City. Prior to that he replaced James Earl Jones in the Broadway production of On Golden Pond with Leslie Uggams, and played opposite Marian Seldes in Edward Albee’s The Play about the Baby off-Broadway. He went to Athens with the DC Shakespeare Company’s Oedipus Plays. In London, he was the Narrator with the BBC Symphony Orchestra for The Gospel According to Broadway and toured England with his one-man show about Frederick Douglass. He also played in Scott Joplin, King of Ragtime at the Avignon Festival. His daughter, Dr. Shairi Turner-Davis, is Deputy Secretary of Health for the State of Florida, and his son, Kaigani, is an independent website architect working on the 2012 London Olympics. Charles has two grandchildren, Khari, seven, and Aaliyah, five. He can be reached through DBA Agency in New York City or chazzeturn@gmail.com. Acting Executive Director Carol Waaser ’70
YSD 2010–11
England
May Wu Gibson ’86 developed all the stories and scripts for the BBC’s long-running crime drama, Silent Witness. Pictured are Margaret Glover ’88, Gibson and Holly Hayes ’86, celebrating Thanksgiving at May Wu’s home in London.
has been on the staff of Actors’ Equity for the past 27 years. In 2008 she served as one of the lead negotiators on the Broadway Production Contract. Working for the actors’ union has given her the opportunity to be involved in legislative efforts, as well as meet with politicians on the local, state and federal levels. This past March she caught up with friends at the West Coast Alumni Party at the house of Steve Zuckerman ’74. Carol retired this fall, and plans to be a tourist in New York City (where she lives) in addition to cycle-touring all over the world. A Tony Award nominee for lighting design for the Broadway musical Fela!, directed by Bill T. Jones, Robert Wierzel ’84 also designed the lighting for Fondly Do We Hope…Fervently Do We Pray, a dance-theatre piece by the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, and is slated to do the lighting for Lucia Di Lammermoor at the Seattle Opera, The Tender Land by Aaron Copland at Glimmerglass, Macbeth, the opera by Giuseppe Verdi at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, The Tosca Project, an original dance-theatre piece at American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, and Still Moving, a dance piece with the Pilobolus Dance Theatre, with art and projections by Art Spiegelman.
80s
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After 20 years in Los Angeles, Bob Barnett ’89 turned over leadership of Yale Cabaret Hollywood to Walt Kappert ’79, and moved back to New York. He tells us that relocating has given him the opportunity to reconnect
Alumni Notes with YSD alumni Ken Ryan ’76, Jeremy Smith ’76 and Carol Kaplan ’89. He has also had the opportunity to see a pair of productions at the Yale Rep—The Servant of Two Masters and Battle of Black and Dogs. After attending a reading at New Dramatists he talked to Carmen de Lavallade (Former Faculty) about working together on the 1974 Stephen Sondheim/Bert Shevelove production of The Frogs, performed in the Yale Pool, when she choreographed the “water ballet” and Bob was one of her singing, swimming frogs. Bob also reconnected with Howard Stein (Former Faculty) who taught playwriting during Bob’s
first year at Yale. Bob has become active in Yale GALA—the University’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered alumni organization—and is now the editor of their thriceyearly newsletter, which published his interview with Yale College alumnus and Pulitzer Prize winner Doug Wright (Visiting Faculty) in the September 2010 issue. “My primary duty as part of the creative crew for the George Washington Middle School’s spring musical, The Emperor’s New Clothes, was to make sure the stage floor was a solid flat black,” writes Jim Bender ’85. “My daughter Amelia sang the part of the Empress.” Jim
works at the Center for Health Communi cations (chc.aed.org) where he leads national public health campaigns for the Centers for Disease Control. Jim also still serves as a deacon at the historic Alfred Street Baptist Church in Old Town, Alexandria, VA. Michael Bianco ’84 is involved in plastics in the art industry, creating resin sculptures and rubber molds. He works with various artists making original pieces, and with museums where he makes replicas. Michael also works in the theatre and display business, “whenever something needs to be big and plastic,” he explains. Starting his third year as Senior Dramaturg and Director of New Play Development at the Alley Theatre, Mark Bly ’80 is also Working for Gender Equality Distinguished Professor of Theatre at the Susan Jonas ’87, DFA ’89 University of Houston School of Theatre and Susan Jonas ’87, dfa ’89 wants women in the theatre Dance. Mark was the dramaturg for the world to have their fair share. To that end she co-founded— premieres of both Rajiv Joseph’s Gruesome with Melody Brooks and Julie Crosby, in alliance with Playground Injuries, directed by Rebecca Taichman ’00, and Intelligence-Slave by The League of Professional Theatre Women—a Kenneth Lin ’05, directed by Jackson Gay ’02. grassroots organization called “50/50 in 2020,” He tells us that he was honored to give the dedicated to achieving parity for women in the keynote address in Birmingham, England, for theatre by the 100th anniversary of American 20/20, the international conference celebratwomen’s suffrage. In concert with that, Susan ing David Edgar’s creation, twenty years ago, belongs to Works by Women, an organization dedicated to redressing the lack of gender equality by of the first graduate playwriting program in encouraging theatre-goers to choose to see plays by women and by supporting their work, thereby demonstrating to producers that equity matters to their audiences. Class Year Affiliation Change Achieving parity for women in the theatre certainly seems like a worthy goal and who would Does Yale School of Drama categorize you in argue against it? Susan ruefully notes that if you ask the average audience member, he or she is the wrong class year? Did your thesis drag on likely to say that there already is equal opportunity. “Certainly things have changed,” she acknowledges, “and there are very visible exceptions—Julie Taymor, Eve Ensler, Sarah Ruhl, much longer than expected? Did you get your Lynn Nottage, Tina Landau, Susan Stroman—but ratios have stayed the same. Fewer than 20% of Certificate converted to a MFA? While you can’t plays produced on American stages are written or directed by women. In the commercial theatre change your official graduation year, you can be it’s more like 5% and of those most are at the smaller theatres where remuneration is minimal.” affiliated with your classmates. For example, During her decade as an arts analyst in the New York State Council on the Arts Theatre if you attended the Drama School from fall Program, Susan created initiatives that included Student No Rush, and, with Suzanne Bennett, a three-year national study on the status of women in theatre that revealed the lack of equity. of 1976 to the spring of 1979—but didn’t “Some studies have shown that men and women tend to identify with men, while the reverse is receive your actual degree until 1980—you are not true,” she says. “So stories about men are considered universal while those about women are considered part of the Class of 1980. However, not.” It would seem that even women themselves contribute to the imbalance: a study came out YSD’s Alumni Affairs office can update your last year claiming that women artistic directors were the biggest offenders when it came to affiliation to the Class of 1979. hiring women. However, Susan explains, “it was a very flawed study, based on the statistics of a This way, we’ll make sure to put your self-reporting website. Yet the media jumped on the conclusions of the study. In fact, women are championing women, producing women, mentoring women.” correct class year affiliation on your name tag When asked how she intended to go about making “50/50 in 2020” a reality and how to make at events and you’ll receive contact from the equity matter to audiences, Susan agreed that these are key points. “The theaters with the biggest correct Class Agent. To request an affiliation budgets hire the fewest women, but audiences don’t know it’s even an issue,” she says. “They’re change, contact us at ysd.alumni@yale.edu not aware of the selection process. What we’re trying to do is to get the leadership of the unions or via mail at Yale School of Drama, Alumni and guilds to gather statistics on a regular basis in the areas of gender and compensation. Once Affairs Office, PO Box 208244, New Haven, CT people pay attention, they see the discrepancies. It has to happen to funders as well. The parity we’re after has to be a conscious goal for people.” In other words, the “how” comes through 06820-8244. change, and change is a slow process; but progress has kept her hopeful. “Change comes,” she says, “through relentless effort from all corners in different ways.”
YSD 2010–11
55
Around the World Japan
Alec Scribner ’80 is the art director for Walt Disney Imagineering on Tokyo Turtle Talk and other projects in Japan. Photo courtesy of Alec Scribner.
England. The conference featured speakers from the Schaubühne and the National Theatre of England, among others. In June, Mark was awarded the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas’ G.E. Lessing Career Achievement Award, the fourth person in LMDA’s twenty-five-year history to be so honored. Jane Ann Crum ’85 continues to teach directors and playwrights at The New School for Drama. She also worked this year at San Francisco’s Magic Theatre as production dramaturg for Luis Alfaro’s new adaptation of the Oedipus myth, Oedipus el Rey, directed by Magic’s Artistic Director Loretta Greco and designed by Erik Flatmo ’02. Approaching his twentieth year as Artistic Director of Theater of the First Amendment at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA, Rick Davis ’83 dfa ’03 welcomed playwright/director Heather McDonald as Co-Artistic Director. Rich writes that he continues to split his time as Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education and Professor of Theater. In recent years he has directed a number of pieces for the IN Series in Washington, DC, with a particular focus on opera and zarzuela. In March he spoke at a Spanish Golden Age symposium at Oxford University. He is currently working with composer Kim D. Sherman on finding a venue for their opera, Love’s Comedy (see Bookshelf, p. 48). Timothy Douglas ’86 directed a production of Much Ado About Nothing, set in DC’s Carib bean community, for the Folger Shakespeare Theater, and Permanent Collection for Round House Theatre. As an actor, he played “Christmas Past” in Milwaukee Repertory Theatre’s A Christmas Carol, and returned to Milwaukee Rep to direct Radio Golf, with set
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and costumes by Junghyun Georgia Lee ’01 In recent years, May has been a guest lecturer and lighting by Marcus Doshi ’00. He is the and mentor on Master’s degree screenwriting Artistic Director Designate of REmy Bumppo courses. She has also worked with some of Theatre. Margaret Glover’s students from the London After she spent a theatre week in London Film School, where Margaret runs the with her daughter Sariel, Jan Eliasberg ’81 Screenwriting program. returned to Los Angeles to direct back-to-back As Production Stage Manager at Seattle episodes of Parenthood, Criminal Minds and Children’s Theater for 26 years, Linda-Jo Supernatural. Jan has written a screen love Greenberg ’84 is also doing company manstory, Heart of the Atom, set during the develop- agement, arranging visas for foreign artists ment of the atomic bomb, which she will and working as assistant to the Artistic direct and which stars Irish actor Cillian Director. She writes that she has been with Murphy. She is also writing a pilot for a televi- her boyfriend for eight years and celebrates 12 sion series, The Blue Wall, for FX. Thanks to years as a breast cancer survivor. In the near Facebook, she was contacted by Don Shewey, future is a trip to Peru. who sent her pictures of her YSD production Arrow to the Heart, a new play by Allan of The Brides by Harry Kondoleon ’81, Havis ’80 premiered in June at Vox Nova designed by Doug Stein ’82, and starring Theatre in association with the University of Isabel Monk ’81, Eve Gordon ’81, David California San Diego. Lilith, his collaboration Keith ’82, and Katherine Borowitz ’81. with opera composer Anthony Davis, preJudy Gailen ’89 writes that she is still miered in December 2009 at Conrad Prebys designing sets, and sometimes costumes, for Music Center at University of California, San regional theatre and opera, as well as doing Diego, and can be viewed online at ucsd.tv/ graphic design work and teaching part-time at lilith/ (see Bookshelf, p. 48). Bowdoin College. Her husband Michael conThe world premiere of Jeffrey Hatcher’s tinues to perform as a solo artist and son Gabe Tyrone and Ralph, at the History Theatre in continues to thrive. Minneapolis, with Steve Hendrickson ’81 Writing from London, her home of 20 years, playing Tyrone Guthrie, won the Twin Cities’ May Wu Gibson ’86 reports that she and her Ivey Award for best all-around production. fellow London-resident YSD classmates Holly Steve was invited by Artistic Director Alan Hayes ’86 and Margaret Glover ’88 expect MacVey to join the Bread Loaf Theatre Cathy MacNeil Hollinger ’86 to be joining Company at Middlebury College where the them soon. May is still freelancing as a televifaculty includes YSD classmates Michael sion drama producer and script development Cadden ’76 and Dare Clubb ’82. Stephen consultant. This past year she developed all played Iago in Othello at the Park Square the stories and scripts for one of the BBC’s Theatre in St. Paul, went to the Orlando long-running crime dramas, Silent Witness, Shakespeare Theatre to do Hamlet (Polonius) then went on to story-produce a new chiland All’s Well That Ends Well (King of France), dren’s series for the BBC and ABC Australia. and returned to Minnesota to play Higgins in She is also working on the final season of My Fair Lady for Ten Thousand Things, another BBC crime series, Waking the Dead. directed by Lear deBessonet. In the fall of 2009 he was in the Midwest premiere of Vigil, by Morris Panych, at the Pillsbury House Theatre, and then will play Alfred Lunt in the world premiere of Jeffrey Hatcher’s Ten Chimneys at Update Us the Arizona Theatre Company. Please remember to update us on address, Teddy Roosevelt and the Ghostly Mistletoe by email, and phone changes. And, if you know Tom Isbell ’84 was Tom’s second commisalumni who aren’t receiving mail from Yale sioned Teddy Roosevelt musical done at the School of Drama, please tell us! Kennedy Center’s Family Theatre. It ran for 45 performances in December 2009 and featured Contact the Development and Alumni the songs of political humorist Mark Russell. Affairs Office at ysd.alumni@yale.edu or As with the first play—Teddy Roosevelt and the (203) 432-1559. Y ou can also find us on Treasure of Ursa Major—Gregg Henry directed. Facebook! Look for the group “Yale School of Tom continues as Professor of Theatre at the Drama.” University of Minnesota Duluth (see Bookshelf, p. 48). On September 13, 2010, at 10 a.m. on PBS ,
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Alumni Notes the documentary Lafayette: the Lost Hero by Oren Jacoby ’85 premiered. Oren is currently working with the Ralph Ellison estate and producer Christopher McElroen on a dramatic adaptation of Invisible Man. Bruce Katzman ’88 writes that he had a great season, with television appearances on Private Practice, Hawthorne, Ghost Whisperer and Californication and a recurring role on Three Rivers. This season Bruce started off on the new Law and Order: Los Angeles. On stage last fall, he worked with fellow alum Chuck Bartlett ’90 on his play, That Perfect Moment, enjoying a lengthy run in Los Angeles. Last summer he directed a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Stella Adler Studio-LA, set in “Summer of Love” San Francisco. Bruce also produced a video of it, clips of which can be seen on YouTube. In June, he was back in New Haven and visited with Earle Gister (Former Faculty) and his wife, Glynda. Living in a rural town in western Massachusetts with her husband, author Alan Weisman, Beckie Kravetz ’86 is still doing occasional wig and makeup work for theatre and opera. Mostly, she reports, she is busy with sculpture and mask exhibitions. This past year she had an installation titled Witness at University of Massachusetts Amherst, a solo show at her gallery in Tucson, AZ, and another solo show in Oneonta, NY, in August. Beckie also teaches workshops in masks and
Pedro McDormand Cohen, son of Frances McDormand ’82.
makeup, and her work can be seen online at BKSculptureStudio.com and TheMaskStudio.com. Last season, Benjamin Lloyd ’88 performed the title role in Scapin at the Lantern Theater, and was “Walter Griffin” in Up at the Bristol Riverside Theatre. Next season he will be seen in Delaware Theatre Company’s Around the World in 80 Days, and in Lantern Theater’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream as “Bottom.” As Producing Director of White Pines Productions, Ben directed a staged reading of Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier by William di Canzio, for Reverie Productions in New York City, also conducted summer classes and readings at the Elkins Estate in Elkins Park, PA. Ben teaches acting at Temple and Penn State Universities (see Bookshelf, p. 48). James Magruder ’88 was at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and then the Sewanee Writer’s Conference in July, revising his second novel, Love Slaves of Helen Hadley Hall, which is partly set at Yale Drama School in the early 1980s. James and his partner Steve were in Corsica and Paris for three weeks in September. Their first grandchild, a boy, arrived in mid-November. Gayle Maurin ’85 left PBS and WNET.org in early 2009 and started The Golden Goose Unlimited, working on media and performing arts projects, specifically Craft in America (PBS / Peabody), Cactus Three’s John Lennon in New York—which aired on PBS’s American Masters in November—and a new reality series, World Innovation Challenge, with Antica Productions in Toronto for 2011. She has also been consulting with the London-based MEND Foundation, expanding their successful children’s anti-obesity program to the USA, helping young audiences with their national marketing plan, and consulting for the Arts in Crisis: A Kennedy Center Initiative. Currently Gayle is creating a fundraising strategy and programs for the under-construction Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City, MO. For the past three and a half years, her volunteer work has focused on serving as the Chairman of the Activities Committee for the Yale Club of New York City, directing over 300 events annually. She was just re-elected to her third three-year term on the Council and is currently serving on the Strategic Planning Committee. Gayle continues to teach Marketing and Positioning for the New York Junior League’s Non-Profit Board Clearinghouse training program, and has taken up sailboat racing again this summer in Westport, CT. When the Wooster Group re-staged its
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Class Year Affiliation Change Does Yale School of Drama categorize you in the wrong class year? Did your thesis drag on much longer than expected? Did you get your Certificate converted to a MFA? While you can’t change your official graduation year, you can be affiliated with your classmates. For example, if you attended the Drama School from fall of 1976 to the spring of 1979—but didn’t receive your actual degree until 1980—you are considered part of the Class of 1980. However, YSD’s Alumni Affairs office can update your affiliation to the Class of 1979. This way, we’ll make sure to put your correct class year affiliation on your name tag at events and you’ll receive contact from the correct Class Agent. To request an affiliation change, contact us at ysd.alumni@yale.edu or via mail at Yale School of Drama, Alumni Affairs Office, PO Box 208244, New Haven, CT 06820-8244.
production North Atlantic, performing for two weeks at REDCAT in Los Angeles, Frances McDormand ’82 joined the cast. North Atlantic then performed for nine weeks at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in Manhattan. Frances tells us that her husband Joel Coen’s film adaptation of the novel True Grit opened on Christmas Day 2010. Their son, Pedro McDormand Coen, is finishing his first year of high school, having moved this year from a small Upper West Side private school to Beacon Public High School. Frances is working on the film Transformers III with John Turturro ’83, and This Must Be the Place with Sean Penn, the first English-language film of Paolo Sorrentino. This winter, she will be in Good People, the new David Lindsay-Abaire play at the Manhattan Theatre Club. Paul Douglas Michnewicz ’87 has been Artistic Director of Theater Alliance in Washington, DC, since he founded the company 19 years ago, where he has worked with Veronika Vorel ’08, Timothy Douglas ’86 and many other YSD alumni. He also directs at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and teaches acting and directs at Theatre Lab, run by Buzz Mauro yc ’84. Alec Scribner ’80 writes that his next
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Around the World tour of his collection, followed by a jam session, in which Steve shared his beautiful instruments. Set for release this year: the indie films Two Mothers and Rocksteady with Sharon Washington ’88. Sharon also had multiepisode character arcs on FX’s Damages, and USA Network’s Royal Pains. She originated the role of “The Lady” in The Scottsboro Boys at the Vineyard Theatre in New York, the final musical by Kander and Ebb, directed by Susan Stroman. It played at the Guthrie Theater before it opened at the Lyceum Theatre, which marked Sharon’s Broadway debut. With a guest appearance on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, she has now appeared on all three versions of Law & Order. Dianah Roneyah Wynter ’84 screened her feature film HappySAD at the Directors Guild Theatre in New York on June 23. The 2010 YSD West Coast Alumni party was co-hosted by Steve Zuckerman ’82 and his wife, Darlene Kaplan yc ’78. Steve notes that his daughter will be a junior at Yale this year. He just directed the World Premiere of Shem Bitterman’s Influence at the Beverly Hills Playhouse. Alan Rosenberg ’74, Eve Gordon ’81, and Cameron Meyer yc ’91 were in the production. In July, he did a reading of Shem’s new play, The Stone Witch, at the Manhattan Theater Club.
Brooks Ann Camper ’98
project, a reprise of a previous attraction he produced for Disney’s California Adventure, will be opening within six years. One of his joys this year was the YSD Spring party at the home of Steve Zuckerman ’82 and Darlene Kaplan yc ’78. An acoustic guitarist, Alec enjoyed seeing Steve’s large collection of rare Martin guitars. He writes that Steve entertained both him and Mark Travis ’70 with a
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Railroad, by Bryan Reynolds, directed by Robert Cohen dfa ’95, toured to the Cluj National Theatre and the Sibiu Theatre Festival, both in Romania. Pictured are Martin Swoverland, Christa Mathis and Laura Simms. Photo by Ron Cargile.
The new head of the Department of Dramatic Arts at the University of Connect icut at Storrs is Vincent J. Cardinal ’90. Vincent reports that he will also be serving as Artistic Director of Connecticut Repertory Theatre, a resident professional company that is the professional producing arm of the department. Vincent’s duties will include administrative leadership of the department as well as artistic leadership of the theatre company. The 2010 Asian American Trailblazer Award was given by New York State Governor David Paterson to Esther Chae ’99. Esther also won ............................ the University of Michigan Emerging Artist Alumni Award, with an invitation to perform Martin Blank ’94 has a new ten-minute play, her solo show, So the Arrow Flies, which was Driving Green, which was read at the Kennedy presented at the 2009 Technology, Entertainment and Design Conference. Esther Center’s Page-to-Stage Festival in September writes that Bill Gates was in the audience. 2009. Driving Green has since had three proEsther is the main on-camera and film-acting ductions. In December 2009, he founded the teacher for Nigeria’s first-ever film academy in American Ensemble Theater (American the capital city of Abuja. Ensemble.org). Since graduating from YSD, Lynne Chase A second round of Leadership & Wealth Seminars in Trinidad & Tobago, Las Vegas, and ’93 has designed the lighting for over 170 productions. She recently designed the lights for Dallas was recently completed by Ed Blunt Romeo & Juliet at Theatre Fairfield under the ’99. Ed also led a Power of Focus training for direction of Barbra Berlovitz. Blue Cross Blue Shield, and was a guest lecChris Darland ’95 writes to tell us that he is turer at Columbia Medical College, Dillard working with Zaha Hadid Architects on the University and the University of Connecticut new King Abdullah II House of Culture and Art. on Living a Life by YOUR Design. Yale colleagues Geoff Zink ’99 and S. Lars Brooks Ann Camper Bridal Couture is the new business started by Brooks Ann Camper Klein ’99 are on the design team. Chris has also been working in Reykjavik, Iceland, on ’98. She handcrafts one-of-a-kind custom couthe new Concert and Conference Center projture wedding dresses in Hillsborough, NC. Brooks writes that her business has been hon- ect (Harpa), which is currently under construction. Fellow YSDers Phillip Peglow ’04 ored by the Knot Best of Weddings 2010. Her and Michael Parrella ’00 are also at Artec, website and blog: brooksann.com. Brooks Ann and Dr. Joel E. Rubin yc ’51 continues to conmarried in 2008; she made her own dress.
90s
Alex Draper’s ’91 children: Nora and Toby.
Romania
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Alumni Notes sult for them regularly. Spending time with Ursula Meyer (Former Faculty) and Wesley Fata (Former Faculty) was a big treat for Mark H. Dold ’96. He reports that Ursula is the head of the Voice and Speech Department at University of California San Diego, and Wesley is enjoying his retirement/freelance life in La Jolla. Mark also got to spend time with Lisa Porter ’94 and her family. Mark started the year doing Opus at the Old Globe, and winter-spring 2010 brought work on Law and Order and Equivocation by Bill Cain at the Manhattan Theatre Club, with Remy Auberjonois ’01. This summer, Mark was in the third and final return engagement of Mark St. Germain’s Freud’s Last Session at Barrington Stage Company in the Berkshires. Freud is now the longest running straight play in Berkshire theatre history and moved to an open-ended off-Broadway run at the Marjorie S. Dean Theatre on West 63rd Street in New York City. One of the producers is Jack Thomas yc ’80.
Mark also reconnected with Frederic Marguerre ’97. Along with his wife Lorraine, daughter Nora, eight, and son Toby, four, Alex Draper ’91 moved to Vermont four years ago when he was offered a job at Middlebury College, where he now teaches acting and has directed productions of Cinders, St. Crispin’s Day, and Twelfth Night. Alex spent July performing in Snoo Wilson’s Lovesong of the Electric Bear and Howard Barker’s Plevna: Meditations on Hatred, with PTP/New York City at Atlantic Stage II. Alex recently had the pleasure of studying with YSD faculty members Ron Van Lieu (Faculty) and Faye Simpson (Faculty) at the Actor’s Center Teacher Development Workshop, where he also reconnected with YSD alums Roz Coleman ’90 and Blake Hackler ’06. He spent last summer filming the indie horror film Yellowbrickroad, which premiered at Slamdance 2010. Dream Out Loud Media is the new video production company started by Jon Ecklund
Jonathan Moscone: Transforming the Regional Arts Landscape New York was never where San Francisco native Jonathan Moscone ’93 wanted to be. “There’s a predominance of regional theatres away from New York who see themselves in relation to New York,” he says. “This doesn’t interest me at all. I don’t hunger for New York. I don’t envy those who work in the New York theatre.” Jon’s interest in regional theatre dates back at least to his years at Yale. “Our class of directors—as I think most classes do—had a shared focus,” he says. “Ours was regional theatre. We’d grown up with the Goodman, Steppenwolf, ACT, the Taper. Adventurous regional fare interested and excited us. This was why we appealed to regional theatres.” After graduation, Jon got his first job at the Dallas Theatre Center and stayed for seven years. When the position of Artistic Director at California Shakespeare Theatre opened, he went home and applied for it. “There’s a mix of intellectual life and style here that I understand,” he says, “and I made the commitment to be an artistic director in the Bay Area. I have put all my ambition to that work.” For Jon this means redefining and expanding the role of artistic director in the community the theatre serves. “I’m a local guy,” he says. “I think globally and act locally. Making theatre for a diverse community has been the most interesting thing. Being in the rehearsal room and being in the classroom—engaging with the constituents—makes theatre necessary for me.” In recognition of his work, Jon is the first recipient of the Zelda Fichandler Award, given to an outstanding director or choreographer who is “transforming the regional arts landscape through his singular creativity and artistry in theatre.” Administered by the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF), the award “heralds both accomplishment to date and promise for the future, artistic vision and deep investment in a region outside of New York.” As Jon sees it, he could have chosen a freelance career or simply found an artistic home base as a resident director. Building a theatrical community is what compelled him. “I believe in the non-profit or I should say the mission-based theatre. The work is more important than simply putting on a play. Maybe that’s why I got the award.”
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St. Louis
Death and the King’s Horseman, directed by Segun Ojewuyi ’98 at St. Louis Black Rep. Photo by Robert Holcombe.
’99 a year and a half ago. Jon writes that the company considers itself “big production for the little guy, meaning artists, small businesses, individuals, and small law firms who need professionally produced video.” Jon is interested in connecting with alumni in the New York area who might want or need video production. He will be creating one such presentation for the Ivy Life Breakfast Meetings hosted by the Yale Club. He just finished producing and directing a sitcom currently titled Poll Takers, the company’s first television pilot. The next big project is a documentary. His new play, Shake, was produced by Theatre of NOTE in Los Angeles in late July, reports Joshua Fardon ’91. The run ended in early September. Joshua also composed the music for Charles Evered’s ’91 movie, Adopt a Sailor. Julie-Anne Franko ’96 has lived in the Ukraine since graduation. She continues to consult with other translators and theatres on their work with American and British authors. She has begun to write a novel, Frahmenti, and is collaborating with Ukrainian artist Andrii Humeniuk on artwork to coincide with her annotated translation of Grace-given Erodii, an 18th-century Ukrainian parable-dialogue by Hryhoryi Skovoroda that contemplates the meaning of grace/gratitude. Recently Julie-Anne translated the prologue to a modern Ukrainian play for Yale’s Theater magazine’s issue on the Ukraine. As a ten-year company member of the nonprofit Rubicon Theatre Company of Ventura, CA, Joseph Fuqua ’90 has been part of 27 productions, including playing the title role in Hamlet. The Rubicon Theatre is in an historic converted church on Main Street in “Old Town” Ventura. Joseph has been able to direct,
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Around the World Jordan
Chris Darland ’95 is a Principal Consultant with Artec Consultants Inc. and starting a new project in Amman, Jordan.
Jon Ecklund ’99.
Julius Galacki ’98. act, teach, set dress, costume and write for the Company. Presently he is directing 17 teenagers in Rubicon’s Youth Production of Macbeth. He has also won a Southern California 2004 Ovation Award for Best Supporting Actor, as George in All My Sons. Adapting the script from his play first performed at the Yale Cabaret, Julius Galacki ’98 directed his first short film, First Night. The
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film was shot in hi-def on a Canon 5D, Mark II camera and was shown at the Ventura Film Festival last summer and Flagstaff Film Festival during the summer of 2010. Another of his plays, A Shadowed Cross, was chosen by the Aloha Performing Arts Company for its 17th annual play-reading festival in August 2010 on the big island of Hawaii. Julius was also a semi-finalist in this year’s Cyberspace
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Open, a screenwriting contest sponsored by Creative Screenwriting magazine. Joanna Glushak ’99 has been with the first national tour of the musical Young Frankenstein. Prior to this she was on tour with Xanadu, the Musical and traveled to Tokyo with the show. Joanna lost her father to cancer this year and is grateful to her Yale friends who have been there for her and her family. Appearing at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park and Repertory Theatre of St. Louis in a production of Sleuth, Michael Goodfriend ’96 performed on a set designed by Paul Shortt ’68. Michael also appeared in Inana by Michele Lowe at the Contemporary American Theatre Festival, and in the premiere of Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig’s Lidless, recipient of the 2010 Yale Drama Series Award. Michael attended the Oregon Shakespeare Festival with his wife, Nancy Rodriguez, where he was reunited with YSD classmates Elijah Alexander ’96 and Frederic Marguerre ’96. Michael continues to write and produce each episode of Left Jab on Sirius XM Radio, and to be a father to baby boy Noah. In the short film Sexting, written and directed by Neil LaBute, Elizabeth Greer ’97 acted alongside Julia Stiles. She also appeared in the web series The Gunrunner Billy Kane— which just won eighth-best video nationwide in a Samy’s Camera contest—and had roles in two festivals at Ensemble Studio Theater Los Angeles, where she also co-produced. Elizabeth did a show with friends from Naked Angels Los Angeles Tuesdays@9 and the show’s run has been extended. On Saturday, November 21, 2009, at An Enchanting Evening in Roland, AK, Michael Sean Graves ’97 married Dorothy Armstrong
Alumni Notes Department at Catholic University of America, Eleanor Holdridge ’97 is moving to Washing If you’re a television aficionado, you’ve probably ton, DC. Next year her directing slate includes seen quite a bit of Lance Reddick ’94 these past few Willy Holtzman’s Something You Did at Theatre years. His appearances on seminal television shows J; Willy Russell’s Educating Rita at Triad Stage such as Oz, The Wire, Lost, and the new hit Fringe in Greensboro, NC, where the Artistic Director showcase his versatility and ability to drop into is Preston Lane ’96 and the Managing many different worlds. Director is Richard Wittington ’98; and The Baltimore native took a rather circuitous path William Shakespeare’s Cymbeline. She is also to YSD. He studied physics for one year at the working with Janet Allard ’97 on an adaptaUniversity of Rochester, before leaving to concention of Zorro, or the Curse of Capistrano. trate on classical composition at the Eastman School Jennie Israel ’96 recently worked on Table of Music and left there after deciding he did not wish Manners with Lindsay Crouse at Gloucester to continue with classical music. “I moved to Boston Stage, Boston Marriage at New Repertory to get married and pursue a career in pop music,” he Theatre, and in March 2011 will do Dollhouse says. “I had acted in college just for fun, but never by Theresa Rebeck, also at New Repertory really considered doing it for a living. After a few Theatre. years struggling to support my family and pursue Last year was a busy one for Clark Jackson my music, I began acting in local productions in ’97. He went from back-to-back Broadway Boston to try to help my music career, and acting shows to television guest-star spots on White began to take over my life. A year and a half later, I applied to the School of Drama and got in.” Collar, Gossip Girl and Rescue Me; supporting He remembers his time at YSD as a wonderful and productive period of his life. “The Cabaret, roles in the indie films An Affirmative Act with especially, was filled with the most interesting work and collaboration,” Reddick says. Charles Durning, Forged and Father’s Day: Right after graduation, he was cast as Jeffrey Wright’s understudy in the Broadway production voice-over work for the 2010 census: and an of Angels in America. More work in the theatre in New York—as well as television and film— internet video campaign for Chase Bank. This followed, until his role on HBO’s The Corner put him on the map. In 2001 he was cast as Lt. Cedric fall he’ll be Prospero in The Tempest at North Daniels on The Wire. Carolina Shakespeare Festival in High Point, Reddick is currently spending much of his time in Los Angeles, shooting Fringe, which NC. His grandmother, who turns 92 this year, started its third season this fall. He found the time to participate in a panel for the 2010 acting lives nearby and he is looking forward to students this past summer. “It was great to be able to be a part of something that allowed me to spending lots of time with her and many try to give back a little of what I got from Yale. Having to deal with being a father and husband friends and family who have never seen him while struggling to make it is what really turned me into a man. And Yale was the most onstage. formative learning experience within an academic or artistic training setting. It has enriched Kimberly Jannarone ’96 lives in San me immeasurably, both personally and professionally and being on the panel reminded me Francisco and in 2010 received tenure at how much.” University of California Santa Cruz, where she —Caroline McGraw ’12 teaches directing and theatre history. In fall 2009, she won a residency at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France, where she spent three months collaborating with other artists and working on her next book. Kimberly Miles Dorothy is an assistant research profesof the play Seven, directed by Evan Yionoulis reports that this summer she will visit the sor in the division of hematology/oncology at ’85 (Faculty), which went to London and Peer Gynt Festival in Norway and Oberam University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Aspen, CO. This year she is taking her son mergau in Germany (see Bookshelf, p. 48). Michael is a project manager for MP Produc with her on a national tour of The Laramie Starting his seventh season managing the tions. After a honeymoon in Paris, the couple Project and then heading back to the Asolo Shakespeare Theatre Company in lives in Little Rock. to do another season: La Bête, Deathtrap, and Washington, DC, Chris Jennings ’97 writes Jim Hart ’99 is building his second full-time Boeing-Boeing, directed by Mark Rucker ’92. that he’s glad to have Yale alumni Marty conservatory, Austin Conservatory of Mountain biking, snowboarding, and taking Desjardins ’94 and Mark Prey ’03 on the staff. Professional Arts, which offers training in road trips around Colorado with their dogs, He sees the acting and design work from entrepreneurial arts. ACPA opened in Toula and Kona, is how Kevin Hodgson ’96 alumni on the Company’s two stages every September 2010 and is accepting faculty appli- describes family life since he moved to season, as well as that of Jane Greenwood cations at austinconservatory.com. Boulder, CO, in 2007. The family is enjoying (Former Faculty). Next year, the company Javier Hafiz Herrero was born on December the four seasons, outdoor-oriented lifestyle celebrates its 25th season producing classical 8, 2009, to Mercedes Herrero ’95. Present at and, he writes, “the abundant local microtheatre. the birth was Jean Randich ’94. Mercedes breweries.” Kevin is currently working as an Hong Ritirong Jiwakanon ’95 is living in did a season at the Asolo Rep in Sarasota, Audio/Video/Theatrical systems consultant Bangkok, Thailand, in charge of the Cultural FL, playing Paulina in The Winter’s Tale and for K2 Audio. Management Program, Graduate School, and Minka Lupino in Murderers. She was also part Having just become Head of the Directing Institute of Thai Studies at Chulalongkorn
Lance Reddick: the Making of a Man
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Around the World University. Her play, Persimmons in Winter, began at the Yale Cabaret and Vivian Keh ’98 developed it into a full-length script, which David Koppel ’98 produced in February with his theatre company, Arclight Repertory Theatre, in the Bay Area. Vivian’s new one-act, Prodigal Daughter, was produced in March at the Korean Cultural Center in Los Angeles. Vivian writes that she was pleased to see the Korean press and community come out to support the project. She is currently taking a short break from teaching and says she’ll use the time to write without interruptions. Along with working toward her Master’s degree in psychology at Antioch University, Sarah Knowlton ’93 has appeared on Ugly Betty, Medium, House, and Desperate Housewives, as well as onstage at the Geffen Playhouse and Reprise!, the Los Angeles equivalent of New York City’s Encores! She is conducting her clinical training at a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center that focuses on emotional, physical, and spiritual recovery for former prison inmates in the alternative sentencing program. Sarah tells us that since moving to California in 2006, she has run ten marathons. Sarah Lambert ’90 writes that she recently designed sets for Lights Up Productions’ Feather, in Portland, OR, and Class by Charles
Evered ’98 at Cape May Stage. She has also acted as dramaturg for works-in-progress Casa Cushman at the MacDowell Colony, a workshop at Naropa and a reading in New York City, and Gerda’s Lieutenant at a workshop in New York City. Looking ahead, there is a production of Gross Indecency in Venezuela and a workshop of Cushman in Minneapolis. Nina Landey ’94 is leaving Los Angeles with her partner, Jody Bleyle, and their two sons, Twylo, five, and Lucian, three, and heading to Portland, OR. While pursuing a BFA in graphic design; doing public relations, marketing and graphic design; and working a full-time day job, Alane Marco ’94 writes that she was in a nine-city tour of an Early Music/Shakespeare concert/theatre piece—Songs from Shakespeare: True Love Never Did Run Smooth— with the Good Pennyworths Quartet. The director/dramaturg, Kate Harte-DeCoux, crafted a script drawn entirely from Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets that connects the songs in a dramatic storyline. Alane hopes the show will go to the Spoleto/Piccolo Festival in Charleston, SC, next summer. facebook.com/goodpennyworths. His indie thriller Insight, featuring Natalie Zea and Christopher Lloyd, wrapped production in June, and now Wade McIntyre ’98 is
Ukraine
Kimberly Jannarone ’96.
writing for the Fox Network cop comedy The Good Guys, starring Bradley Whitford and Colin Hanks. Wade also wrote a pilot for Spike TV. He writes that his most important project has just begun: his daughter Story Jo McIntyre was born on April 15. Maggie Morgan ’92 designed Groundswell at San Jose Repertory Theatre, and The Night is a Child and Camelot at the Pasadena Playhouse, the last production before the theatre closed its doors. She will be reuniting with fellow alumni Matthew Moore ’92 and Elizabeth Margid ’91 to do Good Woman of Setzuan at Fordham University next spring. Marty New ’92 writes that she moved to Santa Barbara with her son, Somerset, to launch her parent/child partnering yoga, ClimbTime Yoga. The manual will be coming out this year. climbtimeyoga.com In 2009, working at the Oregon Shakes peare Festival as a dramaturg and creative consultant, Segun Ojewuyi ’98 met Peter Macon ’03, Tyrone Wilson ’84, Shana Cooper ’09 and Lydia Garcia ’08. In 2008 he convened an international
You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown directed in the Ukraine by Julie-Anne Franko ’96. Photo by Julie-Anne Franko. Wade McIntyre’s ’92 new daughter, Story.
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Alumni Notes still living in Milwaukee and staying very busy with their children Alex, ten, Connor, eight, Emily, six, and Danny, three. Chris returned this spring to the TJ Hale Company as Vice President of Client Management, responsible for customer service and all project management for their established client base. Between children and work, he and Rosanne also found time, usually late at night, to “freshen up” the house with new floors, carpet and paint. From her base in Hell’s Kitchen with her husband of three years, Tim Rush, Brandy Zarle ’97 recently went to Naples, FL, to play Mrs. Linde in A Doll’s House at Gulfshore Playhouse, and the Weston Playhouse in Weston, VT, to do Damn Yankees and Death of a Salesman, starring Christopher Lloyd, with a tour to follow. His screenplay, Paraty, is currently in preproduction with Tribe Pictures, while Paul Zimmerman ’91 is living in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, with his wife, Carolyn Weaver. Paul teaches at Hofstra University and the Gotham Writers Workshop.
Mexico
The world premiere of Zoot Suit performed in Spanish at Mexico’s Compania Nacional de Teatro, designed by Sergio Villegas ’04.
symposium—Muse and Mimesis: Wole Soyinka, Lisa Porter ’95 was recently promoted to full Africa and the World with artists, activists and professor. This year’s production work scholars from Europe, North America and included Beth Henley’s Family Week, with Africa—converging in Carbondale, IL. After Jonathan Demme in his theatrical directing two years of planning, Segun tells us that he debut. Lisa’s husband Anders Wright is a film will lead a company of eight American actors critic and freelance journalist in San Diego. on an international performance tour to Their daughter Daisy Wright will be six in Barbados, Bermuda, London (Shaw Theatre September. and Theatre Tabernacle) and his homeland, As Actors’ Equity Association’s National Nigeria. There are two productions in their Director, Organizing and Special Projects, repertoire: Seven by Rachel Hastings, and Flora Stamatiades ’94 celebrated 16 years on Preemptive by Niyi Coker Jr. As they travel staff on June 20. She is about to travel to they will explore the African Diaspora under Copenhagen for business, with side trips to the theme: African Lives—Intersections of Prague and Berlin. Flora assures us that she is Culture, Politics and Performance. Segun’s wife still a Bikram yogini. Tessy is a financial advisor with Wells Fargo Chris Weida ’95 and his wife Rosanne are and they are the parents of two teenaged daughters. Now more than ever, Segun writes, Yale resonates as an important transition in their lives. The voters of Lone Tree, CO, a suburb of Denver, approved a modest sales tax increase to pay for the construction of a building with a 500-seat theatre and flexible black box space. Lisa Rigby Peterson ’92 will be the first Executive Director of the Lone Tree Arts Center when it opens in August 2011. “The Center will be a presenting, rather than a producing, house,” Lisa writes, and she will also have the responsibility of programming. The Head of Stage Management at University of California San Diego since 2005, Katie and Dannan Bartlo.
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00s
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As the Director of Peery’s Egyptian Theater (peerysegyptiantheater.com) in Ogden, UT, Sarah Bartlo ’04 presents performance and film series. She has also helped to start an arts council and teaches at the local university. Sarah writes that she is happily ensconced with Michael, Katie, and new addition Dannan in a 100-year-old house that still needs sanding, painting, and new ceilings. Frances Black ’09 is the Director of Member Services at ART/New York, a nonprofit service center for theatre organizations in New York City. Frances tells us that she is
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Around the World England
Jennifer Tuckett ’08 was recently commissioned to write a group play for the Old Vic Theatre Symposium, and awarded a UK Arts Council Award to develop her play I Am a Superhero with York Theatre Royal.
Frances Black ’09 and Patricia McGregor ’09 also in the early stages of developing her own independent producing company: Frances Black Projects. Eric Bryant ’09 married Deborah Sadok on February 19, 2010, in New York City. The couple will make their home in Brooklyn. Deb orah is a graduate of New York University and received a Master’s degree from Columbia University. The National Tour of Dirty Dancing starred Amanda Leigh Cobb ’05 as Baby Houseman. Amanda also traveled to Oslo, Norway, to teach a Master class in audition technique at The International Theater Academy of
Norway (TITAN). She writes that she is currently creating her own DVD teaching series and recently launched her private coaching site: welcometoacting.com, which is not to be confused with her personal site: amandaleighcobb.com. New theater house, an ensemble of artists who first came together at Yale School of Drama, made its New York City debut with a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, writes Shana Cooper ’09. Past Nth projects include The Whale Play by Victor I. Cazares yc ’08 and Eurydice (Amherst College Residencies), Twelfth Night, or What You Will (in collaboration with actors at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival), and The Ghost Sonata (Yale School of Drama). Shana will be directing Romeo and Juliet at Yale Repertory Theatre in spring 2011. Upon his return to his hometown of Los Angeles after graduation, Malcolm Darrell
(above) Andrew Farrow ’06 and Jo McInerney ’08 and friends from YSD; (right) David Byrd ’06, Liz Alsina ’06, Carrie Van Hallgren ’06, and Shira Beckerman ’06.
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’07 did freelance production at the Cornerstone Theatre Company with Nico Lang ’05 and Shay Wafer ’89. In November of 2007 he became the founding General Manager of Ebony Repertory Theatre, Los Angeles’ first African American Equity company alongside Andi Chapman ’85, the company’s Associate Artistic Director. While there he produced many plays and events, including the critically acclaimed production—and 2009 Ovation Award winner for Best Play—of August Wilson’s Two Trains Running, starring Broadway veterans Roger Robinson, Glynn Turman and Russell Hornsby. Recently, Malcolm accepted a newly created artistic staff position at Center Theatre Group as the New Play Production Associate, where he assists with the management and production of the company’s non-text-based and devised work. Andrew Farrow ’06 and Jo McInerney ’08 were married in New York City on May 23, 2010. They celebrated the occasion with family and friends, including many YSD alumni. Malcolm Darrell ’07
Alumni Notes Susan is teaching at the university and startCentral, similar to The Daily Show, but for ing the process of looking for directing work sports. He misses his classmates, drawing around town. class and Pepe’s pizza. After six years at Yale (three years for an As a costume production assistant in televiMFA, two years teaching as a DFA candidate sion and film, Heidi Hanson ’09 has worked and one year’s leave), Jason Fitzgerald ’08 on Big Love, the film True Grit, and this season tells us that he has begun a PhD program in of Entourage. the theatre subcommittee of the Department As part of her freelance life in both New of English and Comparative Literature at York and Chicago, Jessi D. Hill ’07 has been a Columbia University. Jason also continues to guest director at New York University, write theatre reviews for Backstage. He can be Fordham and Long Island University. She just reached at: jfitz@aya.yale.edu. joined The Women’s Project Directors Lab and The hard-hitting effects of the economy on terraNOVA Collective New York City, where the theatre in Chicago made it difficult to she runs the Groundbreakers New Play Jennifer Lim ’04 played the lead in This work as a stage manager for Adam Ganderson Development program. Isn’t Romance at the Soho Theatre in ’06, particularly because he wants to have a David Howson ’04 became the inaugural London and Ophelia in a Chinese production family. And so Adam enlisted in the U.S. Army. Arthur Zankel Director of Arts Administration of Hamlet in Shanghai for the Grotowski Because he enlisted, instead of going in as an at Skidmore College, responsible for establishFestival in Wrocław, Poland. Photo by officer, the Army is paying back his student ing a new interdisciplinary program to pre© simonkanephotography.co.uk 2009 loans and letting him pick his job, starting pare students for creative lives and managehim off as an E-4 (equivalent to a corporal), ment positions in the visual arts, music, dance and giving him his choice of duty station after and theatre. In addition to launching and Drew and Jo are starting their lives together in he completes his training. He will do ten overseeing the program, David will be responNew York City where Drew works in the weeks of basic training at Fort Jackson near sible for teaching foundation courses in arts Design and Engineering Department at Columbia, SC, and then go to Fort Huachuca, administration, developing internship opporShowman Fabricators, and Jo is a freelance AZ, for 17 weeks of Intelligence Analyst tunities for students, and establishing a proStage Manager. Members of the YSD family School. gram of residencies for arts-management that are seen in the attached photo are: Cat Busy with projects in China and in New professionals. Tate Starmer ’06, John Starmer ’06, Liz York, Paul Gelinas ’09 has worked most Year Zero at Second Stage Theatre in New Alsina ’06, Ben Merrick ’06, Alison Acierno recently on Matt Damon’s The Adjustment York City featured Peter Kim ’04. It was Merrick (former staff), Guerry Hood ’05, Bureau, which included a cameo by Amanda directed by Will Frears ’01, with costume Danielle Federico ’08, Stephanie Ybarra ’08, Mason Warren ’08. Paul will be the producdesign by Jenny Mannis ’02 and set design by David Thomas ’07, Andrew Farrow ’06, Jo tion designer for a new series on Comedy Robin Vest ’02. McInerney Farrow ’08, Andrew Nagel ’06, Lily Twining ’09, Ryan Durham ’07, Lisa Shuster ’08, Kris Longley-Postema ’09, Katrina Olson ’07, Steve Neuenschwander ’08, Jack Hilley ’08, Melissa Urann Hilley, Arielle Edwards ’06, Amy Altadonna ’07, Ji-youn Chang ’08, Andrew Gitchel ’09, Lisa McDaniel, Justin McDaniel ’08, Shira Beckerman ’06, and Jeanne Wu. Present, but not pictured: Annie Jacobs, Steve Henson, Jessica Barker ’10, Mary Hunter (faculty), Ruby Hunter, Tiffany Hopkins (former staff), Cynthia Coco yc ’07. Susan Finque ’03 and her partner Maria Martinez sold their mansion in the historic small town of Evansville, WI, but not before Susan wrote and directed a ghost play, School for Girls, about the history of the former Leota Girls’ Boarding School, and staged it in her house, in the style of Fefu and Her Friends by Maria-Irene Fornes. Afterwards they left Wisconsin, headed west. Susan spent the winter on the Marine Base in Kailua, HI, with Maria’s son and two grandchildren. After leaving Hawaii and traveling up the Pacific Coast, Mason Lee and Peter Kim ’04 in Year Zero at Second Stage Theatre, directed by Will Frears ’01, Susan and Maria have landed back in Seattle. costume design by Jenny Mannis ’02 and set design by Robin Vest ’02. Photo by Joan Marcus.
China
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Around the World On the beach at the Iberostar Grand Hotel Paraiso in Riviera Maya, Mexico, Amanda Lafollette ’01 was married to Kevin Blackman on April 18. The religious ceremony was performed by Rabbi Sarah H. Reines. Amanda is a vice president and senior creative director in the Chicago office of Jack Morton Worldwide, a marketing agency. Her husband is the managing director of Terrawell Energy Group, an alternative energy consultancy based in Chicago. Kenneth Lin ’05 married Rebecca Sawyer ’02 on April 18, at Atlantis Marine World in Riverhead, NY. Jackson Gay ’02, a Universal Life minister, officiated. Kenneth’s play, Killer Instant: Asians Who Love Guns and the People Who Love Them, is part of a group of works being performed by Second Generation. Po Boy Tango had its premiere at the Northlight Theater in Skokie, IL, and his latest work, Intelligence-Slave, is to be staged at the Alley Theatre in Houston, TX. The Pan Asian Rep production of Ching Chong Chinaman featured Jennifer Lim ’04 and was directed by May Adrales ’06. Also involved were James Chen ’08, Ji-Youn Chang ’08 and Robert Murphy ’96. Jennifer also participated in a workshop reading of David Henry Hwang’s new play, Chinglish, directed by Leigh Silverman, at the Lark Play Development Center, opposite Reg Rogers
China
Clara Rice ’02 recently completed work on the Coca-Cola Pavilion for the 2010 Shanghai World Expo and is currently working on a project that will open in Malaysia early next year.
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’93. In September, she was in a radio play, This Isn’t Romance, adapted from the stage play of the same name, which she also performed at the Soho Theatre in London last year for BBC Radio 3. Though still working as the New York book and theatre scout for MGM-UA, Claire Lundberg ’02 writes that she moved to Paris, where her husband is doing a scientific fellowship at the Pasteur Institute. Claire says she’ll be there for several years and hopes to be doing something in the world of film and/ or theatre. Timothy R. Mackabee ’09 was associate set designer for the Broadway and European companies of Fela! and set designer for OffBroadway’s Good Ol’ Girls. His regional credits include Managing Maxine for Asolo Repertory Theatre, directed by Mark Rucker ’92, lighting by Jesse Belsky ’09, costumes by Luke Brown ’09; Al Jolson at the Winter Garden for the Maltz Jupiter Theatre; Dr. Radio for Florida Stage; 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and Evita for Northern Stage; Tartuffe for Sarah Lawrence College; On the Verge for Princeton University; and Marvelous Wonderettes and Death of a Salesman, starring Christopher Lloyd yc ’82, at Weston Playhouse. The film Somewhere Tonight, an adaptation of 06, by slain Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, had Roweena Mackay ’05 as assistant to the director, Ola Maslik ’06 as production designer and Lauren Rockman ’08 as art director. The film stars John Turturro ’83 and Katherine Borowitz ’81. Neveen Mahmoud ’00 is currently working on La Cage Aux Folles at the Longacre Theatre. The New York premiere of It or Her featured Brian McManamon ’06, and was written by Alena Smith ’06, directed by Jessi D. Hill ’07, with set and costumes by Jennifer Moeller ’06, lights by Gina Scherr ’06, and sound by David A. Thomas ’07. It had a soldout run—and received the Audience Choice Award—at the Frigid New York City Festival. New York City’s terraNOVA Collective named It or Her the Best Solo Performance of Frigid Fest New York City 2010 and presented the show in its 7th annual soloNOVA Arts Festival at P.S. 122 in May 2010. Brian was also nominated for Outstanding Solo Performance by New York Innovative Theatre Awards. The show was also performed at the Berkshire Fringe Festival in Great Barrington, MA, in August. The Bedtrick was performed in translation at
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Yale Alumni Association Not a member of AYA? Join now—it’s free! As a member, you can register for the School of Drama Listserv where you can post and receive notices intended for YSD alumni. Many other services, including the online Alumni Directory and the Yale Career Network, are available at www.aya.yale.edu.
Social Networking Attention all Facebook users (and those yet to join): Please be sure to join the official Yale School of Drama Facebook Group. This is another great way to network and keep in touch with your classmates and stay in touch with the School.
Festival de Dramaturgia Norteamericana Contemporánea. It was the thesis play of Matt Moses ’09 and Matt writes that he went to Santiago, Chile, to see it. Matt is also working on a commission from The Music Theatre Company, and producing shows at MTV. He performs Friday nights at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York with The Law Firm. The new Artistic Director of The Studio Theatre in Washington, DC, as of September 1, 2010, is David Muse ’03, yc ’96. David’s 2008 production of David Harrower’s Blackbird received the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Production and a nomination for Outstanding Director. His original-practices-inspired all-male Romeo & Juliet at The Shakespeare Theatre Company received a 2008 Helen Hayes Award nomination for Outstanding Director. Rachel Myers ’07 collaborated at South Coast Repertory‘s Segerstrom Stage, on the world premiere of Julia Cho’s The Language Archive. In late 2009, she became Theatre Development Fund’s Content Editor for TDF STAGES (stages.tdf.org), an online magazine that celebrates the artistic process in the theatre. She is writing features, writing and directing short films, and editing freelance writers, exploring how theatre artists do their work. She is also making a short documen tary film about how America is engaging
Alumni Notes with the theatre during the country’s economic crisis, comparing the United States to Iceland where, in the year following its economic collapse, almost everyone went to the theatre at least once. She has made several trips to Reykjavik, interviewing Icelanders. Premiering at the Berlin International Film Festival was an award-winning documentary feature film, City of Borders, co-produced by Simone Nelson ’01. Simone is also the President of the Board of Bay Area Women in Film and Media (a chapter of Women in Film and Television International), on the faculty of The Art Institute of California/San Francisco, and is Executive Producer at Xenia Media, a digital entertainment company that operates at the intersection of emerging and conventional entertainment platforms. Simone is currently a founding partner in Xenia Media’s newest venture–Chewyslist, a social media network designed to centralize and monetize the entertainment community into one online social networking site, providing a hub for artists to address their immediate needs through direct access to the people, products and services they need and use. chewyslist.com. Click on the lock, and enter the YSD Temporary Access Code number 11904. Naomi Okuyama ’07 continues to produce and present cultural programs for the City of Santa Monica in its various facilities, including the Annenberg Community Beach House and the Miles Memorial Playhouse. During this last year, as a trainee with the Director’s Guild of America Sarah Hodges Olivieri ’08 has worked on Cougartown, Modern Family, Lincoln Heights, 24 and Weeds.
Canada
(left to right) Nicola Rossini ’07, Lisa Hennessy, Charlie Parr at the Whistler Medals Plaza for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, designed by Nicola Rossini. Photo by Jennifer Dean.
Kevin Rich ’04 as Richard in Richard III with Michelle Scupe, at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival. Photo courtesy of Pete Guither. She and husband Vinnie Olivieri ’01 are living in Long Beach, CA. Vinnie teaches at University of California Irvine and has created designs and scores at theatres around the country. He writes that his favorite has been the world premiere of Howard Korder’s In a Garden at South Coast Repertory, with scenic designer Christopher Barreca ’83. Sarah and Vinnie see Lori Monnier ’01, Fred Kinney ’02, Aga Kunska ’02, Shannon Flynn ’02, Michael Field ’02, Greg Derelian ’01, and other L.A.-based alumni. Christina Geyer Phillips ’00 and her husband, Aubrey Jean Phillips, had a daughter on January 1, 2010. The 22-actor ensemble performing Horton Foote’s nine-hour The Orphan’s Home Cycle included Bryce Pinkham ’08. A co-production of Signature Theatre Company and Hartford Stage, the production won the New York Drama Circle Critics Award for Best Play and the Lucille Lortel Award for Best Play. The entire ensemble was given a special Drama Desk Award. Bryce was seen at Williamstown Theatre Festival this summer in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Our Town and was on Broadway in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, written and directed by Alex Timbers ’01 yc. Casey Reitz ’03 was recently named the
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Executive Director of Second Stage Theatre in New York City. After holding executive positions at Manhattan Theatre Club and The Public Theater, Casey will oversee all administrative matters at Second Stage with a particular focus on leading a $45M Capital Campaign to acquire the Helen Hayes Theater on Broadway.
Casey Reitz ’03
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Around the World The Womb, a film script written for Cinecorp by Gonzalo Rodríguez Risco ’09, will be filming in late 2010/early 2011. Gonzalo’s play Expiration was a finalist at Long Beach Playhouse’s 19th Annual New Works Festival, and Reverie Productions’ sixth annual Next Generation Playwriting Contest, and has had readings in California and New York. His comedy, The French Play, was a finalist at Long Beach Playhouse’s 20th Annual New Works Festival and had a reading in California in June 2010. Dramatis Personae had a workshop production at The Playwright’s Realm and a staged reading in New York in May. Kevin Rich ’04 was in Distracted, directed by PJ Paparelli, at the American Theater
Hallie Foote, Bryce Pinkham ’08 and Maggie Lacey in Horton Foote’s The Death of Poppa at Hartford Stage. Photo by T. Charles Erickson.
Company in Chicago, in which he played “Dad.” Last year, he played Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Deb Alley, and Richard in Richard II, directed by Henry Woronicz. This summer, he will return to the Illinois Shakespeare Festival to play Sebastian in The Tempest, directed by Deb Alley, and Porthos in The Three Musketeers, directed by Karen Kessler. This fall, he will begin a full-time, tenure-track position as Assistant Professor of Drama at Kenyon College, near Columbus, OH. After directing the New York premiere at P.S.122 of Lola Arias’ Kingdom, Yana Ross ’06 writes that she was invited by the Oskaras Korsunovas Theatre to stage Nobel-laureate Elfriede Jelinek’s Bambiland at the National Theatre in Vilnius, Lithuania. Her deconstruction of Heiner Müller’s Macbeth opened the 2008 season of Volksbuehne-Am-RosaLuxemburg Platz in Berlin and stayed in the repertory for a year and a half. Beth Morrison ’05 produced Yana’s Sleeping Beauty by Jelinek for the Seoul Performing Arts Festival in South Korea. Yana continues to direct internationally, from Florence to Warsaw and Berlin, with a home base in Vilnius, where she recently premiered Fassbinder’s Bremen Freedom, Ibsen’s Master Builder and Schnitzler’s La Ronde. Brooklyn-based Sallie D. Sanders ’02
Olivia and Viola Sunderman, daughters of Erik Sunderman ’06
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Singapore
Alec Tok’s ’03 first film A Big Road, was nominated for Best Asian Feature Film at the Singapore International Film Festival.
continues as a development consultant with clients including Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, A Dance Company, 651 ARTS, Shen Wei Dance Arts, Martha Clarke/Spring Lake Productions, and New York City Players. Christopher (Kit) Sanderson ’05 was in Oslo, Norway this year directing a new translation of Uncle Vanya, which he also commissioned and which was featured in LIFE Magazine online, as well as Sylvia Plath’s 3 Women, and a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream which performed in Oslo and then toured to New York’s Central Park for a two-week limited engagement. The Helen Merrill Emerging Playwright Award was given to Justin Sherin ’08 by a panel that included Christopher Durang ’74, Susan Hilferty ’80, Morgan Jenness and Richard Nelson (Former Faculty). Justin was also recently awarded a MacDowell Fellowship. Currently Assistant Technical Director at Stanford University, Erik Sunderman ’06 helps with facilities, Drama Department shows, on-campus groups,and events. He lives in San Jose, CA, with his wife Debbie and their two daughters, Viola, four, and Olivia, eight months. Nondumiso Tembe ’09 has moved to Los Angeles, where she was in an episode of NCIS: Los Angeles, and performed on behalf of her country, South Africa, during half-time at the Los Angeles Galaxy and Chivas USA games to promote the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. She also performed at the Los Angeles Convention Center during South Africa’s Freedom Day Celebrations and the World Cup kickoff, at the request of the South African Consulate-General. Nondumiso will be recording her first solo album in South
Alumni Notes The Sound Design Award at World Stage Design 2009 in Seoul, Korea, was awarded to Bradlee Ward ’05 for his work on The Methuselah Tree. Kristina Corcoran Williams ’09 and Peter Lennon Koechley were married on October 9, 2009 in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Kristina is working on a DFA in Dramaturgy at YSD. Peter graduated from Columbia where he was the managing editor of The Onion. He is currently an online organizer for MoveOn.org.
10s
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Nondumiso Tembe ’09
Africa this summer and was also in a new African musical, Witness Uganda, at Disney Studios, Los Angeles. Nondumiso has been appointed an executive committee member for the Black Yale Alumni Association. Beginning as a volunteer in 2006, Bill Thompson ’02 is now the Executive Director of the Young Storytellers Foundation in Los Angeles, an arts education non-profit that places Hollywood mentors in over 30 under-
served public schools throughout Los Angeles each year. Please visit youngstorytellers.com for more information. Bill writes that he and his wife Amy live in Silver Lake, and are expecting their first child in December. In October, Elliot Villar ’07 opened in After the Revolution, a new play by Amy Herzog ’07, at Playwrights Horizon. In November, Elliot’s wife, Emily Dorsch ’07 made her Yale Rep debut in Kirsten Greenidge’s Bossa Nova.
Michael Barker ’10, som ’10 was hired in August as the Managing Director of The Antaeus Company in North Hollywood, an ensemble of actors producing works from classics. Michael writes: “I could not be happier with this outcome of my job search. Combined with a successful move West and my pending nuptials to Heidi Henson ’09, I feel as though I have hit the proverbial jackpot.” Mattie Brickman ’09 is collaborating with art.party.theater.company.com on STARBOX, a performance installation that went up in July and August in Bryant Park with a group of over 20 actors, including Alex Teicheira ’09 with Roberta Pereira ’08 as a producer and Maggie Elliott (Staff) as a designer. Christiane Riera nee Salomon is a theatre critic for the largest newspaper in Brazil, Folha Des Paulo (São Paulo), and a post-doctorate fellow in the film department at the University of São Paulo. Y
Guatemala
Luis Abril ’10 in the orchestra of Teatro Abril in Guatemala City, where he recently became Artistic Director. Elaine Wackerly ’03 with son August
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Around the World Lost Alumni We’ve lost touch with the alumni listed below. If you know how to reach them, please pass on their contact information by emailing ysd. alumni@yale.edu.
1950s Fred E. Harmon ’50 Jose A. Gonzalez-Gonzalez ’50 Leonard Heideman ’50 John B. Roberts ’50 George Blake ’50 Martha A. Posey ’50 Rune Bernhard Stylander ’50 Alvin J. Keller ’50 Perry L. Jubelirer ’50 Arthur Sharr ’50 William L. Myers ’50 Edward John DeRoo ’50 Gerald B. Ewing ’50 Demarest L. Polacheck ’50 Hastell F. Hollis ’50 C. Lindsay Workman, Jr. ’50 Anibal Otero ’51 G. Philippe De Rosier ’51 Gertrude K. Poland ’51 Lila F. Kahn ’51 Richard C. Hudson ’51 George L. Palmer ’51 Lawrence S. Klein ’51 W. Francis Gallagher ’51 Lo Hardin, Jr. ’51 Thomas N. Hill, Jr. ’51 Frank T. Pacelli ’51 William Allyn ’51 William D. Schaefer ’51 Felicity R. Snelgar ’51 William Alexander Guthrie ’52 Raul Reyes ’52 James Xanthos ’52 Irvine John Stirton ’52 Dr. Donald L. Gunn ’52 Robert M. Treser ’52 C.K.N.C. Fusselle ’52 James A. Maxwell, Jr. ’52 James E. Asp ’52 Andrew B. Jones ’52 Frederic Handschy ’52 Patricia C. Wright ’52 Edya S. Arzt ’52 Donal S. Wilson ’52 Robert M. Treser ’52 Elizabeth L. Palmer ’52 Clyde W. Rainwater ’53 Donal Harding Chill ’53
Maurice Vaneau ’53 Polly F. Clark ’53 Robert E. Henney ’53 Jerome E. Borgos ’53 Cornelius G. Dutcher ’53 Joyce Talal ’53 Mary Ivonne Axelson ’53 Preben J. Thomsen ’54 June P. Farrand ’54 H. Wynne Pearce, Jr. ’54 Philip R. Wiseman ’54 Edward D. Kittredge ’54 William J. Hricz ’54 Leonore G. Senfield ’54 Joan R. Gordon ’54 Carol Holmes Slott ’54 David E. Lutyens ’54 Sue C. Smith ’54 Marie H. Russell ’54 Robert A. Morris ’54 Nilda Gonzalez-Monclova ’54 Paul Kirschner ’54 Christian P. Gruber ’54 Bertram Barer ’54 John J. Walsh, Sr. ’54 Donald K. Wallen ’55 Edwin A. Phelps ’55 Herma S. Shore ’55 Rafael Cruz Emeric ’55 Joseph Carner ’55 Valgene L. Massey ’55 Timothy O’Brien ’55 Elizabeth M. White ’55 Cherie Neale ’55 Sara L. Stadelman ’55 Lloyd M. Reckord ’55 Leon L. Munier, Jr. ’55 Edward E. H. Devany ’55 Saul Edward Rosing ’55 Richard C. Riggan ’55 Jack Ayers ’56 Ruth F. Kline ’56 Robert W. Mohr ’56 Alice K. Rabinowitz ’56 Jean Joseph Evers ’56 Harold D. Wallace ’56 William W. Wente ’56 William Francis ’56 Alvaro Ortiz Zarate ’56 David P. Conroy ’56 Alan J. Distler ’57 Herbert L. Haft ’57 Robert T. Harper ’57 J. Hans Pedersen ’57 Joan E. Pryor ’57 Ellen Terry ’57 Eugenio Guzman ’57 Keith R. Cuerden ’57 Thomas Victor ’57
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James Leo Herlihy ’57 Diana Morgan ’57 Robert M. Cothran, Jr. ’57 Jonathan Frid ’57 Jack H. Schwanke ’57 Suzi Ann Baker ’57 Wallace S. Moore ’57 Barbara C. Page ’57 Ruth B. Schafranek ’57 H. Theodore Werner ’57 Louise H. Greenberg ’57 Grant H. Bishop ’58 Vida R. Vliet ’58 Rodolfo Jose Basalo ’58 Hector Alejandro Mendoza ’58 Richard B. Valentine ’58 Joseph A. Hardy ’58 Doris Lee Allen ’58 Jay H. Smith, 2d ’58 Joseph R. Purdom ’58 Robert Whitaker ’58 Edwin D. Chadick ’58 Alice S. Murray ’58 Sergio P. Vodanovic ’58 David L. Spence ’58 Evelyn Clinton ’58 Elida G. Foote ’58 Roxanne E. Almond ’58 Mary E. Padden ’58 Henry A. Zeiger ’58 Dan Blue ’59 Jack A. Hensley ’59 Edward Breen ’59 Stephen Miles Ross ’59 Mary-Ellen Anderson ’59 Charles Hampton, Jr. ’59 Leland Croghan ’59 William Harvey Keith ’59 Charles T. Ganzer ’59 Allen J. Shapiro ’59 Gaylord T. Meech ’59 John H. Peters ’59 Joseph W. Donohue, Jr. ’59
1960s Kathryn Ann Winther ’60 Fletcher B. Coleman II ’60 Patrick L. Farrelly ’60 Raymond Panighetti ’60 Thomas P. Cooke ’60 Elizabeth M. Bayhon ’60 Cynthia T. Lightner ’60 Carolyn Gaiser ’60 Louis Rivers ’60 Morgan A. Barber, Jr. ’60 M. Frederick Edell ’60 Rudolf T. Beyer ’60 Edward M. Keating ’60 Michael A. Abel ’60
Joanna Russ ’60 Linneu Moreira Dias ’61 George W. Thorn ’61 Lynette F. Willson ’61 Egon Grobler Wolff ’61 Francis Rizzo ’61 Richard T. Wilkinson ’61 J. Alfred Euringer ’61 Nancy Cardenas ’61 Marvin D. Hall ’61 Angela Wood ’61 William Durkee ’61 Rafael P. Benavente ’61 Gordon N. Firth ’61 Joan Larkey ’61 Robert A. Margolis ’61 Joseph B. Coleman ’61 Harry Brauser ’61 Paul G. Sullivan ’61 Janet Walter ’61 Ester Wengrover Schwartz ’62 J. David Bray ’62 Robert A. McFarland ’62 Michael R. Welch ’62 Mary H. Finley ’62 Jung Whan Kim ’62 Susan D. Murray ’62 Laurence R. Lewis ’62 Stewart V. Moss ’62 Helen Q. Dupont ’62 Theodore E. Gilliam ’62 Cynthia G. Hitchens ’62 Sonia Anne Susskind ’62 Julia B. Foreman ’62 Era P. Lev ’62 Nola S. Harrison ’62 Harvey E. Firari ’62 Vassilis Vassilikos ’62 Mary F. Mason ’63 James P. Rose ’63 Carol M. Shapiro ’63 Margaret E. Kenline ’63 Lenny Meyer ’63 Stephen H. Rosenberg ’63 Ronald J. Sommer ’63 George R. Williams ’63 Patricia C. Trapp ’63 Magda M. Berg ’63 Wolfe B. Lowenthal ’63 Maxine N. Ellis ’63 Julie DeVecchio Baker ’63 Gungor Dilmen ’63 Jeanne Button Eaton ’63 Ana K. Leichtner ’63 John Mckay Ludwig ’63 John L. Wilson ’63 Michael Ackerman ’64 Henry R. Heinold ’64 Donald Winkler ’64
Thomas V. Calkins ’64 Jon M. Garness ’64 Marilyn K. McDonald ’64 Mary Elizabeth Goin ’64 Claire Johnson ’64 John S. Wolfson ’64 Joseph L. Shaver ’64 Barbara B. Read ’64 Walter G. Reed ’64 Harry Edward Passoth ’64 Linus J. Lynch ’64 Clelia P. Goodyear ’64 Peter R. Dee ’64 Norman Silverman ’64 Ibrahim I. Al-Khatib ’64 Peter Gessner ’64 Peter Lee McCandless ’64 Roy A. Sheppard ’64 Richard Castrodale ’64 Sonya L. Ryan ’64 Joseph F. Guadagni ’65 Robin V. Strasser ’65 Timo Tiusanen, Ph.D ’65 Louise S. Tompkins ’65 Todd V. Glen ’65 Ernesto Malbran ’65 Ralph W.P. Bates ’65 A. Norton Wettstein ’65 Pramod Kale ’65 Francis I. Hefferen ’65 Dean B. Taylor ’65 Claude I. McNeal ’65 F. Peyton Glass ’65 Margaretta H. Lundell ’65 Stephen A. Sbarge ’65 Aurton Claudio Heeman ’65 Barbara L. Boisvert ’65 Susan Bjurman ’65 Scott C. Elliott ’65 John Harrison Smith ’65 Leland S. Lowther ’65 Benjamin Z. Shecter ’65 Franz Bautz ’65 John M. Fink ’65 Franklyn J. Carr ’66 John F. Strickler III ’66 Gail M. St. Martin ’66 Peter Larsen ’66 Robert Pusilo ’66 Barry Berg ’66 Elsa R. Roussel ’66 Edward J. Kant ’66 Kimberly B. Cohen ’66 Takashi Kawawa ’66 Carlos E. Moura ’66 T. Scott Balderston ’66 John T. Calhoun ’66 Masayuki Sano ’66 James B. Newton, Jr. ’66
Alumni Notes
Lost Alumni Robert Anton ’66 James C. Rogers ’67 James E. Hashim ’67 Stephen C. Berns ’67 Leigh R. Jenkins ’67 Michael Koslow ’67 William Guild ’67 Thomas C. Rosica ’67 Lois D. Waldhorn ’67 Gary P. Waldhorn ’67 Edward A. Turpin ’67 David D. Barrette ’67 Gordon C. Stewart ’67 David A. Fradin ’67 Rachel M. France ’67 Katherine E. Kwesell ’67 W. Alan Kirk ’67 Judith Anne Wright ’67 Jenn M. Hamburg ’67 Joan B. Welles ’67 Richard F. Laurenzi ’67 Tom Grainger ’67 Bertel Torne ’67 Larry M. Sherman ’67 Thomas V. Figenshu ’67 Madge V. McKinley ’68 Wayne A. Lindberg ’68 Eugenia A. Macer ’68 Marlene B. Manifold ’68 Douglas Higgins ’68 Donald H. Sheffield, Jr. ’68 Kent E. Ledlow ’68 John R. Osborne ’68 Eleanor W. Toth ’68 Lawrence K. Madison ’68 Stephen Paul Pokart ’68 Barbara June Oka ’68 Jeffrey B. Milfred ’68 Leon E. Rottner ’68 Stephen H. Wangh ’68 Robert Allen Heaton ’68 Robert A. Nagle ’68 Robert E. Dyer, Jr. ’68 Michael Mathias ’68 Martin H. Kushner ’68 Richard C. Place II ’68 Adam Sage ’68 Pamela H. Rosetti ’68 Jed Schlosberg ’68 Thomas F. Rasmussen ’69 Peter John Cameron ’69 Jerome Anello ’69 Paul Cherry ’69 Joan S. Bayliss ’69 Stephen C. Jarrett ’69 Terry Jon McHose ’69 Donald K. Warfield ’69 Robert I. Binder ’69 Karen L. Flynn ’69
William S. Glikbarg ’69 Jean G. Levine ’69 Peter Fredric Steinberg ’69
1970s James W. Cady II ’70 Peter S. Jordan ’70 Jon Hoffman ’70 Robert S. Mandel ’70 Richard G. Kinscherf III ’70 Noel T. Coughlin ’70 Erwin M. Feher ’70 Kenneth S. Emmanule ’70 J. Lane Halteman ’70 Austin M. Gray ’70 Jack W. Messinger ’70 Marilyn S. Carter ’70 Peter E. Winter ’70 Christopher R. Brookes ’70 Burl W. Hash ’70 James E. Brick ’71 Gordon N. Swift ’71 Amelia W. Emory ’71 Theodore Ravinett ’71 Emmanuel A. Yirenchi ’71 Vincent John De Marco ’71 Koula Antoniadou ’71 Peter Lackner ’71 Christine Brachet ’71 Lesley J. Roberts ’71 Frank Speiser ’71 Paul S. Zalon ’71 Carroll C. Dawes ’71 Susan H. Chase ’72 Herbert A. Downer ’72 Peter Andrews ’72 Rosemary Stewart ’72 Michael J. Shane ’72 Andrew Johnson, Jr. ’72 Thomas J. Monta ’72 Darcy S. Casteleiro ’72 Stephen Keitz ’72 John Michael Van Dyke ’72 Delbert K. Thompson ’72 Douglas Brenner ’72 Esteba Vega ’72 Susan Pinsker ’72 Christopher Ostergren ’72 Helen Marie Jones ’72 Dean L. Radcliffe ’72 Ralph G. Dennis ’72 Jeanne Nolan ’72 Mark D. Handley ’72 Danny H. Smith ’73 Laurel Winkler Sibley ’73 Hannibal L. Penney, Jr. ’73 Richard G. Ploetz ’73 Dan W. Darling ’73 Darryl S. Hill ’74
John J. Brown ’74 Edgar White ’74 Stephen Shapiro ’74 Mary Kathleen Foley ’74 Susan L. Nanus ’74 Adriana L. Lawrence ’74 Colette Hill ’74 Leonard A. Auclair ’74 Thomas L. Bynum ’74 Allan K. Migicovsky ’74 Antonio E. Negron ’74 Lewis Roberts ’74 Laurel Nadel ’74 Ruth J. Wilson ’75 Wynston A. Jones ’75 Michael Kupferschmid ’75 Valerie J. Neale ’76 F. Ward Carlisle ’76 Petr Micka ’76 Alma E. Cuervo ’76 Thomas J. Kupp ’76 Steven D. Nowicki ’76 Terrence W. Chandler ’76 Phillip B. Blumberg ’76 Christopher P. Clarens ’77 Benjamin Halley, Jr. ’77 Dawn Latham ’78 Brian H. Martin ’78 Laurie Crews ’78 Nancy Mayans ’79 Evan McHale ’79 Drew Herbert Field ’79 Steven R. Pasternack ’79 Eugene A. Ward ’79 Suzanne Palmer ’79 Perry Wayne Caudill ’79
1980s Mark E. Stradinger ’80 Philip A. O’Donnell ’80 David E. Wiles ’93 Philomena Muinzer ’80 Jan Matlis ’80 Raymond Kluga ’81 Daniel M. Cork ’81 Louis Lappin ’81 Patricia Benoit ’81 Howard L. O’Brien ’82 Judith Lewis ’82 Keith H. Grant ’82 Gene K. Lakin ’82 Jane L. Clark ’82 D. Stuart Browne ’82 Lynn M. Siefert ’83 Amy E. Hurlow ’83 Tama Janowitz ’83 Philippa J. Keil ’83 Gordon L. Gray ’83 Laurence Schwartz ’84
Seth A. Jacobs ’84 Peter Bartholomew ’84 Bruce M. Hurlbut ’84 Ann W. Justin ’84 Danna Doyle ’85 Barbara Jean Carroll ’85 Sharon M. Helsel ’85 Susan C. Wigger ’85 Thomas P. Costello ’85 A. Ivan Polley ’86 Jeffrey B. Tagher ’86 Mark P. Simon ’86 David Cunningham ’86 David W. Nelson ’86 Elizabeth Ellen Adams ’86 Theresa E. McElwee ’86 Sue Nilsson ’86 William H. Lang ’86 Rose Winters ’86 Craig Wolfe ’87 Michael Angel Johnson ’87 John Durst ’87 Won Keun Park ’87 Patrick McIntyre ’87 Melvern C. McKenzie ’87 Wendy Ayers ’87 Michael Michalski ’88 Carolyn Davis Talarr ’88 Mary Constance Ball ’98 Tamara Lanae Revels ’88 Tamara Lois Turchetta ’88 Linda M. Funsten ’88 Julie Anne Moore ’89 George Sharp ’89 Cameron Miller Smith ’89 Elizabeth Geertruida ’89 Joshua Kovar ’89 Keh-Hua Lin ’89 Gail S. Shapiro ’89
1990s Leigh A. Mundy ’90 Christine Benton ’91 Jean Z. Zimmerman ’91 B. Christine McDowell ’98 Eloise Albrecht ’91 C. Morrison-Neuhauser ’91 Caryn Corrinne Neman ’92 Susan Branch ’92 Stephanie Towner ’92 Gillian H. Mahoney ’93 Melody Juatain Garrett ’93 Juliana Mi-Ling Mui ’93 Gregory W. McClure ’93 Johnna M. Golden ’93 Gloria O’Connell ’94 Milos V. Mladenovic ’94 Katherine Snider ’94 Andria L. Fiegel Wolfe ’94
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Hyun-Joo Kim ’95 Kevin S. Wood ’96 Sharon Challenger ’96 James Patrick Byrd ’97 Wen-shiu Winsue Leu ’97 Johnny L. Sparks ’98
2000s Ellen Pierce ’01 Elizabeth Alice Mills ’01 Andrew A. Ramcharan ’02 Leslie M. Elliard ’02 Blythe Harriet Pittman ’05
Contributors Contributors to Yale School of Drama Annual Fund 2009/10 Class Agents highlighted in bold
1940s Lawrence D. Amick ’49 Virginia W. Bowie ’47 Edith Dallas Ernst ’48 Sarah C. Ferry ’41 Patricia F. Gilchrist ’44 Alfred S. Golding ’49 Albert Hurwitz ’49 Joan Kron ’48 Mildred C. Kuner ’47 Emma Lou K. Nielson ’43 G. C. Niemeyer * ’42 Pamela Stiles Roberts ’46 Julia Meade Rudd ’47 Eugene F. Shewmaker ’49 Yun C. Wu ’49
1950s Robert A. Baldwin ’55 Cornelia H. Barr ’58 Robert M. Barr ’52 Jack W. Belt ’53 Ezekial H. Berlin ’53 Richard E. Bianchi ’57 Robert Brustein ’51, mah ’66 Rene Buch ’52 Ian W. Cadenhead ’58 Sami Joan Casler ’59 Cosmo A. Catalano, Sr. ’53 Joseph Chomyn ’53 Patricia J. Collins ’58 George Corrin, Jr. ’51 John W. Cunningham ’59 Jose A. Diaz ’52 John J. Dolan ’55 William F. Dowling ’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 David Zelag Goodman ’58 James W. Gousseff ’56 Bigelow R. Green ’59 Eugene Gurlitz ’57 Albert R. Gurney ’58 Phyllis O. Hammel ’52
Marian E. Hampton ’59 Russell T. Hastings ’57 Carol Thompson Hemingway ’55 Hugh M. Hill* ’53 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 James D. Karr ’54 Jay B. Keene ’55 Arthur J. Kelley, Jr. ’53 Bernard Kukoff ’57 Joseph S. Kutrzeba ’56 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 Marvin M. March ’55 Richard G. Mason ’53 Beverly W. May ’50 David Ross McNutt ’59 Ellen L. Moore ’52 George Morfogen ’57 Tad Mosel* ’50 Marion V. Myrick ’54
Franklin M. Nash ’59 Michael A. Onofrio, Jr. ’53, yc ’50 Kendric T. Packer ’52 Eilene C. Pierson ’50 Virginia F. Pils ’52 David Rayfiel ’50 Mary Reynolds ’55 Harry M. Ritchie ’55, dfa ’60 David A. Rosenberg ’54 Philip Rosenberg ’59 A. Raymond Rutan, 4th ’54 Raymond H. Sader ’58 Stephen O. Saxe ’54 Alvin Schechter ’59 Forrest E. Sears ’58 James A. Smith ’59 Kenneth J. Stein ’59 Pamela D. Strayer ’52 Jack Sydow* ’50 Robert S. Telford ’55 Edward Trach ’58 Shirin Devrim Trainer ’50 Fred Voelpel ’53 Phyllis C. Warfel ’55 William B. Warfel ’57, yc ’55 Betsy B. Watson ’53 Zelma H. Weisfeld ’56 Marjorie M. Williams ’55 Barbara M. Young ’53 Joseph W. Young ’52
Ever wonder how to turn one dollar into two?
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1960s David E. Ackroyd ’68 Lois D. Aden ’60 Richard Ambacher ’65 dfa Leif E. Ancker ’62 Barbara B. Anderson ’60 Rita Aron ’69 Mary Ellen O’Brien Atkins ’65 Thomas R. Atkins ’64 Robert A. Auletta ’69 John M. Badham ’63, yc ’61 James Robert Bakkom ’64 Philip J. Barrons ’65 John Beck ’63 Edward Bierhaus, Jr. ’69 dfa Roderick L. Bladel ’61 Jeffrey A. Bleckner ’68 Carol Bretz Murray-Negron ’64 Arvin B. Brown ’67 James Burrows ’65 Dennis Carnine ’65 Dr. Raymond E. Carver ’61 Suellen G. Childs ’69 King-Fai Chung ’62 Patricia S. Cochrane ’62 Robert S. Cohen ’64 dfa John M. Conklin ’66, yc ’59 Kenneth T. Costigan ’60 Stephen C. Coy ’63, dfa ’69 Laila S. Dahl ’65 Michael S. David ’68 Dr. Ramon L. Delgado ’67
Charles Dillingham III ’69, yc ’65 Rev. Robert J. Donnelly ’64 John A. Duran ’74 Robert H. Einenkel ’69 David H. Epstein ’68 Leslie D. Epstein ’67, yc ’60 Jerry N. Evans ’62 John D. Ezell ’60 Ann Farris ’63 Richard A. Feleppa ’60 William H. Firestone ’69 James W. Flannery ’61 Hugh Fortmiller ’61 Keith F. Fowler ’69 F. Kenneth Freedman* ’67 David Freeman ’68 Richard D. Fuhrman ’64 Bernard L. Galm ’63 Anne K. Gregerson ’65 Ann T. Hanley ’61 Jerome R. Hanley ’60 Richard A. Harrison ’66 Patricia Helwick ’65 Stephen J. Hendrickson ’67 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 Cynthia Lee Jenner ’64
Or twenty-five dollars into fifty? Or one hundred dollars into twohundred? We’ve got the answer! (Hint: It’s not alchemy and it’s legal.) Give up? It’s Yale School of Drama’s Million Dollar Matching Challenge! This year an anonymous donor has offered to match… dollar for dollar…up to $1 million...all new and increased gifts made by June 30, 2011, to the School’s Annual Fund. If you’ve thought about increasing your gift… if you didn’t make a gift last year…if you’ve never made a gift to the School…now is the time to do it! The School has the opportunity to double the impact of the generosity of its alumni. If you are interested in participating in the Matching Challenge by making a new or increased gift to the School, please go to www.yale.edu/givedrama, call Sue Clark at (203) 432-1559, or email the Development and Alumni Affairs office at ysd.alumni@ yale.edu.
Contributors Lee H. Kalcheim ’63 Asaad N. Kelada ’64 Abby B. Kenigsberg ’63 Carol Soucek King ’66 Marna J. King ’64 Raymond Klausen ’67 Richard H. Klein ’67 Harriet W. Koch ’62 Peter J. Leach ’61 Gerard J. Leahy ’67 Stephen R. Leventhal ’69 Irene Lewis ’66 Fredric A. Lindauer ’66 Janell M. MacArthur ’61 Cynthia J. Maguire ’66 Richard E. Maltby, Jr. ’62, yc ’59 Thomas O. Martin ’68 Patricia D. McAdams ’61 B. Robert McCaw ’66 Margaret T. McCaw ’66 Robert A. McDonald, Jr. ’68 Bruce W. McMullan ’61 Banylou Mearin ’62 Donald Michaelis ’69 Ronald A. Mielech ’60 H. Thomas Moore ’68 Donald W. Moreland ’60 Robert B. Murray ’61 Gayther L. Myers, Jr. ’65 David A. Nancarrow ’63 S. Joseph Nassif ’63 Ruth Hunt Newman ’62 Dwight R. Odle ’66 Richard A. Olson ’69 Sara Ormond ’66 Joan D. Pape ’68 Howard Pflanzer ’68 Louis R. Plante ’69 Michael B. Posnick ’69 Barbara Reid ’62 H. Lisa Steele Roach ’65 Mary Dupuy Roane ’61 Lucy G. Rosenthal ’61 Carolyn L. Ross ’67 Janet G. Ruppert ’63 Clarence Salzer, Jr. ’60, yc ’55 Isaac H. Schambelan ’67 dfa Georg Schreiber ’64 Talia Shire Schwartzman ’69 Winifred J. Sensiba ’63 Suzanne Sessions ’66 Paul R. Shortt ’68 E. Gray Smith, Jr. ’65 Helena L. Sokoloff ’60 Mary C. Stark ’61
News from the Yale School of Drama
James Beach Steerman ’62, dfa ’69 Louise Stein ’66 John Wright Stevens ’66 John Henry Thomas, 3d ’62 David F. Toser ’64 Russell L. Treyz ’65 Richard B. Trousdell ’67, dfa ’74 Thomas S. Turgeon ’68 dfa Joan Van Ark ’64 Charles H. Vicinus ’65 Ruth L. Wallman ’68 Steven I. Waxler ’68 Gil Wechsler ’67 Charles R. Werner, Jr. ’67 Peter White ’62 Richard Kent Wilcox ’61 Porter Stevens Woods dfa ’65 Albert J. Zuckerman ’61, dfa ’62
1970s Sarah Jean Albertson ’71 John L. Beatty ’73 Mark R. Boyer ’77 Martin E. Caan ’72 Michael William Cadden ’76, dfa ’79, yc ’71 Ian Calderon ’73 Victor P. Capecce ’75 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 Marycharlotte C. Cummings ’73 Julia L. Devlin ’74 Dennis L. Dorn ’72 Nancy Reeder El Bouhali ’70 Peter Entin ’71 Dirk Epperson ’74 Heidi P. Ettinger ’76 Femi Euba ’73 Douglass M. Everhart ’70 Marc F. Flanagan ’70 Lewis A. Folden ’77 Robert Gainer ’73 Paul Gallo ’77 Marian A. Godfrey ’75 Suzanne L. Gooch ’77 , mba ’79 Joseph G. Grifasi ’75 William B. Halbert ’70 Charlene Harrington ’74
Barbara B. Hauptman ’73 William T. Hauptman ’73 Jane C. Head ’79 Carol Schlanger Helvey ’70 Jennifer Hershey-Benen ’77 Nicholas A. Hormann ’73 Cynthia P. Kaback ’70 Barnet K. Kellman ’72 Alan L. Kibbe ’73 Dragan M. Klaic ’76, dfa ’77 Walter R. Klappert ’79 Fredrica A. Klemm ’76 Frances E. Kumin ’77 Mitchell L. Kurtz ’75 Thomas E. Lanter ’75 Michael John Lassell ’76 Stephen R. Lawson ’76 Charles E. Letts III ’76 George N. Lindsay, Jr. ’74 Jennifer K. Lindstrom ’72 Robert Hamilton Long II ’76 Donald B. Lowy ’76 William Ludel ’73 Elizabeth M. MacKay ’78 Lizbeth P. Mackay ’75 Brian R. Mann ’79 Jonathan E. Marks ’72, dfa ’84, yc ’68 Craig T. Martin ’71 Neil A. Mazzella ’78 John A. McAndrew ’72 Caroline A. McGee ’78 Kate McGregor-Stewart ’74 Lynne Meadow ’71 Stephen W. Mendillo ’71 Jonathan Seth Miller ’75 Lawrence S. Mirkin ’72, yc ’69 George Moredock III ’70 Elizabeth L. Norment ’79 Richard Ostreicher ’79 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 cdr Raymond C. Recht ’72 William J. Reynolds ’77 Peter S. Roberts ’75 Steven I. Robman ’73 Howard J. Rogut ’71 Alan D. Rosenberg ’74 John M. Rothman ’75 Robert Sandberg ’77 Suzanne M. Sato ’79
Give to the Annual Fund! What does your Annual Fund gift support? Annual gifts to the School of Drama Alumni Fund are directed to the School’s most valuable asset—the students. Your gift helps to increase financial aid, offsetting the cost of professional study at Yale. Why participate in annual giving to the Alumni Fund? Year after year, consistent support from alumni has helped the School of Drama maintain its high standards and continue to bring together the most talented students, regardless of their financial needs. Just as alumni gifts once helped fund your time at Yale, you can now take pride in knowing your generosity is helping those who are here now. Please consider making a gift to the Annual Fund today. If you have questions about the Annual Fund, or other ways you can support YSD, please contact Debbie Ellinghaus, Senior Associate Director of Development and Alumni Affairs, at debbie.ellinghaus@yale.edu or (203) 432-4133.
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Contributors Joel R. Schechter ’72, dfa ’73 Michael D. Sheehan ’76 Richard R. Silvestro ’76 Benjamin Slotznick ’73, yc ’70 Jeremy T. Smith ’76 Maura Beth Smolover ’76 Marshall S. Spiller ’71 Roy Bennett Steinberg ’78 Jaroslaw Strzemien ’75 Edith R. Tarbescu ’76 Russell Vandenbroucke ’77, dfa ’78 Eva M. Vizy ’72 Carol M. Waaser ’70 David J. Ward ’75 Eugene D. Warner ’71 Lynda Lee Welch ’72 Carolyn Seely Wiener ’72 Stephen R. Woody ’76 R. Scott Yuille, Jr. ’77
1980s Kimberleigh Aarn ’86 Michael G. Albano ’82 Amy L. Aquino ’86 Clayton Mayo Austin ’86 Dylan Baker ’85 Robert James Barnett ’89 Christopher H. Barreca ’83 Robert P. Barron ’83 Spencer P. Beglarian ’86 James B. Bender ’85 Todd William Berling ’89 William J. Beer Bletzinger ’83 Anders P. Bolang ’87 Katherine R. Borowitz ’81, yc ’76 Claudia M. Brown ’85 William J. Buck ’84 Richard W. Butler ’88 Jon E. Carlson ’88 Anna T. Cascio ’83 Lawrence Casey ’80 Joan Channick ’89 Patricia D. Clarkson ’85 Christian D. Clemenson ’84 Dana S. Croll ’87 Jane Ann Crum ’85 Donato Joseph D’Albis ’88 Richard Sutton Davis ’83, dfa ’03 Timothy DeFiebre ’83 Kathleen K. Dimmick ’85 Merle Gordon Dowling ’81 Charles S. Dutton ’83 Michael D. Fain ’82 Terry Kevin Fitzpatrick ’83
Joel C. Fontaine ’83 Anthony M. Forman ’83 Raymond P. Forton ’85 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. Grammer ’86 Rob Greenberg ’89 Anne R. Hamburger ’86 John E. Harnagel ’83 Allan Havis ’80 James W. Hazen ’83 Heather A. Henderson ’87, dfa ’88 Roderick Lyons Hickey, III ’89 Susan Hilferty ’80 Donald S. Holder ’86 Catherine MacNeil Hollinger ’86 Charles R. Hughes ’83 Thomas K. Isbell ’84 Kirk Roberts Jackson ’88 Chris P. Jaehnig ’85 Jane Kaczmarek ’82 Jonathan F. Kalb ’85, dfa ’87 Carol M. Kaplan ’89 Bruce Abram Katzman ’88 Edward A. Kaye ’86 Richard Kaye ’80 Patrick Kerr ’87 David K. Kriebs ’82 Jonathan M. Krupp ’82, yc ’79 Edward H. Lapine ’83 Wing Lee ’83 Sasha Emerson Levin ’84 Kenneth J. Lewis ’86 Jerry J. Limoncelli, Jr. ’84 Gail A. London ’87 Mark D. London ’89 Quincy Long ’86 Mark E. Lord ’87 Andi Lyons ’80 Wendy MacLeod ’87 Peter Andrew Marshall ’89, yc ’83 Gayle E. Maurin ’85 Johanna D. McAuliffe ’80 Charles H. McClennahan ’84 Isabell M. Monk O’Connor ’81 Grafton V. Mouen ’82, yc ’75 Stephanie Bridgman Nash ’88 Tina C. Navarro ’86 Regina L. Neville ’88 Thomas J. Neville ’86
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Christopher D. Noth ’85 Carol E. Ochs ’84 Arthur E. Oliner ’86 Carol Susan Ostrow ’80 Pamela Marie Peterson ’86 Robert J. Provenza ’86 Carol Anne Prugh ’89 Michael D. Quinn ’84 Joan E. Robbins ’86, dfa ’91 Lori Robishaw ’88 Constance Elisabeth Romero ’88 Cecilia M. Rubino ’82 Steven A. Saklad ’81 James D. Sandefur ’85 Kenneth Schlesinger ’84 Kimberly A. Scott ’87 Alexander Scribner ’80 Anthony M. Shalhoub ’80 William P. Skipper ’83 Neal Ann Stephens ’80 Mark L. Sullivan ’83 Thomas Phillip Sullivan ’88 Bernard J. Sundstedt ’81 John M. Turturro ’83 Rosa Vega Weissman ’80 Jaylene Graham Wallace ’86 Darryl S. Waskow ’86 Geoffrey J. Webb ’88 Susan West ’87 Dana B. Westberg ’81 Matthew Marc Wiener ’88 Robert M. Wildman ’83 W. Courtenay Wilson ’85 Steven A. Wolff ’81 Evan D. Yionoulis ’85, yc ’82 David R. York ’80 Catherine J. Zuber ’84
1990s Bruce Altman ’90 Angelina Avallone ’94 Thomas M. Beckett ’91, yc ’85 Elizabeth Jeanne Bennett ’97 Martin A. Blanco ’91 Debra Booth ’91 John Cummings Boyd ’92 Tom Joseph Broecker ’92 Margaret Anne Brogan ’98 Shawn Hamilton Brown ’90 James Bundy ’95 Kathryn A. Calnan ’99 Meiling Cheng ’90, dfa ’93 Myung Hee Arlene Cho ’95 Darren C. Clark ’92 Marjorie Goodsell Clark ’91
Enrico L. Colantoni ’93 Aaron M. Copp ’98 Susan Mary Cremin ’95 Sean James Cullen ’90 Sean P. Cullen ’94 Scott T. Cummings ’85, dfa ’94 Sheldon Deckelbaum ’92 Michael Lloyd Diamond ’90 Leslie Shaw Dickert III ’97 Alexander Timothy Dodge ’99 Frances Louise Egler ’95 Tiffany Anne Ellis ’96 Cornelia Anne Evans ’93 Matthew A. Everett ’91 Glen Richard Fasman ’92 Rodrick D. Fox ’99 Donald Stephan Fried ’95 David William Gainey ’93 Douglas Stuart Gary ’92 Elizabeth Giamatti ’95 Paul Edward Giamatti ’94, yc ’89 Neil F. Gluckman ’92 Stephen L. Godchaux ’93 Stephan Golux ’97 Naomi S. Grabel ’91 Constance Marie Grappo ’95 Elisa R. Griego ’98 Regina Selma Guggenheim ’93 Alexander Taverner Hammond ’96 Scott Christopher Hansen ’04 Douglas Rodgers Harvey ’95 Samantha R. Healy ’97 Christopher B. Higgins ’90 Clark Jackson Jr. ’97 Kristin Johnsen-Neshati ’92, dfa ’02 Elizabeth A. Kaiden ’96 Samuel L. Kelley ’90 Daphne Camerer Klein ’95 L. Azan Kung ’91 Sarah L. Lambert ’90 James William Larkin ’96 Suttirat Anne Larlarb ’97 Julie F. Lawrence-Edsell ’93 Malia Rachel Lewis ’97 Chih-Lung Liu ’94 Sarah Long ’92, yc ’85 Suzanne R. Cryer Luke ’95, yc ’88 Elizabeth S. Margid ’91, yc ’82 Maria E. Matasar-Padilla ’99, dfa ’05 Craig P. Mathers ’93
Mark L. McCullough ’91 Paul S. McKinley ’96 Bruce Windsor Miller ’99 Richard R. Mone ’91 Daniel Evan Mufson ’95, dfa ’99 Lori Ott ’92 Jane E. Padelford ’99 Dw Phineas Perkins ’90 James W. Quinn ’94 Sarah Gray Rafferty ’96 Lance S. Reddick ’94 Shannon L. Rhodes ’94 Douglas Ray Rogers ’96 Reginald Hunt Rogers ’93 Melina W. Root ’90, yc ’83 Mary Margaret Sasso ’99 Jennifer C. Schwartz ’97 Paul Francis Selfa ’92 Thomas W. Sellar ’97, dfa ’03 Jeremy M. Shapira ’97 Jane M. Shaw ’98 Graham A.W. Shiels ’99 Paul Spadone III ’99, yc ’93 Kris E. Stone ’98 David Loy Sword ’90 Patti W. Thorp ’91 Paul Charles Tigue III ’99 Deborah L. Trout ’94 Erik William Walstad ’95 Richard G. Whittington ’98 Lisa A. Wilde ’91, dfa ’95 Marshall Butler Williams ’95 Liza Barbara Zenni ’90
2000s Brian Wayne Robinson ’00 Jocelyn May Adrales ’06 Liz Susana Alsina ’06 Alexander G. Bagnall ’00 Sarah Elaine Bierenbaum ’05, yc ’99 Frances Anne. Black ’09 Amy Michelle Boratko ’06 Joshua Ray Borenstein ’02 Cynthia T. Brizzell-Bates ’00, dfa ’07 David Bryant Byrd ’06 Joseph P. Cermatori ’08 James Q. Chen ’08 Wilson W. Chin ’03 Kristen Nora Connolly ’07 Gregory W. Copeland ’04 Edgar M. Cullman III ’02, yc ’97 Derek Michael DiGregorio ’07 Michael M. Donahue ’08
Yale School of Drama Alumni Fund
Emily Ryan Dorsch ’07 Janann B. Eldredge ’06 Jenifer E. Endicott ’00 Miriam Rose Epstein ’02 Dustin Owen Eshenroder ’07 Kristan Falkowski Wells ’05 Michael Kenneth Field ’02 Alexandra Jane Fischer ’00 Aurelia K. Fisher ’09 Sarah McColl Fornia ’04 Stephen Ernest Fried ’05 Marion R. Friedman ’05 Marcus Dean Fuller ’04 Alan Anthony Grudzinski ’04 John J. Hanlon ’04 Brian Hastert ’09 Caitlin Marie Hevner ’07 Amy S. Holzapfel ’01, dfa ’06 David Carr Howson ’04 Melissa Huber ’01 Brendan Patrick Hughes ’04 Rumiko Ishii ’07 Peter Young Hoon Kim ’04 Fred Thomas Kinney ’02 Jacob H. Knoll ’05 Nico M. Lang ’05 Emily W. Leue ’03 Jennifer Chen Hua Lim ’04 Derek Francis Lucci ’03 Timothy Richard Mackabee ’09 Elena Moreno Maltese ’03 John J. McCullough ’09 Jennifer Yejin Moeller ’06 Lorraine M. Monnier ’01 Elizabeth Deanne Morrison ’05 Rachel Sara Myers ’07 Arthur F. Nacht ’06 Adam N. O’Byrne ’04, yc ’01 Phillip Dawson Owen ’09 Maulik Pancholy ’03 Zane Rich Pihlstrom ’06 Andrew Charles Plumer ’02 Glynis Ann Louise Rigsby ’01 David Jordan Roberts ’08 Joanna Sara Romberg ’07 Sallie Dorsett Sanders ’02 Kathleen McElfresh Scott ’06 Shawn B. Senavinin ’06 Erica Renee Sullivan ’09 V. Jane Suttell ’03 Mikiko Suzuki ’02 Carrie E. Van Hallgren ’06 Elliot Carmelo Villar ’07 Arthur T. Vitello ’05 Elaine M. Wackerly ’03
Yale School of Drama Legacy Partners
We invite you to join fellow alumni and friends who have included YSD in their estate plans or made other planned gifts to the School. Through Yale School of Drama Legacy Partners you can directly influence the future of Yale. You are eligible for membership in Yale School of Drama Legacy Partners if you have named the School as a beneficiary of your will or trust, life income gift, IRA or other retirement plan, life insurance policy, or other planned gift. To learn more about making a planned gift to Yale School of Drama, please contact Deborah S. Berman, Director of Development and Alumni Affairs at (203) 432-2890 or deborah.berman@yale.edu.
2009–2010 YSD Legacy Partners Cynthia Kellogg Barrington* Donald I. Cairns ’63 Raymond Carver ’61 Eizabeth S. Clark ’41 * David M. Conte ’72 Tony Converse YC ’57 Sue Ann Converse ’55 Eldon J. Elder ’58 * Peter Entin ’71 Albert Gurney ’58 Robert L. Hurtgen Dawn and Jim Miller Thomas H. Moore ’68 Tad Mosel ’50 * George E. Nichols III ’38 * G. C. Niemeyer ’42 * Mark Richards ’57 * Barbara Richter ’60 * William Rothwell, Jr. ’53 * Forrest E. Sears ’58
Class Agents highlighted in bold. *deceased YSD 2010–11
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Eugene Shewmaker ’49 Kenneth J. Stein ’59 Erwin G. Steward ’60 Edward Trach ’58 Phyllis C. Warfel ’55 William B. Warfel ’57 YC ’55 Wendy Wasserstein ’76 * Zelma H. Weisfeld ’56 Edwin Wilson ’57 * deceased
Contributors Bradlee M. Ward ’05 Stephanie Andrea Ybarra ’08 Peter Andrew Malbuisson ’10 Michael Barker ’10, mba ’10
In-kind
Friends
Contributors to the Morris J. Kaplan Prize
Americana Arts Foundation Daniel L. Appelman John B. Beinecke yc ’69 Deborah and Bruce Berman law ’79 Clare and Sterling Brinkley yc ’74 Joanne Caplan CEC ArtsLink Nicholas G. Ciriello yc ’59 Edgar M. Cullman, Jr. yc ’68 Bob and Priscilla Dannies mah ’90 Scott M. Delman yc ’82 Bruce W.J. Graham Donald P. Granger, Jr. yc ’85 Mrs. Don A. Haldane F. Lane Heard III, Esq. yc ’73, law ’78 Ruth and Stephen Hendel yc ’73 Suzannah Lee Holsenbeck yc ’05 Jane Marcher Foundation David Johnson yc ’78 Christopher A. Kule yc ’67 Lucy F. Lewis Lucille Lortel Foundation Deborah McGraw Charles E. McGregor yc ’66 Susan Medak Frances L. Miller Maureen and Paul Moses Edward and John Noble Foundation The Noel Coward Foundation Robina Foundation Linda Frank Rodman yc ’73, ma ’75 David Saltzman Sonja and Patrick Seaver yc ’72 Robbin A. Seipold Sandra Shaner The Shubert Foundation, Inc. Eve Spencer Stephen B. Timbers yc ’66 Jennifer Tipton Esme Usdan yc ’77 Charles and Patricia H. Walkup Mr. & Mrs. Bertrand Weisbart Reid White yc ’57 Alan R. Yuspeh yc ’71
Cornelia Anne Evans ’93 Mitchell Kurtz ’75 Sasha Emerson Levin ’84 Steve Zuckerman ’82 and Darlene Kaplan yc ’78
James Bundy ’95 Joan Channick ’89 Charles Dillingham ’69, yc ’65 Terrence W. Dwyer ’88 Patricia Egan Laura Freebairn-Smith mppm ’86 Naomi Grabel ’91 Andrew Hamingson Sara Hedgepath ’87 Jeffrey Herrmann ’99 Gregory Kandel Edward A. Martenson Susan Medak Bruce Miller ’99 Victoria Nolan Kristin Sosnowsky ’97 Anne Trites
Upcoming YSD/YRT Productions The Carlotta Festival of New Plays New works by graduating playwrights: Christina Anderson ’11 Dipika Guha ’11 Margaret Miroshnik ’11 May 6–15, 2011
Yale Repertory Theatre The Piano Lesson By August Wilson Directed by Liesl Tommy January 28–February 19, 2011 Romeo and Juliet By William Shakespeare Directed by Shana Cooper ’08 March 11–April 2, 2011 Autumn Sonata By Ingmar Bergman Directed by Robert Woodruff (Faculty) April 15–May 7, 2011
Contributions received from July 1, 2009 through June 30, 2010
Million Dollar Matching Challenge
As Yale’s capital campaign nears its conclusion, an anonymous donor has offered to match one-to-one, up to $1 million, all new and increased Annual Fund donations—as well as all new multi-year pledges—that are made before June 30, 2011.
If there was ever a time to give to the School it is now— your gift will go twice as far!
Class Agents highlighted in bold. *deceased
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YSD 2010–11
Fran Dorn ’75, Walton Jones ’75 and Alma Cuervo ’76 take us back to December 13, 1941 in 1940s Radio Hour at the Yale Cabaret.
Can you identify the actors in this photograph? (See answers below.)
From the YSD Scrapbook
Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage Paid New Haven, CT Permit No. 167
ANNUAL MAGAZINE Yale School of Drama P.O. Box 208244 New Haven, CT 06520-8244
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