~Yale Arts Library Blog~

The Reading’s the Thing: Do play readings still rule? At the O’Neill they do. July 10, 2008 Christopher Arnott New Haven Advocate

“Play readings, once an integral element of Connecticut’s reputation as a major regional developer of new plays, have come under fire in recent years. But the unadorned verbal exploration of a newly written play—presented before real audiences without the encumbrance of sets, props, costumes, special lighting or sound effects, or even, in most cases, profound physical movement from the actors—has many merits….

“….Mark Bly, who headed playwriting and dramaturgy programs for a decade at the Yale School of Drama, deeply believed in play readings, and culminated his classes with public readings of his students’ most promising work, performed by professional New York actors. Bly’s successor as the head of the playwriting program, the much-produced playwright Richard Nelson, turned that discipline on its head when he insisted that the best way to judge a new play was to produce it fully….”

Posted by: Tanya

Some Drama, Some Comedy, Some Of It Unintentional: A Wrapup Of The Connecticut Theater Season
FRANK RIZZO | Hartford Courant June 29, 2008

The best, the worst, and the most intriguing

Posted by: Tanya

Classic Works and Premieres will Highlight 2008-2009 Season at the Yale Rep
Yale Bulletin June 13, 2008

“The world premiere of a play based on Dostoevsky’s revolutionary novel ‘Notes from Underground’ and a re-staging of Arthur Miller’s classic drama ‘Death of a Salesman’ will be among the featured works in the Yale Repertory Theatre’s 2008-2009 season.”

Posted by: Tanya

Gift of $2.85 Million to Fund Yale Center for New Theatre
Yale Bulletin June 13, 2008

“The Yale School of Drama and Yale Repertory Theatre have received a $2.85 million gift from the Robina Foundation to establish the Yale Center for New Theatre.”

Posted by: Tanya

“Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Edward Albee has selected Grenadine, by Neil Wechsler, as the recipient of the 2008 Yale Drama Series Award, jointly sponsored by Yale University Press and Yale Repertory Theatre.”

Albee Selects Wechsler’s Grenadine for Yale Drama Series Award Brian Scott Lipton · Jun 9, 2008 Theater Mania

Posted by: Tanya

Check out Tom MacMillan’s excellent blog covering art and music in New Haven, Signals and Noise.

He recently covered the Olive Tree Circus’ (seen above) fund raiser for their trip to Palestine. More on the circus here.

Posted by Chris

Yale Gets $2.85 Million for Play Development - By FRANK RIZZO Hartford Courant 5/15/08

“New play and musical development received a major boost Wednesday with a $2.85 million grant to the Yale School of Drama and Yale Repertory Theatre from the Minnesota-based Robina Foundation.

“The grant, which was announced Wednesday, will create the Yale Center for New Theater. The grant will substantially increase the annual commissions of new plays and musicals by the school’s affiliated professional theater — the Yale Repertory Theatre — and support the works through residencies, readings, workshops, and full productions.”

Posted by: Tanya

“In José Rivera’s new play, ‘Boleros for the Disenchanted,’ the dreams of lovers and emigrants commingle in the story of Flora and Eusebio. They meet in 1953 in Puerto Rico — ‘Isle of Enchantment,’ as the tourist literature would have it — and end up, after a lifetime of immigrant struggle on the mainland, in Alabama in the ’90s. Mr. Rivera’s chronicle is as bifurcated as their lives, with the first act a gently comic romance about how Flora finds a husband, the second a darker inquiry into the mysteries of married love. But the echoes of the sad love songs, or boleros, of Latin American pop music reverberate in both halves of the play.”

In a Fantasy Realm With Joys and Disappointments SYLVIANE GOLD 5/11/08 New York Times

Posted by: Tanya

Image: Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

Robert Rauschenberg, Titan of American Art, Is Dead at 82 Michael Kimmelman NYT 5/14/08

Carlotta Festival showcases work of graduating playwrights

“Female characters struggle against — or embrace — the family ties that bind them in the works featured in this year’s Carlotta Festival of New Plays, taking place May 9-18.”

Yale Bulletin May 2, 2008|Volume 36, Number 28

Purchase tickets at the Yale School of Drama web page

Posted by: Tanya

Too Much Drama? Piecing Together Undergraduate Theater Hilary Faxon Yale Daily News April 25, 2008

“The major division in Yale’s undergraduate theater community, [Bix] Bettwy says, lies between the Dramat [Yale Dramatic Association] and those who ‘disdain all the Dramat stands for.’

“Those are tough words, but the tension is more complex: The theater scene is made up not of two warring groups but of a multitude of small parties with different philosophies and personalities. Each of those groups must compete for scarce resources, both physical and human.”

Posted by: Tanya

Tryouts for the Rest of Your Life CECILIA CAPUZZI SIMON New York Times April 20, 2008

“In 1970, only a handful of acting programs existed, all in the Northeast, according to Dramatics magazine, which is published by the Educational Theater Association. Today, more than 100 colleges and universities across the country offer conservatory training or B.F.A.’s. Several hundred more offer Bachelor of Arts degrees with majors in theater or acting, and concentrations in related areas like stage management, directing or scenic design….

“Toni Dorfman, Yale’s director of undergraduate theater studies, complains that the ‘complete these programs and you’ll be a success in theater’ mentality ‘is a disservice’ to students. ‘There’s no way to ensure young people of work in theater, let alone success.’ Success, she adds, takes talent, luck and a bit of obsession: ‘You have to love it so much that you’re willing to put up with the disappointments.’”

Posted by: Tanya

“’Baby!’, directed by Hayley Ryan ’08, is the story of what happens when you can’t be sure of the love, the marriage or the baby carriage. Set at a nameless college, the plot follows three couples in their occasionally-intersecting struggles with pregnancy.”

Rock-a-bye ‘Baby!’ reaches for the treetops Ben Brody Yale Daily News April 11, 2008

Posted by: Tanya

Flower Lady, star of ‘Sidewalk’
Zeynep Pamuk Yale Daily News Friday, April 11, 2008

“The word ‘opera’ generally does not evoke images of homeless people, drug addiction, mental illness and the US health care system. And ‘opera singer’ usually does not refer to the Flower Lady at the corner of Elm and York.

“At the Yale Cabaret’s ‘Sidewalk Opera,’ directed by Patricia McGregor DRA ’09, opera is all about homelessness, and the characters are the homeless of New Haven. Conceived and composed by Jana Hoglund DRA ’08 in order to explore the disconnection between Yale and New Haven, the project took shape after hours of interviews with homeless people at St. Thomas More Chapel. Hoglund condensed the stories from the interviews into a libretto and then composed music to accompany the words.”

Also: Here’s an article on the New Haven Trading Cards (Annette the Flower Lady is on one of them) from The New Yorker, March 13, 2006: Locals by Ben McGrath

+ the trading card website
itself

Posted by: Tanya

“A Woman of No Importance has turned out to be the biggest box office hit of Yale Rep’s season so far. It has out-sold everything else — including Richard IIwith Jeffrey Carlson (directed by Evan Yionoulis), which was popular at the beginning of the season, and the world premiere of David Adjmi’s The Evildoers in February.

Wilde Again: Woman of No Importance Is a Yale Rep Hit By Kenneth Jones and Adam Hetrick 04 Apr 2008 Playbill

Posted by: Tanya