Eclipsed

Yale Repertory Theater

African drama ‘Eclipsed’ at Yale Rep: Mixing fact, fiction in African drama at Yale Rep
By Joe Meyers, Connecticut Post 10/29/2009

-Tanya

New Projection Major At Yale

Wendall K. Harrington Heads New Projection Major At Yale Oct 21, 2009 – Live Design – Ellen Lampert-Gréaux

Projection designer Wendall K. Harrington will head the new projection concentration within the design department at the Yale School of Drama, as announced by Ming Cho Lee and Stephen Strawbridge, co-chairs. The program begins in the fall of 2010, as one of the first graduate theatre training programs of its kind in the United States.

-Tanya

“Antibiosis” @ the Yale Cabaret

Paging Dr. Freud: ‘Antibiosis’ offers a new psychodrama
Donald Brown New Haven Advocate October 21, 2009
By Donald Brown

Shannon Sullivan’s Antibiosis, at the Yale Cabaret, is situational drama: Put three characters in a situation, and see what occurs. The play mixes time frames so we don’t get the story in a linear manner. It seems to come full-circle from the present to the present. In between are flashbacks, but not necessarily in the order of occurrence. There are also a number of soliloquies even harder to pin down in terms of “when.”

-Tanya

Pop! casting

Harrison to Star as Warhol in Yale Rep’s POP! Musical; Kreeger, Kritzer Also Cast Adam Hetrick Playbill 15 Oct 2009

-Tanya

Reviews of “The Master Builder”

A Man of Power and the Women Who Worship Him ANITA GATES New York Times September 25, 2009

Yale’s ‘Master Builder’ Energetic, Bleakly Witty SUSAN HOOD Hartford Courant September 26, 2009

Riz Blog Review: “The Master Builder” at Yale Rep Frank Rizzo 10/2/2009 Hartford Courant

Ibsen, In A Time Capsule Allan Appel | September 25, 2009 New Haven Independent

Actors ‘master’ a weak ‘builder’ Austin Bernhardt Yale Daily News September 25, 2009

‘Builder’ illustrates universal themes Zeynep Pamuk Yale Daily News September 22, 2009

In “The Master Builder” at Yale Rep, a creative genius faces competition from the young By Chesley Plemmons, News Times 10/02/2009

The Masturbator:Ibsen sensualized at the Yale Rep Christopher Arnott New Haven Advocate 9/30/2009

-Tanya

Hocus Pocus

Hocus Pocus: Yale Dramat and Yale Cabaret flirted with the edge of reality
Donald Brown, New Haven Advocate 10.14.2009

-Tanya

Gender bias in theater?

Princeton Numbers Cruncher Confirms Bias in Theater Philip Boroff – June 24, 2009 – Bloomberg.com

Sands sent scenes from four unpublished plays to artistic directors around the country, and asked them to rate the dramas on audience appeal, economic prospects and other qualities.

Each was written by an accomplished female playwright, including [Lynn] Nottage, who won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for Drama for “Ruined.” Sands assigned pen names to each play, equally divided between male and female pseudonyms.

Staff members from 82 theaters responded. The male artistic directors assigned nearly identical ratings regardless of the gender of the pen name….The female artistic directors and literary managers assigned “markedly lower ratings to a script” with a female pen name….

_____________________________
Are female artistic directors really holding back female playwrights? June 26, 2009 – Charles McNulty – Los Angeles Times

I don’t know any theater professional who believes it’s the prejudice of powerful women in institutional theaters that is holding women playwrights back. Suspicion of cattiness is always attention grabbing, but it’s a red herring that distracts us from an issue that may have more to do with a narrowness of sensibility (what constitutes a stage-worthy play) than the sex organs of the writer.

-Tanya

Sketches of 20th-century stagecraft

Where All the World’s an Atmospheric Stage KAREN ROSENBERG New York Times 7/5/2009

Donald Oenslager, the great American set designer and a professor at the Yale School of Drama, wrote that “a sketch for a scene is as short-lived as the life of the theater it supports.”

Mr. Oenslager, who died in 1975, was being a bit disingenuous, as he was a major collector of such sketches. In 1982 his widow gave some 1,600 drawings, prints and books on set design to the Morgan Library & Museum. About 50 of these drawings, including two by Mr. Oenslager, are on view there in “Creating the Modern Stage: Designs for Theater and Opera.” They present a concise summary of 20th-century stagecraft, one that appeals equally to Museum of Modern Art mavens and seasoned theatergoers.

-Tanya

Yale Summer Caberet

Play at Cabaret: Yale group also offering after-show fun Fridays and play readings June 19, 2009 -Donna Doherty New Haven Register

It might be a small space, but there are big happenings going on over at the Yale Summer Cabaret — inside and out — in this 35th anniversary season.

-Tanya

Drama School Alum conquering theater scene

Playwright’s elusive dream: Conquering his hometown of Miami
BY CHRISTINE DOLEN, Miami Herald 6/12/2009

Though it has only been two years since he earned his master’s degree in playwriting from the Yale School of Drama, McCraney has had his work produced in New York, Washington D.C., Seattle, New Orleans, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, London, Barcelona and Dublin.

But not, so far, in Miami.

Yet here’s the remarkable thing: Though McCraney has been artistically ignored in his hometown, he has a dream that by the time he turns 30 on Oct. 17, 2010, he will be back in Miami starting a theater company.

-Tanya

Frederick Iseman Theater

Yale School Of Drama Renames The New Theater To Frederick Iseman Theater Broadway World June 1, 2009

Yale School of Drama has announced that the New Theater, a 200-seat state-of-the art performance venue located at 1156 Chapel Street, was renamed the Frederick Iseman Theater in a dedication ceremony on May 30.

-Tanya

YSD alumnus nominated to head NEA

Producer Is Chosen to Lead Arts Endowment
ROBIN POGREBIN New York Times 5/12/2009

Rocco Landesman, the colorful theatrical producer and race-track aficionado who brought hits like “Big River,” “Angels in America” and “The Producers” to Broadway, has been nominated as the next chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, the White House said on Tuesday.

-Tanya

Dutton dedicates performance to Pam Jordan

Some actors dedicate their performance to their spouses, their children or to a dearly departed. Charles S. Dutton dedicated his performance as Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” at New Haven’s Yale Repertory Theatre to a librarian.

But not just any librarian. Pam Jordan has headed the Yale School of Drama library for decades and was there when Dutton was at the school as a young actor 25 years ago. Dutton cites her “42 years of devoted service to Yale.”

Ticker: Betty Buckley Coming To Hartford Stage Frank Rizzo Hartford Courant May 7, 2009

-Tanya

2009 Carlotta Festival writers

Talent of 2009 Carlotta Festival writers goes beyond theater May 3, 2009 New Haven Register Dominique Angerame

The plays and playwrights featured this year are — “American Catnip” by Mattie Brickman, directed by Becca Wolff, “The Bedtrick” by Matt Moses, directed by Erik Pearson and “The French Play” by Gonzalo Rodriguez Risco, directed by Patricia McGregor. All three plays will be performed four times each over the 10-day period. Members of the artistic and creative teams are also Yale students.

More information

-Tanya

Difficulties of playing Willy Loman

‘Death’ Brings Dutton Back to Yale Rep: TV, Film Star Returns to Yale to Play Willy Loman – April 22, 2009 – Connecticut Post -Reprinted at California Chronicle – Joe Meyers

“It’s really, really difficult and complicated,” the actor adds of bringing the doomed Loman to life on stage. “How do you do it without wearing out the audience before it’s over? The challenge has been that we have to find the levity as well as the tragedy [in the story]. You can easily fall into that King Lear trap — from an actor’s point of view — of shouting for three hours.”

And yet, Dutton adds, if you underplay it too much, there is the danger of having Loman’s weariness bore an audience.

“His body is tired, but his mind is racing,” Dutton says of the 63-year-old Loman. “You can’t play it with so much weight that you put the audience to sleep.”

-Tanya