From the Dean
I love rehearsals, but I particularly love first rehearsals. For me, they are about the excitement of seeing the whole company together for the first time, the magic of hearing a play read aloud by those actors who will actually perform it, the unfolding of the director’s and designers’ ideas to their colleagues, and the welcoming of new collaborators to the professional community of Yale Repertory Theatre and the School of Drama. I recently had the pleasure of greeting the company of Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist on their initial day at Yale Rep —except that it was no one’s first day. Every single person in the room had worked here before, in the School or at the Rep, and most of them more than once: the only time this has happened in my 12 years as dean and artistic director. In fact, in my three decades of professional experience, this was the sole occasion on which I attended a first rehearsal knowing everyone in the room beforehand. The coziness of that particular first day warmed a late October week in which winter sent us warning messages of cold and wind. It was also a poignant reminder to me of how often, in our field, we find ourselves in unfamiliar surroundings, with new collaborators, and how vulnerable we often feel as we enter a new environment, undertake a new project, and meet new people. Indeed, ours is an art form and a profession in which such beginnings are ritualized markers of evanescence. It is because theatre art passes from an anticipated future to a vital present and then a remembered past, that we feel its transforming energy. And paradoxically, every beginning contains the seeds of the closing night to come, because we all know that the work we are about to make will live vibrantly for some moments, and then pass into memory, the lasting engine of our cultural power. You’ll see these rites of passage captured over and over again in this magazine, in part because our students and graduates are so often drawn to leadership, which requires them both to be vulnerable and to be agile, learning more, perhaps, than they imagined they would when they first contemplated training at Yale. Their stories are vivid reminders of why it is important for the School to draw gifted young professionals to our community in New Haven; of what it means to become, in training, both stronger and more flexible; and of the new vistas that may open up for any of us at any time, anywhere in the world. I am sure you will see your own learning and accomplishment reflected in these pages, and it is a privilege to share them with you. Sincerely yours,
James Bundy
Yale School of Drama/Yale Repertory Theatre James Bundy ’95 Dean, Artistic Director Victoria Nolan Deputy Dean/Managing Director
From the YSD Scrapbook Can you guess the cast from this photo of Interview by Jean-Claude van Itallie? Hint: The production was part of the Yale Summer Cabaret, 1981. If you’re still stymied, turn the page upside down to see who’s who.
Yale School of Drama Board of Advisors John Beinecke yc ’69, Chair John Badham ’63, yc ’61, Vice Chair Amy Aquino ’86 John Lee Beatty ’73 Sonja Berggren srf ’13 Lynne Bolton Clare Brinkley Sterling B. Brinkley, Jr. yc ’74 Kate Burton ’82 Lois Chiles Patricia Clarkson ’85 Edgar (Trip) M. Cullman III ’02, yc ’97 Scott Delman yc ’82 Michael Diamond ’90 Polly Draper ’80, yc ’77 Charles S. Dutton ’83 Sasha Emerson ’84 Heidi Ettinger ’76 Terry Fitzpatrick ’83 Marc Flanagan ’70 Marcus Dean Fuller ’04 Anita Pamintuan Fusco yc ’90 Donald P. Granger, Jr. yc ’85 David Marshall Grant ’78 Ruth Hendel Catherine MacNeil Hollinger ’86 David Henry Hwang ’83 Ellen Iseman yc ’76 David Johnson yc ’78 Asaad Kelada ’64 Sarah Long ’92, yc ’85 Donald Lowy ’76 Elizabeth Margid ’91, yc ’82 Drew McCoy Tarell Alvin McCraney ’07 David Milch yc ’66 Arthur Nacht ’06 Carol Ostrow ’80 Amy Povich ’92 Liev Schreiber ’92 Tony Shalhoub ’80 Michael Sheehan ’76 Anna Deavere Smith Jeremy Smith ’76 Ed Trach ’58 Courtney B. Vance ’86 Henry Winkler ’70
James Bundy photo by Joan Marcus
Dear Alumni,
(clockwise from left) Charles S. Dutton ’83, Patterson Skipper ’83, Jonathan Krupp ’82, YC ’79, Susan Picillo, photo by Margaret Glover ’88, YC ’81.