A NOTE FROM THE CAB LEADERSHIP
Welcome back to Yale Cabaret for Pride of Doves by Doug Robinson. We are excited to produce the work of Doug Robinson, a 4th year playwright, as our second to last show of the season. Doug’s journey at the School started with this play. Pride of Doves is the play he submitted in his application for admission, and we’re excited to share this work with you as he prepares for graduation. This piece exemplifies the place that art has in helping us grapple with events around us. It’s a piece about finding community through the thick of it all.
We’ve been lucky to present many new works this season, giving artists a chance to see their work on stage and learn from the process. We’re grateful all for you in the audience for being the most vital final step to that process. Thank you for helping artists explore, experiment, and grow with us.
We hope you will continue to join us for our FINAL shows of our season at the Yale Cabaret next week! Out of the box and into our Sandbox!
— Doaa, Kyle, & AnnabelA NOTE FROM THE DRAMATURGS
A murder of crows; a flamboyance of flamingos; varied are the nouns used to render birds a collective. Where one evokes tragedy—or threat thereof; another promises style—a welcome distraction. Through various mythological channels, crows become metonyms for impending doom, and flamingos, with their heads buried in the sand, emblems of the avoidant responder.
As symbols, doves are slippery. They resist a singular mythology, simultaneously standing for war and peace, destruction and protection, occupation and liberation. Our production’s use of origami conveys additional meaning. This medium gestures towards Sadako Sasaki, a victim of radiation poisoning caused by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In Japanese tradition, a thousand paper cranes will grant one wish: for Sadako it was her health restored. Those in her wake continue to fold—an act of peace and remembrance.
Pride of Doves by Doug Robinson is alive to death—alive to the embeddedness of violence in our daily lives and the myriad ways we are kept—and keep ourselves—from facing it. This play’s post-apocalyptic world is absurdly similar to our own. A world in which mass shootings are routine, sea levels are rising, the law is rarely on the side of truth, and Reason apparently has no relationship with Action. Where a history of real-world anti-Black violence resounds in Emmett’s lines, “killed by a Blue Man” and “I can’t breathe.”
Murder, flamboyance, and pride are words reserved, in this case, for birds. But birds, we are not. Collectively, humans form choirs, teams, juries, audiences. Distraction is a tool used by individuals and institutions intent on enacting horrific acts of violence. The Israeli government deliberately chose the dates of the Super Bowl and the Academy Awards to escalate their genocidal bombings of Gaza, capitalizing on the fact that most American audiences would have their gaze directed elsewhere.
Pride of Doves is a play whose spectacles of revelation disorient, reminding us of what’s always right before our eyes, imploring us to pay attention, again and again and again.
— Sophia Carey & Lara Sachdeva
PRIDE OF DOVES
Written By Doug RobinsonPRODUCTION TEAM
Director
Jasmine Brooks Producer Natalie King
Mikayla Stanley
Lighting Designer
David DeCarolis
Stage Manager
Dramaturg Lara Sachdeva
Costume Designer Kristen Taylor*
Sound Designer Stan Mathabane Producer
Dramaturg Sophia Carey Set Designer Jessie Baldinger*
Charlie Lovejoy Technical Director Aholibama Castañeda González
CAST
Sylvia Claudia Campos Emmett comfort katchy
Viktor A.J. Roy D Georgia Petersen*
SHOW SPONSORS
Eileen and Jim Mydosh | Season 55: Parachute
Kelvin Dinkins, Jr. | Anne Erbe | Al and Jocelyn C. Heartley
CONTENT GUIDANCE
Contains gunshot sound effects, explosion sound effects and flashing lights.
*Yale Cabaret Debut
MISSION STATEMENT
Sandbox by definition, is “a shallow box in the ground partly filled with sand for children to play in”. We hope to create a similar sense of curiosity and playfulness, allowing artists to access creativity only possible when given the opportunity to dig and unearth treasures within themselves. Our season will focus on performance arts as a whole, not just script-based plays or musicals, it’s open to ALL. We aim to look at collaborators as they are, without limiting them to the role they hold within the DGSD community. We believe in a theater without labels, where artists are not limited by the hats they wear, but by the experience they bring into the room with them. As a collective, we will create theater that continues to reshape our ever-changing view on the world.
OUR SANDBOX IS...
A Celebration of Ideas: A place where no ideas are bad ideas
Experimental: A space to try, fail, learn, and grow as a community
A Resource: A pool of combined knowledge and artistry
An Outlet: Magnifying unheard voices and underrepresented stories
A Continuum: An application of skills learned
Our Sandbox is a place where you can make your wildest dreams come true.
LAND ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The state of Connecticut and Yale University occupy the traditional, ancestral, and unceded lands of the Mohegan, Mashantucket Pequot, Eastern Pequot, Schaghticoke, Golden Hill Paugussett, Niantic, Quinnipiac, and other Algonquian speaking peoples. We honor and respect their continued relationship with and stewardship of this land, and we acknowledge that Yale University, Yale Cabaret, and those affiliated have benefited from the oppression of these Nations.
LABOR ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Yale University does not exist independently from the centuries of forced labor and economic extraction of enslaved people, primarily of African descent, on which this country was built. We are indebted to their labor and their unwilling sacrifice, and we must acknowledge the ongoing violence inflicted on Black and brown people and the resulting impact and generational trauma still felt today.
Co-Artistic Director
Doaa Ouf
LEADERSHIP TEAM
Co-Artistic Director
Kyle Stamm
Managing Director
Annabel Guevara
COLLABORATORS
Associate Managing Director
Adrian Alexander Hernandez
Graphic Designer
Michelle Foley
Production Manager
Aholibama Castañeda González
Restaurant Partner
The Anchor Spa
ADVISORY BOARD
Cab Assistant
Taylor Ybarra
Acting
Grayson Richmond
Dramaturgy
Karoline Vielemeyer
Projection Design
John Horzen
Stage Management
Colleen Rooney
Costume Design
Caroline Tyson
Lighting Design
David DeCarolis
Scenic Design
Kim Zhou
Technical Design
Leo Surach
Directing
Alexis Kulani Woodard
Playwriting
Doug Robinson
Sound Design
Joe Krempetz
Theatre Management
Natalie King
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Eric M. Glover
Samanta Cubias
Chair
Wendy Davies
L.T. Gourzong
Gabrielle Hoyt
Linda-Cristal Young
Lawrence Henry
In 1968, David Geffen School of Drama at Yale students established a basement performance venue in the former home of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity at 217 Park Street. Envisioned as an alternative outlet for drama school students’ creativity and experimentation, Yale Cabaret became a forum for our expanded New Haven communities, whom we invite to gather around food, drink, conversation, fellowship, and artistry.
Since its founding, the Cabaret has remained in continuous operation, including pivoting to virtual performance during the 2020/21 season. The Cab has produced hundreds of plays, old and new, alongside musicals and musical revues, comedy shows, dance, performance art, and genre-defying performance.
Our supporters have made this storied history happen. With their partnership, we continue this tradition into 2024 and beyond.
