Yale Cabaret: Four Meddling Kids & One Dumb Dog

A Note from the Cab Team Halloween is a special time at the School of Drama. It's a time of gathering and marks an end to the first half of the semester. The past few years, world events have sadly changed how we engage with what used to be a weekend full of parties, costume runways, and neighborhood shenanigans.

When we discussed how to bring the Halloween traditions back to the Cab, Four Meddling Kids & One Dumb Dog was presented as the best opportunity. Augustine’s adaptation of this popular series has managed to do exactly that and then some. This show has the perfect setting for debate, a college dorm room, and it pokes at our social politics in a way that makes you laugh out loud and think about your participation.

What we found while working on this play was even more emphasis on our mission and vision for Cab 55. We learned that our community is incredibly agile and an investment in the process will always be at the root of the Cab. In this show you’ll see more representation, more risk, and more fun, and hopefully it’ll inspire you to seek the same.

A Note from the Playwright I hope, that in a moment of despair, exhaustion, stress, bursting, wrenching, wringing, or writhing, this show can provide a period of alleviation.

I began writing this show during Fall of last year. I was in a pretty difficult spot with my mental health. And quite transparently, it’s a spot I’m still trying to navigate away from. This show, whenever I come back to it – whether on my computer or in a rehearsal room – always gifts my heart with joy, fond memories, nostalgia, laughter… It would be my greatest hope to give those things back to you. This show pokes fun at itself, pokes fun at me, and it damn sure pokes fun at us. If we are unable to laugh at ourselves and find humor in the things that make us uncomfortable, why bother trying to make anybody smile in the first place? Let us gift ourselves with the spontaneity of play and joy. We deserve to gift ourselves companionship, mindful relationships, heartfelt conversations, honest exchanges, and messy disagreements.

One of my favorite cartoons growing up was Courage the Cowardly Dog. When I was a toddler, my Mom says, I would hysterically scream and cry upon spotting a dog in public. My family has had chihuahuas to labradors, lapdogs to hound dogs. Before I discovered theatre, I wanted to be a zookeeper or veterinarian. So, with a special place in my heart – we have Scooby-Doo! Apart from animals, I’ve always loved the spooky, bizarre, odd, creepy, horror stuff. (Hit me up for a Killer Klowns from Outer Space movie-night) The Ouija board, clown-dolls, and baby-dolls are mine from home. Writing an adult parody play about the lovable gang who create a nightmare hurricane of disastrously distressful circumstances feels deliciously deserved.

To Note: This script is still in process. As we near the end, the script strays farther from succinction. Please refer to the Front Desk with any feedback, comments, or inquiries.

Four Meddling Kids & One Dumb Dog

By Augustine Lorrie Alexandrite CREATIVE TEAM Co-Director Co-Director Producer Scenic Designer Costume Designer Lighting Designer Sound Designer Technical Director Stage Manager

Augustine Lorrie Alexandrite Alexis Woodard* Annabel Guevara Kyle Artone Micah Ohno* Kyle Stamm* Joe Kremptz* Cameron Waitkun Adrian Hernandez

CAST Scooby Shaggy Fred Daphne Velma Barnie / Old Man Jenkins

Augustine Lorrie Kyle Artone Sam Douglas* Faith Zamblé Sami Cubias Juliana Morales Carreño* Featured Special Guest Georgie the Dog*

SPECIAL THANKS School of Drama Student Government Aaron Arpon Content Transparency: This show includes sexual jokes/language/content, flashing lights, sudden loud sounds, and mature language.

Service Animal: The playwright's Service Animal (SA) will be accompanying them during the reading. DO NOT INTERACT WITH THEM. They will be working -- on duty -- and are not to be given treats, spoken to/at, called for, or touched. Please also refrain from sustained eye contact. Any of the aforementioned engagements distract the SA from performing tasks necessary to Augustine's needs. If you see another audience member ignoring this agreement, please remind them to respect their community members who are disabled, and to also respect the rules of the space they are electing to be in. To quote Fred Jones: Ableism is not cool. Thank you.

*Yale Cabaret Debut

Mission

Yale Cabaret 55 is a transition; a space to place your art and watch it transform. We do not suggest that your art begins or ends with us, but it will change with us. We invite our community to take risks with us. Failure is not an option; it is an illusion. Like Pantone Color of the Year: Very Peri, we know that “as we emerge from an intense period of isolation, our notions and standards are changing, and our physical and digital lives have merged in new ways.” We seek to be a holding space to explore these changes. Cabaret 55 is a shared experiment of what it means to come back to theater.

Values • The Cab is a studio • The Cab is a space for trial and error • The Cab is a space for fellowship • There is no utopia, only risk and commitment • There are no assignments, only invitations

Land Acknowledgement

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 Acknowledgement

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.

Leadership Team Executive Artistic Director

Jason Gray

Producing Artistic Director

Kayodè Soyemi

Producing Artistic Director

Ashley M. Thomas

Collaborators Graphic Designer

Community Engagement

Website Designer

Marketing Associate

Mikayla Johnson

a.k. payne

Kayodè Soyemi

Roman Sanchez

Anchor Spa x Yale Cabaret

Chef Kendall Thigpen Cabaret Assistant

Adrian Hernandez

Advisory Board Stage Management

Sound

Nakia Avila

Evdoxia Ragkou

Theater Management

Fanny Abib-Rozenberg Dramaturgy

Lily Haje

Playwriting

Danielle Stagger

Scenic

Cat Raynor Projections

John Horzen Acting

Lucas Iverson

Board of Directors Chair

Wendy Davies Samanta Yunuen Cubias Eric M. Glover Linda-Cristal Young Doug Robinson Jacob Basri LT Gourzong

Technical Design

Eugenio Saenz Flores Lighting

Jiahao (Neil) Qui Directing

Garrett Allen Costumes

Kyle Artone

What’s Next Fall Season Cab 4

December 1-3rd

hello world

By John Horzen & Austin Channell

Cab 5 Yale Cabaret 55: Parachute presents

The International Collaborations Festival

Curated by Co-producers, Stefani Kuo, Sebastian Eddowes Vargas and Matthew Sonnenfeld

Thank you to our Sponsor! \

$8 Crafted drinks during late night happy hour!!

About the Cab 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 2022 and beyond.

Our Supporters Honorary Season Producer ($7,500+)

Indira Etwaroo

Show Sponsors ($500-$999)

Wendy Davies

Joan Channick Audrey Conrad Jim & Eileen Mydosh

Partners ($1,000-$2,499)

Enthusiasts ($250-$499)

Champion ($2,500-$4,999)

Bennet Pudlin & Ann Judd Bill & Sharon Reynolds Elaine Ring Nina Adams & Moreson Kaplan

Sarah Cain Erin Rocha Pamela Jordan

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Yale Cabaret 55: Parachute 217 Park Street, New Haven, CT 06511 (203) 432-1566 | yalecabaret.org