OUR MISSION
David Geffen School of Drama and Yale Repertory Theatre train and advance leaders in the practice of every theatrical discipline, making art to inspire joy, empathy, and understanding in the world.
OUR CORE VALUES
Artistry
We expand knowledge to nurture creativity and imaginative expression embracing the complexity of the human spirit.
Belonging
We put people first, centering well-being, inclusion, and equity for theatermakers and audiences through anti-racist and anti-oppressive practices.
Collaboration
We build our collective work on a foundation of mutual respect, prizing the contributions and accomplishments of the individual and of the team.
Discovery
We wrestle with compelling issues of our time.
Energized by curiosity, invention, bravery, and humor, we challenge ourselves to risk and learn from failure and vulnerability.
drama.yale.edu
ABOVE: Abigail C. Onwunali ’23, Rebeca Robles ’24, Tyler Cruz ’23, Karen Killeen ’24, Giovanna Drummond ’24, and Whitney Andrews ’24 in Marys Seacole by Jackie Sibblies Drury, directed by Leyla Levi ’23. Photo © T. Charles Erickson.
Yale acknowledges that indigenous peoples and nations, including Mohegan, Mashantucket Pequot, Eastern Pequot, Schaghticoke, Golden Hill Paugussett, Niantic, and the Quinnipiac and other Algonquian speaking peoples, have stewarded through generations the lands and waterways of what is now the state of Connecticut. We honor and respect the enduring relationship that exists between these peoples and nations and this land.
We also acknowledge the legacy of slavery in our region and the enslaved African people whose labor was exploited for generations to help establish the business of Yale University as well as the economy of Connecticut and the United States.
a note from the playwriting chairs
Welcome and thank you for joining us!
The Carlotta Festival at David Geffen School of Drama serves as a platform not only to celebrate the artistic endeavors of three up-and-coming writers and their collaborators but also as an opportunity to witness their remarkable abilities and the compelling narratives they have to share. Working with directors, actors, dramaturgs, designers, technicians, stage managers, and theater managers as well as faculty, these playwrights have dedicated months to crafting their plays.
To this end, the Carlotta Festival is more than just a gathering; it is a forum for exchanging ideas and a showcase of diverse artistic expression. This year’s featured plays delve into the theme of confinement, whether physical or emotional. Each narrative follows characters contending with various challenges, from navigating grief to breaking free from poverty to struggling to find their place, even in a surrogate family. These poignant dramas serve as a reminder of the intrinsic value of freedom, a privilege often taken for granted by many and strenuously pursued by others. These courageous and thought-provoking works pull no punches, will pull at your heart strings, make you laugh, and may even challenge some of your own beliefs.
In Sort, a man enters a mortuary and unexpectedly forms a lasting connection with a clerk as they navigate the complexities of living in the shadow of death.
In You Can Tell a Tree by its Fruit , Louis Carter Senior, a talented shoemaker, dreams of launching a family business. However, in Reconstruction-era Texas, rampant racism towards African Americans poses a challenge. When he encounters an Irish immigrant family that closely resembles his own, Senior is struck with an innovative plan.
In Silence/The Village, a young Black man unexpectedly joins a retreat hosted by his surrogate parents, a liberal, middle-aged white couple on their remote New England island. He is left wondering if the estate will serve as his sanctuary or his confinement.
While the plays presented at the festival represent a culmination of the writers’ efforts at the Geffen School, they merely scratch the surface of their talent and creativity. We are privileged to present these plays as we commend Ida, Comfort, and ML for embarking on the next phase of their careers as they continue to enrich the world of theatre with their unique voices.
Anne Erbe and Marcus Gardley Co-Chairs of the Playwriting program, David Geffen School of Drama
You Can Tell a Tree by its Fruit
By comfort ifeoma katchy
Directed by Juliana Morales
Carreño
creative team
Scenic Designer
Jennifer Yuqing Cao
Costume Designer
Micah Ohno
Lighting Designer
Celia Weiqing Chen
Sound Designer
Constant Dzah
Technical Director
Tamara Morris-Thompson
Production Dramaturg
Karoline Vielemeyer
Fight and Intimacy Director
Kelsey Rainwater
Stage Manager
Louis Carter Senior
Kieron J. Anthony
Luis Carter III
Liam Beveridge
Mary Lu-Anne Carter
Dorottya Ilosvai
Luanne Carter
Nancy Kimball
Mary Louise Carter
Olamide Oladeji
Louis Carter Junior
Darius Sakui
Luis Carter II
Max Sheldon
Louise Carter
Rethabile Headbush cast in alphabetical order
Kim Vilbrun-Francois
setting
Texas, 1872–79
content guidance
This production contains sexual content and coarse language including the use of racial slurs and discriminatory language regarding both Black and Irish people
You Can Tell a Tree by its Fruit is performed without an intermission.
The Fruits that Dream
white supremacists put into place to maintain their dominance in society. However, in the 1880s and 90s, when the most oppressive and widespread Jim Crow laws were passed against African Americans, Irish-Americans began to move up the social ladder of whiteness. In his book, How the Irish Became White, Noel Ignatiev writes: “Since ‘white’ was not a physical description but one term of a social relation which could not exist without its opposite, ‘white man’s work’ was simply work from which Afro-Americans were excluded.” He thus exposes whiteness as a social construct of racial capitalism, a harmful tool which its “members” take advantage of to get ahead while degrading the lives of those they leave behind.
You Can Tell a Tree by its Fruit explores these tense and rapidly shifting historical dynamics of this 19th-century period of upheaval on a profoundly personal level. Meanwhile, the domestic is in constant conversation with the events happening outside of the Black Carters’ four walls. In a period of extreme uncertainty about the fates of African Americans and immigrants—and thus the identity of the country at large—the power of dreams becomes the bedrock for both families in the play, and ultimately the driving force on a long and winding road to social justice.
about the playwright
comfort ifeoma katchy is a playwright and actor hailing proudly from Houston, Texas. She is a thirdyear M.F.A. candidate in playwriting at David Geffen School of Drama, where she wrote Stray Dogs and The Alley. Other writing credits include How I Learned to Play Tennis, Games have Rules, and The Moon is Upside Down. comfort was most recently seen on stage in Is God Is at the Rec Room Arts in Houston and Pride of Doves at Yale Cabaret.
comfort has had work presented through the Alley Theatre’s Alley All New Festival, Theater Masters Take Ten Festival, and the University of Houston’s 2021 mainstage season. She was a semi-finalist for The HansberryLilly Award (2023), UCross + The Blank Theatre Future of Playwriting Prize (2022), and the Third Culture Theatre Nexus Festival (2022). comfort has been an inaugural member of the Rec Room Writers Group in Houston, Texas since 2019. She is also a Teaching Artist for the Dwight/Edgewood Project and Survivors of Society Rising, mentoring middle school students and adult writers from New Haven.
She received her B.F.A. in playwriting/ dramaturgy from the University of Houston’s School of Theatre and Dance and a certificate in acting from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, NYC.
comfortkatchy.com @comfortkatchy
cast in alphabetical order
Kieron J. Anthony (Louis Carter Senior) is a first-year actor at David Geffen School of Drama, hailing from the sunny twin-island republic of Trinidad and Tobago. He is a University of Miami and Atlantic Acting School graduate. Look at God! Selected credits include The Inspector (understudy, Yale Rep); One Night in Miami (Colony Theater); King Lear (A.R.T./New York Theatres); KIN (WP Theater); Field, Awakening (Signature Theatre); Inventing Anna (Netflix). @kieronjanthony
Liam Beveridge (Luis Carter III) is a first-year actor at David Geffen School of Drama. Recent credits include The Inspector (understudy) at Yale Rep. Liam grew up in Seattle and received his B.A. in theater from Lewis & Clark College.
Dorottya Ilosvai (Mary Lu-Anne Carter) is from Hungary and is a firstyear M.F.A. candidate at David Geffen School of Drama. Recent credits include The Inspector (understudy) at Yale Rep. She received her B.A. from New York University, Abu Dhabi.
Nancy Kimball (Luanne Carter) is a first-year actor at David Geffen School of Drama. Recent credits include Witch (Yale Cabaret). She received her B.F.A. from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Olamide Oladeji she/her (Mary Louise Carter) is a first-year actor at David Geffen School of Drama. Her previous theater credits include The Inspector (understudy, Yale Repertory Theatre), The Cherry Orchard, Chicken and Biscuits, and Bite Me.
Darius Sakui (Louis Carter Junior) is extremely thankful to be a part of this talented cast and crew! He wants to thank his teachers, his friends, his family, and especially his mother for their love and support throughout the years! He is a second-year actor at David Geffen School of Drama, where he was seen in Metamorphoses as well as in The Inspector at Yale Rep.
Max Sheldon he/him (Luis Carter II) is a second-year actor at David Geffen School of Drama, where his credits include What of the Night?, Metamorphoses, and Coriolanus. His professional credits include Finian’s Rainbow (Irish Rep); Afloat (WP Theater); West Side Story, Peter and The Starcatcher (Weston Playhouse); and Dracula, or the Undead (Williamstown Theatre Festival). Film and television credits include Law & Order: Organized Crime (NBC), Theater Camp (Searchlight Pictures), Red Oaks (Amazon), and The Path (Hulu). Max is a proud graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Max would like to thank his friends, incredible teachers, Ted Walch, and his parents for their love and unwavering belief in him.
producer and facilitator, Celia is currently the co-artistic director at PANShanghai, a non-profit arts organization promoting intercultural exchange and sustainability. Past lighting credits include Ain’t No Mo’ and Hamlet, princesa de Dinamarca (the Geffen School); My Six Therapists, Rasa Jars (Yale Cabaret); The Dark (Shanghai International Dance Center); Wasteland of Puppies (Wuzhen Theatre Festival); 21 Miss Dulis (Goethe-Institut Beijing). Celia-Chen.com
Constant Dzah (Sound Designer) is a passionate sound designer born and raised in Ghana, West Africa. He has a B.F.A. in drama theater art and is currently a second-year M.F.A. candidate in sound design at David Geffen School of Drama, where his credits include Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. Other work includes falcon girls by Hilary Bettis (Yale Rep), Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner by Jasmine Lee-Jones (Yale Cabaret), and heaven is something to keep you warm by Kandace James (Yale Summer Cabaret). Fun fact: he loves cooking. Yay! He also loves to listen to music, make music, and spend quality time with friends.
Rethabile Headbush (Stage Manager) is a second-year stage manager at David Geffen School of Drama. Raised in Johannesburg, South Africa, Rethabile has a background in and passion for devised and interdisciplinary theater. Recent credits include steve carter’s
Eden (assistant stage manager) directed by Brandon J. Dirden at Yale Rep. Credits at the Geffen School include Jordan E. Cooper’s Ain’t No Mo’, María Irene Fornés’s What of the Night?, and Sarah Kane’s Cleansed Off-Broadway: RCI Theatricals Management Fellow for Mario Correa’s new play N/A, directed by Diane Paulus. Further credits include The Centre for the Less Good Idea’s SEASON 9 Programme, artsINSIDEOUT (ArtsIgnite) program, and D’haus’s URGENT INTERACTIONS Youth International Congress (Market Theatre Laboratory).
Tamara Morris-Thompson (Technical Director) is a second-year M.F.A. candidate at David Geffen School of Drama, where their credits include Fucking A, Measure for Measure, Cactus Queen, rent free, and Pearl’s Beauty Salon, as well as Eden at Yale Rep. T collaborates closely with creative teams to ensure seamless execution of technical elements, while maintaining a focus on safety and efficiency. With a passion for innovation and education, T is dedicated to enhancing the audience experience and mentoring the next generation of theatre professionals. T is very thankful to be in this role and a part of David Geffen School of Drama.
Micah Ohno (Costume Designer) is a costume designer and researcher from Golden, Colorado. She is a third-year M.F.A. candidate at David Geffen School of Drama, where she
EGGS’ BENEDICTION
On the morning of Sunday, December 31, 2023, the Times crossword clue “Romantic profession” led to the answer “IMINLOVE.” Taken at its word, the double entendre tells us that speaking and working overlap, that talking is a way of getting something done. That same morning, church services everywhere ended in benedictions—from bene (well) and dictere (say)—blessings which mark the transition from the sacred to the everyday. Likewise in Sort: puzzles, puns, and attempts towards meaning roll over themselves, less for laughs than in hopes that the right words might punch a doorway through grief.
Psychoanalysis—“the talking cure”—imagines mourning as the natural process of detachment, melancholia as the clinical inability to let go. Critics accuse Freud of conceiving the former only to better pathologize the latter, but all’s well: who wants release when batting language around like a speedbag feels so good? Like Sort’s John and Clerk, the mourner turns to language again and again, hoping against hope it will conjure the object they need to behold in order to walk away from it. Odds are it won’t—but ask a writer about her faith in language. Then, ask why she keeps going.
In J.L. Austin’s terms, performative language goes beyond mere description to enactment: I vow, promise, decree. Paraphrasing Judith Butler’s expansion, not-quite-rightly: performativity plus repetition equals gender. But with more speaking come more opportunities for Freudian slippage; in Sort, there’s more than enough grist. About the “egg”—the trans person before they know they’re trans—gender theorist Grace Lavery writes, “by the time one is called one, it must be understood that one is not one, or not one any longer. An egg is displaced in time, a protocol for a new, and newly incommensurable sensemaking procedure.”1 To have one’s egg cracked is to set in motion the annihilatory process of transition, to leave behind life and self and time as received. If there’s one realm where letting go might be better than worrying, maybe it’s gender as we’ve learned it. Speak! Punch the hole! Leave the egg! Enter a world as funny, terrifying, and genderfucked as the one Ida Cuttler has written.
Also in that New Year’s Eve Sunday crossword: CAPUTO, with the clue Reality Star Theresa, of ‘Long Island Medium.’ The dead live out of time, too, and come to us in the least sacred of ways. Gender, like each of our dead, is hard to leave behind. The year ended, and Monday came around; those of us who derive pleasure from language’s impossibilities sped through the early-week puzzles, beckoning the torture of the weekend to come.
—Georgia Petersen, Production Dramaturg
1 Grace Lavery. “Egg Theory’s Early Style.” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 7, no. 3 (August 1, 2020): 383–98. https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-8553034.
about the playwright
Ida Cuttler is a playwright and actor from San Francisco, California, and a third-year M.F.A. candidate at David Geffen School Drama, where she wrote Moe’s a D*ck and Running Play.
She was a company member of NeoFuturists from 2015–22, where she wrote over 200 plays for Chicago’s longest-running late-night show, The Infinite Wrench. Ida was also a company member of PlayMakers Laboratory, where she adapted and performed in stories written by Chicago public school students. Ida’s other writing and performing credits include Comfortable Shoes, The Infinite Wrench, and Jeff Awardnominated Wildcats. She is a 2025–26 Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Award Finalist.
As an actor, Ida was most recently seen in The Day the Butcher Shop Closed and the sketch revue *Is This Mom* both at Yale Cabaret. One time she entered a giant donut eating competition.
idacuttler.com | @idaecuttler
cast in alphabetical order
Francisco Morandi Zerpa any pronouns (John) is a second-year M.F.A. candidate at David Geffen School of Drama, born in Caracas, Venezuela. Recent productions include falcon girls (Yale Rep), Kilele, and The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window (the Geffen School). This summer he is proud to be one of two co-teaching artists running the 30th anniversary of The Dwight/Edgewood Project at Yale Rep. He is particularly thankful to Tamilla, Grace, James, Erica, Bill, Chris, and his advisor Mary Lou, for holding me throughout this big ol’ second year. And to his roommate, Georgia, and his friend, Ida, for a dream of an end to the semester. He is a 2022 graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts where he studied with Anna Deavere Smith.
Bella Orobaton (Janitor) is a playwright, educator, and secondyear actor at David Geffen School of Drama, where her credits include The Tragedy of Coriolanus, Ain’t No Mo’, and rent free. She trained at Cornish College of the Arts, where she graduated summa cum laude with a degree in original work. Previous theater credits include Dance Nation (Yale Cabaret); Returning the Bones (National Association for Campus Activities); Tiara’s Hat Parade (BookIt Repertory Theatre’s educational tour); This Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing (Arts West); Auntie Val (Freehold Theatre). Big thanks and love to her family, friends, and teachers!
Larry Ortiz (Lighting Designer) is a second-year M.F.A. candidate at David Geffen School of Drama, originally from El Paso, Texas. Select lighting design credits include La muerte y la doncella, La pasion segun antigona perez (El Repetorio Espanol, Off-Broadway); Kilele, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (the Geffen School); Lepke in the Night, H.E.A.T.T. (Connecticut College); Can the Peruvian Speak?, Romeo and You-Liet (Yale Cabaret); Let it Be-A Beatles Musical, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (Okoboji Summer Theatre).
Larry Ortiz graduated from The University of Texas at El Paso with a B.F.A. in theater. Special thanks for my family and partner who have inspired me immensely. LarryOrtiz.com
Tamara Morris-Thompson (Technical Director) Please see page 11.
Thomas Nagata he/they (Stage Manager) Selected credits include Eden (Yale Rep); Fucking A, Uncle Vanya, Cactus Queen, Tempt Me (David Geffen School of Drama); The Tempest, it’s not a trip it’s a journey, Quixote Nuevo (Round House Theatre); King Lear (Shakespeare Theatre Company); Ain’t No Mo’,The Nosebleed, Incendiary, Rose: You Are Who You Eat (Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company); In the Heights, Annie, Proof (Olney Theatre Center); All the Way, The Roommate, The Yoga Play (South Coast Repertory). Thomas received their B.A. from Wheaton College, Massachusetts.
Georgia Petersen (Production Dramaturg) is a second-year M.F.A. candidate in dramaturgy and dramatic criticism at David Geffen School of Drama and a managing editor at Theater magazine, Yale’s journal of theater and performance. She most recently worked as a dramaturg on The Inspector and Escaped Alone at Yale Rep. She holds a B.F.A. in acting with a minor in creative writing from New York University.
Michael Rossmy (Fight and Intimacy Director) is a Resident Fight and Intimacy Director for Yale Rep, a lecturer in acting at David Geffen School of Drama, and Stage Combat and Intimacy Advisor for Yale College. Broadway credits include Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Purpose directed by Phylicia Rashad, A Tale of Two Cities, Cymbeline, and Superior Donuts. Regional theater credits include The Public Theater, Roundabout, The Atlantic, Primary Stages, Westport Country Playhouse, Goodspeed Musicals, Paper Mill Playhouse, Asolo Rep, The Old Globe, TheaterWorks Hartford, Princeton University, The Acting Company, Soho Rep, the Geffen Playhouse, Long Wharf Theatre, McCarter Theatre, Kansas City Rep, People’s Light & Theatre, and others. He was nominated for a 2017 Drama Desk Award for The Public’s production of Troilus and Cressida and is a 2024 Barrymore Award nominee for Bonez at People’s Light.
Silence/The Village
By ML Roberts
Directed by Kemar
Jewel
creative team
Scenic Designer
Patrick Blanchard
Costume Designer
Tricie Bergmann
Lighting Designer
Gib Gibney
Sound Designer
Tojo Rasedoara
Projection Designer
Ke Xu 许可
Technical Director
Tamara Morris-Thompson
Production Dramaturg
Austin Riffelmacher
Fight and Intimacy Directors
Kelsey Rainwater
Michael Rossmy
Stage Manager ty ruwe
setting
A New England island, 2021
content guidance
cast in alphabetical order
Manny Juice Mackins
Josefa
Rebecca Rivera
Phil Michael Saguto
Nico Kiera Anne Smith
Tammy Grace Wissink
This production contains staged violence, sexual content, partial nudity, and discussions of racial violence.
Silence/The Village is performed without an intermission.
Dystopian Disconnection in Silence/The Village
You may have noticed that the title of this play is divided in two.
“The village is obsolete. But the body never forgets. It begins to seek out the village in destructive ways.”
—Nico, Silence/The Village
First, let’s look at the second part, The Village.
Communities make up villages, and often community is thought of in the most affirming light. However, community can manifest itself in the most grotesque of ways. The Third Reich was a community. So was the Ku Klux Klan. Insurrectionists emerge from community. Communities produce cults.
In 1933, Austrian Psychologist Wilhelm Reich published his book, The Mass Psychology of Fascism. Later banned by the Nazis, Reich theorized that authoritarianism emerges from a sexually repressed working class and a cult of personality—a manipulation of mass media into the idolizing of one figure. Reich scrutinized the “leading class” in explicitly fascist governments like Germany’s while also taking aim at the “United” (my quotes) States, where those with money, largely white people, both conservative and liberal, exploited and profited off essential work by people of color. He wrote, the leading class was “not in a position to assume social responsibility,” and in America,
Unions of white workers deny membership to black workers.
All of this is the result of deeply ingrained ideological party concepts, under whose sway the community, which is produced by work, is suffocated. Hence, it is only the new concept of the worker, i.e., as a person who performs vitally necessary work, which is in a position to bridge the gap and to bring the social bodies into line with the organizations of vitally necessary work.
Now back to the first part of the title, Silence.
In comedy, awkward silences make us laugh. In horror, the absence of sound causes fright. Both stir tense reactions in our bodies.
Winter 2021 brought an abundance of baffling media moments caught in a juncture between the absurd and the grotesque. One of the blither ones occurred when Oprah Winfrey asked Meghan Markle, “Were you silent, or silenced?” Although the moment became a humorous meme, Markle was given
cast in alphabetical order
Juice Mackins (Manny) is a secondyear M.F.A. candidate at David Geffen School of Drama, an alum of Fordham University’s theater program, and a Debbie Allen Dance Academy baby, studying with and under her in various forms of dance and artistic ventures she’s shared. His stage credits include Eden at Yale Rep; Come Fall in Love—The DDLJ Musical directed by Aditya Chopra at the Old Globe; the tour of Brothers of The Knight directed by Debbie Allen; and the Broadway musical The Prom, directed by Casey Nicholaw; as well as work in concert and commercial dance. His current works at the Geffen School include Ain’t No Mo’ directed by Kemar Jewel, Cactus Queen directed by Bobbin Ramsey, as well as The Royale directed by Lauren F. Walker (2024) at Yale Cabaret. Television appearances include Shook, Grey’s Anatomy, and Blue Bloods, among others. Lastly, Juice would like to thank Cynthia Santos-DeCure and Hector Flores Kamatsu for their dedicated and focused language and dialect assistance. Also, sharing immense gratitude to the cast, crew, and production team for their uplifting union and carving of a place open for play and collaboration. @juicemackins
Rebecca Rivera (Josefa) is a firstyear M.F.A. acting candidate at David Geffen School of Drama. She was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. This is her first production at
Yale. She would like to thank her parents and sisters for their fierce and endless love and support.
Michael Saguto (Phil) is a secondyear actor at David Geffen School of Drama, where his credits include The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, Antony and Cleopatra, The Tragedy of Coriolanus, Charity (2024 Langston Hughes Festival), as well as The Royale and The Day the Butcher Shop Closed (Yale Cabaret). Other select theater credits include The Misanthrope (HERE Arts); Lobby Hero (Florida Rep.); London Wall, Men Should Weep (Griffin Theater); A Christmas Carol (the Goodman Theater). Select television and film credits include Easy (Netflix), Tour Bus Legends (pilot), and the series Play by Play. B.F.A., NYU Tisch School of the Arts. michael.saguto.com
Kiera Anne Smith (Nico) is an actor, singer, and dancer from Harmony, Minnesota. She is very excited to be making her Carlotta Festival debut and is grateful to be working with such talented artists on this production. She would love to dedicate this performance to her family and friends back home, in Minnesota.
Grace Wissink (Tammy) is a firstyear actor at David Geffen School of Drama. Grace received her B.A. in Dramatic Art from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
School of Drama.
creative team in
alphabetical order
Tricie Bergmann (Costume Designer) is a costume designer from Vienna, Austria. She holds a B.A. in fashion and textile design from the Amsterdam Fashion Academy. Before coming to Yale, she worked as a costume production manager at the Vienna State Opera and Volksoper, and designed for performance art and film. While at Yale, she designed the costumes for Kilele and has worked as an assistant costume designer on The Salvagers (Yale Rep) and Hamlet (the Geffen School). She is grateful to be part of this creative team.
Patrick Blanchard (Scenic Designer) Please see page 17.
Gib Gibney (Lighting Designer) is a second-year M.F.A. candidate at David Geffen School of Drama, where his credits include Metamorphoses and Measure for Measure. Other select credits include Into the Woods and Blood at the Root at Penn State’s Centre Stage as well as Associate Lighting Designer on Invasive Species at the Vineyard Theatre. Originally from Long Island, he is a graduate of SUNY Suffolk and Penn State University.
Kemar Jewel (Director) is a Black Queer director and choreographer from New York City, raised in Philadelphia. Currently, he is obtaining his M.F.A. in directing from David Geffen School of Drama, where he directed Ain’t No Mo’ by Jordan E.
Cooper. Kemar’s art has been seen in theatre, dance, opera, music videos, live tours, and in musical theater. As a member of the Legendary House of Lanvin, Kemar, an alum of the Drama League Fellowship, draws inspiration from the Ballroom scene and his Caribbean upbringing. Kemar’s mission is to revamp classic stories by having them reflect the people today. Particularly, he is passionate about showcasing the magic of Blackness, Queerness, and their intersections through theatre, music, and dance. Kemar believes that great stories teach the best lessons, and that those stories should have everyone reflected in them. kemarjewel.com | @kemar_jewel
T Morris-Thompson (Technical Director) Please see page 11.
Kelsey Rainwater (Fight and Intimacy Director) Please see page 12.
Tojo Rasedoara (Sound Designer) is also a third-year composer for theater, dance, film, and video games and M.F.A. candidate at David Geffen School of Drama at Yale. Since starting his design journey, Tojo has been working on over 25 productions in and outside of school. Recent and notable credits include Eden, Wish You Were Here (Yale Rep); The Seven (The Juilliard School); Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone, Charlotte, Springtime, Birthday Candles, Fabulation, falcon girls, The Light and the Dark (Chautauqua Theater); Pearl’s Beauty Salon, Measure for Measure, Macbeth, Ghosts, Furlough’s Paradise (Geffen School); Soft Jade (Yale Cabaret);
OFF-PEAK (world premiere, Hudson Stage Company, 59E59 Theatre); Sandblasted (Vineyard Theatre); Is There Still Sex in the City? (Daryl Roth Theatre); Citizen: An American Lyric (Duke University); The Gradient (Repertory Theatre of St. Louis); and Harriet Tubman (HI-ARTS), The Gravesend Inn—escape room (CityTech Theatreworks. Tojo holds a B.A. in entertainment technology from City Tech Brooklyn. He also worked with various New York Fashion Weeks as a production assistant. He would like to thank his sound team and creatives
Eden Wyandon, Eun Kang, Nicky M. Brekhof, Robert Salerno, Mike Backhaus, Justin Ellington, and Jill Du Boff for their incredible support towards the play.
Austin Riffelmacher he/him
(Production Dramaturg) is a thirdyear M.F.A. candidate at David Geffen School of Drama, where his credits include Stray Dogs by comfort ifeoma katchy, HellYouTalmBout Part 1 by ML Roberts, and The Misanthrope directed by Mary Lou Rosato. Other work includes Eden (production dramaturg, Yale Rep); The Royale directed by Lauren F. Walker and his solo performance “A Phantastic Christmas” at Yale Cabaret. Originally from Worcester, Massachusetts, he holds a B.A. in English with a concentration in African American literature and film from Framingham State University.
Michael Rossmy (Fight and Intimacy Director) Please see page 18.
ty ruwe they/them (Stage Manager) is a second-year M.F.A. candidate at David Geffen School of Drama, where their credits include HellYouTalmBout Part 1, Pearl’s Beauty Salon, and Hamlet, princesa de Dinamarca as well as My Six Therapists, The Aughts, seven methods of killing kylie jenner , and Witch at Yale Cabaret. Other credits include Macbeth in Stride (Yale Rep); The Pirates of Penzance (Cape Repertory Theatre); Fairview (Speakeasy Stage Company); honeyhole (MoonBox Productions, Boston New Works Festival); The Half-Life of Marie Curie , and Ada and the Engine (Central Square Theater). ty received their B.A. in psychology from Smith College.
Ke Xu (Projection Designer) is a multidisciplinary theater designer. She graduated from Central Saint Martins (UAL) with first-class honors in product design and is currently a projection design M.F.A. candidate at David Geffen School of Drama, where her credits include Ain’t No Mo’. She was working professionally in China before coming to Yale and is passionate about exploring new theatrical language that integrates digital media with physical space. Recent credits include video and set design for Detective Zhao Gan’e (Beijing 77 Theater); projection design for And the Beetle Hums and Can the Peruvian Speak? (Yale Cabaret); Miss Julie (Beijing Star Theatre); 10:59 (Off Broadway Theater). behance.net/kxu
artistic
Festival Producer
Anne Erbe
Assistant Scenic Designers
Seth Byrum, Kiki Gordon, Richard Lee
Assistant Lighting Designers
Finn Bamber, Qier Lo, Amanda Burtness
Assistant Projection Designer
Jae Lee
Associate Sound Designer and Engineer
Nicky Brekhof
Assistant Sound Designers and Engineers
Eun Kang, Eden Wyandon
Spanish Language Translations for Silence/The Village
Esperanza Rosales Balcárcel
Associate Production Stage Manager
Caileigh Potter
Assistant Stage Managers
Amanda Blitz (Sort)
Payton Gunner (Silence/The Village)
Claire Young (You Can Tell a Tree by its Fruit)
production
Associate Production Manager
Katie Chance
Assistant Technical Directors
Bekka Broyles, Allie Posner, Judith Villalva
Properties Managers
Hsaio Ru-Ho, Lilliana Gonzalez
Production Electricians
Mara Bredovskis, Forrest Rumbaugh
Production Sound Engineer
Robert Salerno
Projection Engineer
Cat Slanski
Projection Content Creator
Jae Lee
Projection Programmer
Wiktor Freifeld
Scenic Charges
Gabriela Ahumada
Gwendoline Chen
Stage Carpenters
Sean Blue, Bryant Heatherly
Light Board Programmer
Tyler Zickmund
Run Crew
Andreas Andreou, Nicky Brekhof, Jasmine Brooks, Nawinda
Chanmalee, Matthew Chong, Josie Cooper, Aaron Frongillo, Caleb Krieg, Jocelyn Lopez-Hagmann, Gretta
Marston, Destyne Miller, Sveta
Moroz, Ameya Narkar, Rebecca Pietri, Chris Pow, Andrew Rincón
Changeover Crew
David DiFabi, Shawn Poellet, Leo Surach , Alex Theisen, Jacob Thompson
administration
Assistant Managing Director
Sarah Saifi
Management Assistants
Raekwon Fuller, Gavin D. Pak
Festival House Manager
Davon Williams
Production Photographer
T. Charles Erickson
Artistic
Yale Rep
Resident Artists
Playwright in Residence
Tarell Alvin McCraney
Resident Directors
Lileana Blain-Cruz
Liz Diamond
Tamilla Woodard
Dramaturgy Advisor
Amy Boratko
Resident Dramaturg
Catherine Sheehy
Set Design Advisor
Riccardo Hernández
Resident Set Designer
Michael Yeargan
Costume Design Advisors
Oana Botez
Ilona Somogyi
Resident Costume Designer
Toni-Leslie James
Lighting Design Advisors
Alan C. Edwards
Stephen Strawbridge
Projection Design Advisor
Shawn Lovell-Boyle
Sound Design Advisor
Jill BC Du Boff
Voice and Text Advisor
Grace Zandarski
Resident Fight and Intimacy Directors
Kelsey Rainwater
Michael Rossmy
Stage Management Advisor
Narda E. Alcorn
Associate Artists
52nd Street Project, Kama Ginkas, Mark Lamos, MTYZ
Theatre/Moscow New
Generation Theatre, Bill Rauch, Sarah Ruhl, Henrietta Yanovskaya
Artistic Administration
Production Stage Manager
James Mountcastle
Yale Rep Senior Artistic
Producer
Amy Boratko
Yale Rep Associate Producer
Kay Perdue Meadows
Yale Rep Artistic Fellow
Hannah Fennell Gellman
Yale Rep Artistic Coordinator
Andrew Aaron Valdez
Yale Rep Casting
James Calleri
Erica Jensen
Paul Davis
Editor, Theater Magazine
Tom Sellar
Managing Editor, Theater Magazine
Gabrielle Hoyt
Senior Associate Editor, David Geffen School of Drama
Alumni Magazine
Catherine Sheehy
Senior Administrative Assistant to the Artistic Director/ Dean and Associate Artistic Director/Associate Dean
Josie Brown
Senior Administrative Assistant for Directing, Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism, Playwriting, Stage Management programs, and Theater magazine
Laurie Coppola
Senior Administrative Assistant, Design Program
Kate Begley Baker
Senior Administrative
Assistant, Acting Program
Krista DeVellis
Library Services
Erin Carney
Production
Production Management Director of Production
Shaminda Amarakoon
Production Manager
Jonathan Reed
Production Manager for Studio Projects and Special Events
C. Nikki Mills
Senior Administrative Assistant to Production, Technical Design and Production Program, and Theater Safety
Rachel Zwick
Scenery
Technical Director for Yale Rep and Fall Protection Program
Administrator
Neil Mulligan (on leave)
Technical Directors for David Geffen School of Drama
Latiana “LT” Gourzong
Matt Welander
Electro Mechanical
Laboratory Supervisor
Eric Lin
Metal Shop Foreperson
Matt Gaffney
Wood Shop Foreperson
Ryan Gardner
Lead Carpenters
Doug Kester
Kat McCarthey
Sharon Reinhart
Abigail “Galleon” Richard
Carpentry Interns
Jacob Thompson
Laurel Capps
Painting Scenic Charge
Mikah Berky
Lead Scenic Artists
Lia Akkerhuis
Nathan Jasunas
Paint Interns
Gabriela Ahumada
Gwendoline Chen
Properties
Properties Supervisor
Jennifer McClure
Properties Craftsperson
Steve Lopez
Properties Associate
Zach Faber
Properties Stock Manager
Mark Dionne
Properties Assistant
Destany Langfield
Digital Technology Associates
Edison Dule
Garry Heyward
Senior Administrative Assistant to Business Office, Digital and Web Technology, Facility Operations, Human Resources, Tessitura
Monique Moore
Database Application Consultants
Ben Silvert
Erich Bolton
Financial Aid, Admissions, and Student Services
Financial Aid Officer
Andre Massiah
Registrar/Admissions Administrator
Ariel Yan
Non-Clinical Counselor
Krista Dobson
Senior Administrative Assistant to Financial Aid and Admissions
Laura Torino
Marketing, Communications, & Audience Services
Director of Marketing
Daniel Cress
Director of Communications
Steven Padla
Senior Associate Director of Marketing and Communications
Caitlin Griffin
Associate Director of Marketing and Communications
Taylor Ybarra
Senior Administrative Assistant to Marketing and Communications
Mishelle Raza
Publications Manager, Artwork, and Program Designer
Marguerite Elliott
Director of Audience Services
Laura Kirk
Assistant Director of Audience Services
Shane Quinn
Subscriptions Coordinator
Tracy Baldini
Audience Services Associate Molly Leona
Customer Service and Safety Officers
Teo Baldwin
Ralph Black, Jr.
Kevin Delaney
Box Office Assistants
Taylor Blackman, Pilar
Bylinsky, Emma Fusco, Jordan Graf, Aaron Magloire, Diana
Shyshkova, Elliot Valentine, Timothy “TJ” Wildow
Accessibility Assistant
Prentiss Patrick-Carter
Theater Safety and Occupational Health
Director of Theater Safety and Occupational Health
Anna Glover
Assistant Director of Theater Safety
Kelly O’Loughlin
Associate Safety Advisors
Jazzmin Bonner
Matteo Lanzarotta
Catherine MacKay
Alesandra Reto Lopez
Meredith Wilcox
Operations
Director of Facility Operations
Nadir Balan
Associate Director of Operations
Brandon Fuller
Operations Assistant
Devon Reaves
Facilities Area Manager
Joey Adcock
Arts and Graduate Studies Superintendents
Jennifer Draughn, Francisco
Eduardo Pimentel
Custodial Team Leaders
Andrew Mastriano
Sherry Stanley
Facility Stewards
Ronald Douglas, Marcia Riley
Custodians
Tylon Frost, Willia Grant, Cassandra Hobby, Melloney Lucas, Shanna Ramos, Jerome Sonia
David Geffen School of Drama and Yale Repertory Theatre are supported by the work of over 200 faculty members.
For a complete faculty listing by program and department, please visit drama.yale.edu/about-us