Sixth Annual Carlotta Festival of New Plays, Yale School of Drama, 2011.

MAY 6 TO 14, 2011

ya l e s c h o o l o f d r a m a james bundy, dean victoria nolan, deputy dean paula vogel, chair, playwriting ken prestininzi, Associate chair presents the

BLACKTOP SKY

By Christina Anderson Directed by Devin Brain

PASSING

By Dipika Guha Directed by Charlotte Brathwaite

THE TALL GIRLS

By Meg Miroshnik

Directed by Mike Donahue

season media sponsor

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Carlotta FESTIVAL play schedule MAY 2011 sun

mon

tues

wed

thur

01 02 03 04 05

08

09

8PM Tall Girls

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10 8PM Blacktop

fri

sat

06

07

8PM Blacktop

8PM Passing

11

12

13

14

2PM Passing

2PM Blacktop

2PM Tall Girls

2pm Passing

8PM Tall Girls

8PM Passing

8PM Blacktop

8PM Tall Girls

Welcome!

It’s amazing how quickly time flies at Yale School of Drama when you are witnessing the creation of new plays. Three years have come and gone in a blur of pages written by these three singular, exciting writers: Christina Anderson, Dipika Guha, and Meg Miroshnik.

We are so proud and pleased that you have joined us for the 6th Annual Carlotta Festival of New Plays. We are witnessing the launch of these writers who promise decades of brilliant new work in the field. Over the past three years, they have engaged us here in New Haven with their workshops, their cabarets, their performances, their installations, and their teaching. As I write this letter, their plays are being produced across the country—from theatres on Cape Cod to theatres on the brink of the Pacific.

I hope you will see all three of the plays at this year’s festival—they’re a celebration not only of these voices, but of the vibrant community of artists who work and flourish in New Haven. We celebrate the rising directors, actors, dramaturgs, managers, designers, and technicians—our theatrical village—and it’s a time for the faculty colleagues who have mentored them to celebrate as well. In the past six years, hundreds of guests from our industry and from New Haven have attended the Festival, and we are pleased to see you in the audience tonight.

I predict that, some years hence, we will look back at the beginning of these careers, forged with faith and graced with gifts. And together we will be able to say: we knew them when…

Paula Vogel Chair, Playwriting Department

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blacktop sky

by Christina Anderson directed by Devin Brain

ARTISTIC TEAM Scenic Designer

Timothy Brown

Costume Designer

rebecca l. welles

Lighting Designer

hyun seung nina lee

Sound composer

elizabeth atkinson

Dramaturg

anne erbe

Stage Manager

catherine costanzo

CAST in alphabetical order

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Klass

Will cobbs

Wynn

winston duke

Ida

sheria irving

about BLACKTOP SKY You are here: A blacktop courtyard, at the center of four buildings, which form the David L. Hynn Housing Projects, in an unidentified metropolis.

Or, as poet Claudia Rankine writes in the final passage of Don’t Let Me Be Lonely, “one meaning of here is ‘In this world, in this life, on earth. In this place or position, indicating the presence of,’ or in other words, I am here. It also means to hand something to somebody—Here you are. Here, he said to her. Here both recognizes and demands recognition. I see you, or here, he said to her. In order for something to be handed over a hand must extend and a hand must receive. We must both be here in this world in this life in this presence indicating the presence of.”

—Anne Erbe, Production Dramaturg

about playwright

Christina Anderson

Plays include DRIP, Inked Baby, Sweet Brown Ginger, and The W8 Play. Her work has been produced or developed at American Conservatory Theater, Penumbra Theatre Company, About Face Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Crowded Fire, Ars Nova, and other theatres across the country. Yale School of Drama productions include Man in Love and Good Goods; at Yale Cabaret: Hollow Roots. Awards and honors include Schwarzman Legacy Scholarship awarded by Paula Vogel, Susan Smith Blackburn nomination, Lorraine Hansberry Award (American College Theater Festival), Van Lier Playwriting Fellowship (New Dramatists), Wasserstein Prize nomination (Dramatists Guild), and Lucille Lortel Fellowship (Brown University). Ms. Anderson has a BA from Brown University with honors in creative writing. For more information visit christinaranderson.com.

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BLACKTOP SKY cast WILL COBBS (KLASS) is a second-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama.

He began his career working in Atlanta at Georgia Ensemble Theatre, Theatre in the Square, and Alliance Theatre. His credits include The Servant of Two Masters (Yale Rep); A Streetcar Named Desire, Every Other Hamlet In The Universe, Thriftcrawl (Yale School of Drama); as well as Yellowman and In the Red and Brown Water. He also played PFC Brian Day on Lifetime’s Army Wives.

WINSTON DUKE (WYNN) is a first-year MFA candidate at Yale school of Drama.

His native country is the Caribbean islands of Trinidad and Tobago. He attended the University at Buffalo where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in acting. His credits include Lit 401, To Kill a Mockingbird, and understudying The Piano Lesson at Yale Rep.

SHERIA IRVING (IDA) is a first-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama. She made her Yale Cabaret debut in Christina Anderson’s one-woman show Hollow Roots and also appeared there in Trannequin!. Some of her regional theatre credits include Cleopatra, The Election, Four Women Friends (AFW Repertory), and Steal Away (Paul Robeson Theater).

BLACKTOP SKY artistic team ELIZABETH ATKINSON (SOUND COMPOSER) is a second-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama where she composed music and sound for A Streetcar Named Desire. Liz came to New Haven from Pittsburgh, where she was resident sound designer at City Theatre for twelve years. Her extensive freelance career included regional theatre credits at Hartford Stage, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Emelin Theatre, Pittsburgh Playhouse Repertory, Quantum Theatre, and Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette named her Sound Designer of the Year in 2003, 2006, and 2007. She was also an adjunct faculty member at Point Park and Carnegie Mellon Universities.

DEVIN BRAIN (DIRECTOR) is a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama.

His recent directing credits include Much Ado About Nothing, Eurydice, Macbeth, The Droll (Yale School of Drama); The Phoenix (Yale Summer Cabaret); The Maids, Orestes (Yale Cabaret); and The 4th Graders Present An Unnamed Love-Suicide.

He was one of the artistic directors for Yale Cabaret’s 2009–10 season and is a member of the Chicago-based Hypocrites Theatre Company.

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TIMOTHY BROWN (SCENIC DESIGNER) received his MFA from Yale School of Drama in 2010, where his credits included Man=Man and Love’s Labour’s Lost. While at Yale, he also designed the sets for Yale Rep’s production of The Master Builder. He received his BFA in scenic design from the University of Miami, where he designed sets and lights for productions of A New Brain, Electra, How I Learned to Drive, Falsettos, Kimberly Akimbo, Reckless, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He is also a resident designer for Miami’s Fresco Productions, where he designed world premieres of Reconstructing Mama and The Penguin Tango, presented as part of the 2006 New York International Fringe Festival and the Fringe Encore Series.

CATHERINE COSTANZO (STAGE MANAGER) is a second-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where her credits include Jib, Phèdre, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Good Goods, and The Bottle Breakers. She recently served as assistant stage manager for Yale Rep’s A Delicate Balance and currently serves as an artistic associate for Yale Cabaret. Regional stage management credits include Northern Stage, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Pittsburgh Playwrights, Cape Fear Regional Theatre, Yale Summer Cabaret, and others. Catherine received her BA in English and theatre arts from the University of Pittsburgh.

ANNE ERBE (DRAMATURG) is a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where she has worked on playwright Christina Anderson’s Man in Love, Good Goods, and Hollow Roots; director Charlotte Brathwaite’s A Streetcar Named Desire and A Midsummer Night’s Dream; and director Lileana Blain-Cruz’s The Taming of the Shrew.

She is a former Co-Artistic Producer of The Foundry Theatre and has worked as an independent producer and fundraising consultant with Lear deBessonet, Soho Think Tank, The Play Company, and International WOW Company in New York City.

HYUN SEUNG NINA LEE (LIGHTING DESIGNER) is a second-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where she has designed lighting for Macbeth, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Vaska Vaska, Glöm (Yale Cabaret). She also designed lighting for Connecticut College’s 2010 senior dance show. She is a graduate of York University, Canada, where she received her BFA in theatre design.

REBECCA L. WELLES (COSTUME DESIGNER) is a second-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama where her design credits include Eurydice. Prior to Yale, she designed for the University of New Haven, where her credits include Two Rooms, A Flea in Her Ear, and Zombies from the Beyond. She is a Connecticut native and received her BA in psychology and technical theatre from Southern Connecticut State University, where she designed a number of shows, including Arsenic and Old Lace, Cannibal! The Musical, One Thousand Cranes, and Time Flies.

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PASSING

by Dipika Guha

directed by Charlotte Brathwaite

ARTISTIC TEAM Scenic Designer

Julia C. Lee

Costume Designer

Mark Nagle

Lighting Designer

Yi Zhao

Sound designer

michael vincent skinner

Projection designer

Sarah lasley

Dramaturg

kate attwell

Stage Manager

brandon curtis

CAST in alphabetical order Matilda

Molly bernard

Sidney Bates

lucas dixon

Clara Bates

laura gragtmans

Colonel Patrick

Max Roll

Martha Highgate Hannah Sorenson

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about passing

I was raised between India and England, and English is, in fact, my first language. I grew up reading Victorian novels and the Russians in translation. English literature was sacred territory. It was where I felt most at home. Still, I’ve always had the dogged feeling that I am sitting in someone else’s church.

I wrote, or rather, collected, Passing while I was travelling. I journeyed through eight major cities over three continents in six weeks. Like most tourists, I gravitated to places that varied little in terms of their layout: had sharply defined organising principles and handy maplets. Museums soothingly led me through glass-paned descriptions of historical events, important landmarks, and local craft displays. They fulfilled this one traveller’s need not to feel stupid and lost.

However, after visits to numerous museums, a sense of discomfort had accrued. Sitting in a particular national history museum on a wooden pew in an empty reconstructed missionary church, I heard the absence of voices. It shook me. Had the ordering of people’s personal histories into the clean, linear framework of storytelling trapped, instead of liberated, them? Displaced first by a colonizing power (that at one point held a quarter of the earth’s land area) were these voices being once again ordered to serve someone else’s agenda: the ‘greater’ nation-building enterprise of a post-country?

And can the atrocities of the past be contained in a singular narrative? Despite the museum’s best efforts to confront the most troubling aspects of the nation’s history by encorporating the stories of indigenous people, a palpable void persisted.

This rising sense of absence stayed with me as I moved to the next city and the next museum. It fuelled the next piece of the play. On the page, at least, I had found home.

—Dipika Guha

about playwright dipika guha Her plays include The State of Affairs (Yale School of Drama), The Betrothed (Yale School of Drama, Wellfleet Harbour Actors Theater), and Passing (Yale Cabaret).

Shorter plays include Habeas Corpus (workshopped at City College London) and In the Red, White and Blue (Theatre 4, New Haven). She is an ensemble member of GoodBelly Collective, a company of theatre makers at Yale whose work includes Bones in a Basket and Erebus and Terror. She has been a recipient of the Eugene O’Neill Scholarship, the Adele Kellenberg Fellowship, and the Frank Knox Memorial Fellowship at Harvard University. She taught playwriting both at Fairfield University and at Cooperative Performing Arts High School in New Haven through the Yale O’Neill Playwriting Program. She studied English at University College in London and is a graduate of the Young Writers Programme at the Royal Court Theatre. This summer, she will be a writer on the Old Vic New Voices T.S. Eliot Exchange and will be working as a Teaching Artist for Yale School of Drama/Yale Repertory Theatre’s Dwight/Edgewood Project.

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PASSING cast MOLLY BERNARD (MATILDA) is a first-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama.

Past credits this year include She Rode Horses Like the Stock Exchange as part of New Play Lab, and pleasureD at Yale Cabaret (co-created with two other School of Drama actresses). Molly is a recent graduate of Skidmore College.

LUCAS DIXON (SIDNEY BATES) is a second-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where his credits include The Taming of the Shrew, Jib, the friendship of her thighs, Uncle Vanya, elijah, One Day it Came, and Thriftcrawl. His other stage credits include Debut, The Wedding Reception, Normal, 4.48 Psychosis (Yale Cabaret); House of Home, Western Country (Williamstown Theatre Festival); Twelfth Night, Coriolanus, and King Lear (Utah Shakespearean Festival). He received his BFA from Otterbein College. This summer, he will play the role of Andrei in the Chautauqua Theater Company’s production of Three Sisters.

LAURA GRAGTMANS (CLARA BATES) is a second-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where her roles include Margaret in Henry VI Parts 2 and 3, Hero in Much Ado About Nothing, Brandy in Tall Skinny Cruel Cruel Boys, Marina in Uncle Vanya, Joan in Far Away, and Allison in Every Other Hamlet In The Universe. Other performances include The Witch in Into the Woods, Joanne in Company (University of Evansville); we declare you a terrorist (New Harmony Project); Chautauqua! (Long Wharf Theatre); and the understudy to Clarice in The Servant of Two Masters (Yale Repertory Theatre).

This summer she will play Masha in the Chautauqua Theater Company’s production of Three Sisters.

MAX ROLL (COLONEL PATRICK) is a first-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama.

Previous projects include Hong Kong Dinosaur and Trannequin!, which he also cocomposed (Yale Cabaret). Max holds a BFA from Queens College.

HANNAH SORENSON (MARTHA HIGHGATE) is a first-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where she was last seen in The Game Room for the New Play Lab. Other credits include Twelfth Night, Eurydice, Spring Awakening, The Maids, Les Belles Soeur, Action, and The Little Prince (St. Olaf College). She received her BA in theatre from St. Olaf College.

PASSING artistic team KATE ATTWELL (DRAMATURG) is a first-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama.

She has worked in various capacities at The Donmar Warehouse, The BAC (London), and The Market Theatre (Johannesburg). She was assistant director to Jonathan Munby on a promenade performance of Shakespeare’s Pericles, and Martin White on Tony Harrison’s The Oresteia. She is a founding member of Be the Monkey, a children’s performance company based in Bristol. Previous Yale productions include Amelia 10

Roper’s She Rode Horses like the Stock Exchange (Yale School of Drama); William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (assistant dramaturg, Yale Repertory Theatre); Amelia Roper’s Hong Kong Dinosaur, pleasureD, and Caroline V. McGraw’s Debut...Track One Chord One Verse One (Or, The Shed) (Yale Cabaret). Kate holds a BA in theatre and film from the University of Bristol.

CHARLOTTE BRATHWAITE (DIRECTOR) is a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama. As a director, her work has been presented in America, Mexico, the Netherlands, Germany, and Croatia. Most recently, she directed A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Good Goods by Christina Anderson (Yale School of Drama); and American Schemes

by Radha Blank, commissioned and produced by NYC Summerstage. A native of Toronto, Canada, she joined La MaMa E.T.C.’s Great Jones Repertory as an actor at the age of 16 and performed in New York and internationally with the company in over a dozen countries. Charlotte holds a BA from the Amsterdam School for the Arts in the Netherlands and is the recipient of a 2010 Princess Grace Foundation George C. Wolfe Award. Upcoming projects include directing Trevor Rhone’s Smile Orange for Frontline Theatre in Trinidad, West Indies and co-authoring and directing Cleopatra: Dead Men Don’t Bite with the Aarshi Theater Group in Calcutta, India. Charlotte dedicates her work to the loving memory of her hero and Mama Ellen Stewart.

BRANDON CURTIS (STAGE MANAGER) is a second-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama where his credits include Macbeth (stage manager); La Ronde and the things are against us (assistant stage manager). He also served as assistant stage manager on Bossa Nova at Yale Rep. Other credits include The Phoenix, Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Yale Summer Cabaret); Passing, and The Maids (Yale Cabaret). Brandon graduated with a BA in theatre from The Ohio State University in 2009.

SARAH LASLEY (PROJECTION DESIGNER) is a filmmaker living in New York City. She has taught video art at Vassar College and Yale School of Art. Her projection design credits include Blood Dazzler (Harlem Stage), Every Other Hamlet In The Universe, The Current War, 99 Ways to F@%k a Swan (Yale School of Drama); Missed Connections and Babs the Dodo (Yale Cabaret). Her filmmaking credits include Gloria Mundi, EVE, She She, and the film version of Jib (Yale School of Drama), as well as recurring collaborations with Brenna Palughi, Michael McQuilken, and New Theater House. She received her MFA from Yale School of Art and her BFA from the University of Louisville in Kentucky.

JULIA C. LEE (SCENIC DESIGNER), originally from Taiwan, is a second-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama. She received her BA with double majors in theatre and drama and sociology from National Taiwan University. She is the recipient of the Donald and Zorka Oenslager Scholarship in Stage Design and the Eldon Elder 11

PASSING artistic team Fellowship. Her theatre credits include sets for Eurydice (Yale School of Drama); Hollow Roots, Erebus and Terror, and Salome (Yale Cabaret); The Dining Room, Under Queen’s Bridge, and 4.48 Psychosis (National Taiwan University). She has also worked as an assistant director for The Spurt of Blood (National Taiwan University) and actor for Black White Zoo (Critical Point Theatre Phenomenon). Read more about her work at juliaclee.com.

MARK NAGLE (COSTUME DESIGNER) is a second-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where his credits include Jib. He is the recipient of the Donald M. Oenslager Award for Stage Design. Some of his designs have included sets for Far Away and costumes for pleasureD (Yale Cabaret), Close Up Space (Chautauqua Theater Company), and String Fever (Yellow Taxi Productions). He also was the in-house costume assistant at American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco for two seasons. He graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a BA in social work.

MICHAEL VINCENT SKINNER (SOUND DESIGNER) Theatre credits include White Embers (Samuel French 2010 OOB Short Play Festival Winner), Drowning the Sun, Cracked (Upon A Time), and PVT. Wars! (Royal Pyngwyn Collective), all in New York; the things are against us, Phèdre, The French Play, Much Ado About Nothing (Yale School of Drama); The Musicality Radio Hour, The Rocky Horror Show, Far Away, Good Words, Evil Dead: The Musical, Bitter Sauce (Yale Cabaret); Cloud Tectonics (Amherst College); Pulling Apart, Arsenic and Old Lace, Cannibal! The Musical, A Piece of My Heart, Anything Goes (Southern CT State University); Gathering Shells, Medea (Quinnipiac University); Pink Floyd’s The Wall (Black Onion Players); The Who’s Tommy, The Mystery of Twicknam Vicarage, The Radical Radio Show, The Musicality Series (Puzzle Piece Theatre); Seussical The Musical, Honk, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (City of New Haven); Bossa Nova, and Compulsion (Associate Designer, Yale Rep). Film: The Seven Brothers of Waterbury. Currently a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, he received his BA at Southern Connecticut State University. His designs have been recognized by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the New England Theatre Conference. Mike is currently in the local Beatles tribute band BECAUSE! and recently performed in Jib (Yale School of Drama) and Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Yale Summer Cabaret).

YI ZHAO (LIGHTING DESIGNER) is a second-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where he designed lighting for Jib, Eurydice, and Othello. Yale Cabaret credits include Into the Blue, Underneath the Lintel, and Nijinsky’s Last Dance. Professional credits include John Moran and Saori Tsukada’s touring dance operetta Saori’s Birthday!

(US and Europe), multiple plays directed by Anna Brenner, and shows at PS122, Ontological-Hysteric Theater, the Chocolate Factory, and other venues in New York and Chicago. Yi grew up in Beijing and Paris and graduated from the University of Chicago.

He is also a stage photographer. His work can be seen at yi-zhao.com.

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the tall girls

by Meg Miroshnik

directed by Mike Donahue

ARTISTIC TEAM Scenic Designer

Matt Saunders

Costume Designer

NiC Mramer

Lighting Designer

Hyun Seung Nina Lee

Sound designer

Jennifer Lynn Jackson

Dramaturg

Benjamin fainstein

Stage Manager

Maria Cantin

CAST in alphabetical order

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Jean

Monique Bernadette Barbee

Haunt Johnny

Joshua Bermudez

Inez/Basketball Captain

Miriam A. Hyman

Lurlene

Brenda Meaney

Almeda

Marissa Neitling

Puppy

Carmen Zilles

about The tall girls From Hoop Skirts to Hoop Dreams Basketball was invented during the harsh Massachusetts winter of 1891 as an indoor outlet for boys’ physical fitness and the expulsion of their pent-up adolescent aggression. The following year, Senda Berenson brought the game to her female students at Smith College, altering some of the rules to focus her students on teamwork and cooperation, rather than on sheer competition. Traveling out of one’s zone, snatching the ball from another player, and dribbling more than 3 bounces at a time were prohibited, as was running more than 5 feet without passing. On March 21, 1893, the first game was played at Smith. To preserve decency, no men were permitted to watch and, to insure this, the doors of the gym were locked. The game spread like wildfire, and by 1895 girls’ basketball flourished all over the country.

In 1922, Mrs. Lou Henry Hoover—wife of Herbert, the then-Secretary of Commerce and president-to-be, and herself president of the Girl Scouts—spearheaded the formation of the Women’s Division of the National Amateur Athletic Federation (WDNAAF). “Play for play’s sake” was one of its mottos, and that meant eliminating “highly intense, specialized competition.” Girls were advised not to play too hard, not to fight to win—not even to sweat. The WDNAAF grew to oppose extramural girls’ basketball, deeming it an unladylike activity posing a threat to childbearing.

The early 1930s saw the nation sinking into economic depression and suffering through a devastating drought. Warding off threats of foreclosure and destitution was a continual struggle for Midwestern farm families in particular; in the face of such a crisis, their relationship to “play for play’s sake” would inevitably have to change. Amid the uncertainty and loss, bright spots emerged. The year 1936 marked the formation of The All-American Red Heads, a team of gifted women who toured the country playing exhibitions against men’s teams. Soon other teams formed, and a small number of women were able to play ball on a semi-professional level. By this time, though, recommendations from the WDNAAF had gained favor in countless towns throughout the United States, effectively crippling girls’ high school basketball until its meteoric resurgence in 1972, when Title IX of the Civil Rights Act was amended to prohibit the exclusion of participation in any educational program or activity on the basis of sex.

The Tall Girls sweeps us up into the game’s history like the dust storms closing in on Poor Prairie, reminding us of the potentially transformative power of sport.

“When a player gets the ball it should be hers by the laws of victory, ownership, courtesy, fair play.” —Senda Berenson, 1899 —benjamin fainstein, dramaturg 15

about playwright meg miroshnik Productions at Yale School of Drama include The Droll, directed by Devin Brain, and Ah, Americans!, directed by Charlotte Brathwaite. At Yale Cabaret: Good Words, directed by Andrew Z. Kelsey, and A Portrait of the Woman as a Young Artist, directed

by Devin Brain. The Droll {Or, a Stage-Play about the END of Theatre}, directed by David Chambers, was included in the 2011 Pacific Playwrights Festival at South Coast Repertory. Her play, The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls, is the 2011–2012 Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Award winner and will be produced by Alliance Theatre in 2012.

Meg’s work has been produced or developed by Perishable Theatre, Brown New Plays Festival, WordBRIDGE Playwrights Laboratory, A.R.T. Institute, Powerhouse Theatre, and published in The Best American Short Plays, 2008–2009 (Applause, 2010). She was a visiting instructor in theatre at Wesleyan University in the fall of 2010 and a visiting teaching artist at New Haven’s Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School.

Upcoming projects include a new adaptation of the libretto for Shostakovich’s opera Moscow, Cheryomushki with re-orchestration by Gerard McBurney and directed by Mike Donahue, for Chicago Opera Theater’s 2012 season; a workshop at The Kennedy Center; and a commission for a new play for South Coast Repertory. Meg is originally from Minneapolis.

THE TALL GIRLS cast MONIQUE BERNADETTE BARBEE (JEAN) is a first-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama. She is a recent graduate of Southern Oregon University, where she earned a BFA in acting.

JOSHUA BERMUDEZ (HAUNT JOHNNY) is a first-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama. His most recent work includes the title role in Othello (High Concept Labs, Chicago), Marc in Art: A Benefit Project for Haiti, Huey in Italian-American Reconciliation, and John Proctor in The Crucible (Arena Theater, Chicago). He lives in New Haven with his wife, Amanda, with whom he is currently working on a short film production entitled Orpheus.

MIRIAM A. HYMAN (INEZ/BASKETBALL CAPTAIN) is a second-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where she has appeared in A Streetcar Named Desire, Much Ado about Nothing, Henry VI, elijah, and Thriftcrawl. Other credits include The Dreamer Examines His Pillow (Shakespeare & Company); What You Will, The Skin of Our Teeth (Bristol Riverside Theatre); Young Lady From Rwanda, Twelfth Night, The Man From Nebraska, for which she received a Barrymore Award nomination for best supporting actress (Peoples Light & Theatre); The BFG (Big Friendly Giant) (Arden Theatre Company); The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew (Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival); The Story (Philadelphia Theatre 16

Company); Resurrection Blues (The Wilma Theater); An Artist’s Workshop (Azuka Theatre); and Black Nativity (Freedom Theatre). Miriam was a nominee in 2007 and 2008 for the F. Otto Haas award for an Emerging Philadelphia Theatre Artist and was most recently nominated for the 2011 Princess Grace Award. Television and film credits include The Wire, Conviction, Law & Order, Malevolence, Angel Rodriguez, Inclinations, and Music City. She received her BFA from The University of the Arts and is a proud member of SAG and Actors’ Equity Association. Amongst other sports, Miriam played three years of varsity basketball as a forward and shooting guard. Before the merger of the WNBA and the ABL (American Basketball League), she was also a ball girl for the ABL team Philadelphia Rage led by three-time Olympian, point guard Dawn Staley.

BRENDA MEANEY (LURLENE) is a first-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama.

Recent work includes Basin (Abbey Theatre Studio/Anu Productions, Absolut Dublin Theatre Festival Fringe), The Way of the Language: Voices from the War on Terror (Painted Filly Theatre, Bleaker Street Theatre, NYC/ Project Arts Centre, Dublin), and Memory Deleted (commissioned by the Beltable Theatre, Limerick). Television credits include Love/Hate (Radio Telifís Éireann). Brenda is an associate artist of Painted Filly Theatre, a Dublin-based company dedicated to the development of new writing. She received her BA in history of art from Trinity College, Dublin.

MARISSA NEITLING (ALMEDA) is a first-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, who was recently seen at Yale Cabaret playing Georgia in Trannequin!. Past credits include Diana in A Chorus Line, Sister Mary Leo in Nunsense (Broadway Rose Theatre Company), Nancy in Oliver!, Alice in You Can’t Take It With You, Cinderella in Into the Woods (Lakewood Theatre Company), Sara in Stop Kiss, April in Company, and Florence in Waiting for Lefty (University of Oregon). Marissa graduated from the Robert D. Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon where she majored in mathematics and theatre arts.

CARMEN ZILLES (PUPPY) is a first-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama.

Her credits include José Rivera’s Boleros for the Disenchanted (Barksdale Theatre, Best Actress 2010, Richmond Theatre Critics Circle Award), Hekabe (Oval Theatre, London, directed by Mark Wing-Davey), and Wallace Shawn’s Grasses of a Thousand Colors (Royal Court Theatre, London, directed by André Gregory). New York readings and workshops include Wallace Shawn’s adaptation of The Master Builder (directed by André Gregory), Chimichangas and Zoloft (Atlantic Theater Company), underneathmybed (LAByrinth Theater Company), The Lie Is to Our Benefit (Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre), blu (New York Theatre Workshop), The Old Masters (with Sam Waterston), and Stunning (Lincoln Center Theater, assistant to David Adjmi).

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THE TALL GIRLS artistic team MARIA CANTIN (STAGE MANAGER) is a second-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where her credits include A Streetcar Named Desire, Every Other Hamlet In The Universe, The Droll, The Seagull, and Buffalo, Maine. Other credits include Normal, Future Oprah Lovesong (Yale Cabaret); and Stuck Elevator (Yale Institute for Music Theatre). She is a graduate of Hillsdale College.

MIKE DONAHUE (DIRECTOR) is a New York-based freelance director of new plays, classics, musicals, and opera. Upcoming projects include a new piece by Janine Nabers for the Old Vic New Voices US/UK exchange to London, a workshop of Max Vernon’s new musical Wired for Ars Nova, A Number for Playmakers Repertory Company, and Shostakovich’s Moscow, Cheryomushki for Chicago Opera Theater.

Mike has directed for the A.R.T. (Institute and Club Oberon), NYU Graduate Acting, EST Youngblood, The Studio NYC, The Wild Project, Terra Firma at City Center (Stage II), The DUMBO Wave Rising Festival, Williamstown Theatre Festival (workshop), University of North Carolina Graduate Acting, Yale Dramat, and Yale Summer Cabaret, where he was also the Artistic Director for two seasons. Mike has also directed readings and workshops for Soho Rep (Writer/Director Lab), Dramatists Guild at Playwrights Horizons, Working Theater, Studio 42, and the German Consulate; and worked with many talented writers, including Chay Yew, Kimberly Rosenstock, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Erica Lipez, Andy Bragen, Heather Lind, Lauren Feldman, Chris Pena, and Emily Chadick Weiss. Mike is a recipient of a Fulbright to Berlin, the Dramaleague Fall Directing Fellowship, the Tennessee Williams Fellowship from the University of the South, a Theatertreffen International Forum Fellow (Berlin), a member of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, and winner of the Inaugural Opera America Director-Designer Showcase Award. Mike is a graduate of Harvard University (Louis Sudler Prize for Artistic Excellence) and Yale School of Drama (MFA). mikemdonahue.com

BENJAMIN FAINSTEIN (DRAMATURG) is a first-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where he has worked on Ruzante, Future Oprah Lovesong, Crumbs, and The Game Room. He is the former co-founding artistic director of Whistler in the Dark Theatre and holds a BA from Middlebury College. He has worked in various capacities at theatres in Boston and Washington, DC and he looks forward to directing for the Dwight/Edgewood Project this summer.

JENNIFER LYNN JACKSON (SOUND DESIGNER) is a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where her sound design and original music credits include Uncle Vanya, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Seagull. Other credits include

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Romeo and Juliet and assistant sound designer for Compulsion, Rough Crossing (Yale Repertory Theatre); and Les Misérables (Pioneer Theatre Company). She earned her BFA with an emphasis in sound design from the University of Utah in 2008.

During the summer, she often spends her time teaching for a youth theatre program in Salt Lake City, Utah. Currently, she is writing her first musical.

HYUN SEUNG NINA LEE (LIGHTING DESIGNER) Please turn to page 7 for her bio.

NIC MRAMER (COSTUME DESIGNER) is a second-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where he assisted on Phèdre. His design credits include Debut (Yale Cabaret) and he also worked on The Servant of Two Masters (Yale Repertory Theatre). Nic holds a degree in film and video production from Butler University and also attended the University of New South Wales in Sydney, where he studied film and interned as a production assistant at Channel 7. After spending several years working as a graphic designer, Nic returned to school at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where his credits include The Grapes of Wrath (assistant costume design); Man of La Mancha, South Pacific (assistant set design); and Marat/Sade (costume designer). For Atlas Theatre, he designed costumes and sets for three staged chamber operas: Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, and Davies’s Eight Songs for a Mad King and Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot. He also worked for a year in Budapest, Hungary.

MATT SAUNDERS (SCENIC DESIGNER) is a second-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where he designed the projections and sets for Jib. He has designed over sixty shows for companies such as The Wilma Theater, Arden Theatre Company, Walnut Street Theatre, Pig Iron Theatre Company, the Bessie Awardwinning Headlong Dance Theater, and the Tony Award-winning Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis. He is also the Associate Artistic Director of New Paradise Laboratories (NPL) and has been involved in all of NPL’s works as both a scenic designer and a performer, most notably in Batch at the Humana Festival of New American Plays. Matt’s design for NPL’s Fatebook in 2008, has been selected to represent American Set Design at the 2011 Prague Quadrennial. Matt is the recipient of the 2007 F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Philadelphia Theatre Artist. He is also a Barrymore Award-winning performer. Matt is a graduate of Virginia Tech with a BA in theatre and visual art. He is also a graduate of the Scuola Internazionale dell’Attore Comico in Reggio Emilia, Italy, conducted by master teacher Antonio Fava. mattsaunders.net

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Costume Shop Manager Tom McAlister Associate Costume Shop Manager Robin Hirsch Assistant Costume Shop Manager Shaminda Amarakoon

production staff Associate Production Supervisor Joe Stoltman

Draper Clarissa Wylie Youngberg

Production Stage Manager Allison Hall Johnson

Senior First Hand Deborah Bloch

Associate Managing Director Martha O. Jurczak

Master Carpenters Matt Gaffney Sharon Reinhardt

Assistant Scenic Designers Meredith Ries Kristen Robinson Assistant Lighting Designers Masha Tsimring Solomon Weisbard Technical Director Mikey Rohrer Master Electrician Andrew V. Wallace Assistant Master Electrician Daniel Perez Properties Master C. Nikki Mills Assistant Properties Master Brian MacInnis Smallwood Production Sound Engineer Palmer Hefferan Projection Supervisor Erich Bolton Stage Carpenter Amy Jonas

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Senior Draper Mary Zihal

Staff Carpenters Brandon Fuller Ryan Gardner Scenic Charges Allison Jackson Ru-Jung Wang Head Electricians Jason Wells Linda Young Build Crew Hsiao Ya Chen Justin Elie Shania Graboyes Ryan Christopher Hales Nora Hyland Bona Lee Christopher Russo Andrew V. Wallace Electrics Crew Shania Graboyes Nora Hyland Jillian Taylor Adina Verson Changeover Crew Michael Backhaus Eric Casanova Jonathan Pellow Robert Shearin

Sound Crew Junghoon Pi

Assistant Technical Director Hannah Shafran

Properties Crew Nicole Bromley Nora Hyland Adam Rigg Christopher Russo

Projections Operator Paul Lieber

Program Design and Cover Photos Marguerite Elliott Management Assistant Jennifer Lagundino House Manager Tara Kayton

Additional Staff for Blacktop Sky Assistant Stage Manager Geoff Boronda Assistant Sound Designer Palmer Hefferan Assistant Technical Director Kenyth X. Thomason Deck/Props Ted Griffith Wardrobe Keri Klick Light Board Operator Martha Kaufman Sound Board Operator Jake Jeppson

Deck/Props Alyssa K. Howard Amy Jonas Wardrobe Caroline V. McGraw Light Board Operator Amelia Roper Sound Board Operator Orlando Chavez

Additional Staff for The Tall Girls Assistant Stage Manager Nicole Marconi Assistant Sound Designer/Engineer Matthew Otto Assistant Technical Director Alex Bergeron Basketball Consultant Miriam A. Hyman Fight Choreographer Mike Rossmy Scenic Charge April Nichole Chateauneuf Deck/Props Martyna Majok

Additional Staff for Passing

Wardrobe Kristin Fiebig

Assistant Stage Manager Alyssa K. Howard

Light Board Operator Justin A. Taylor

Assistant Sound Designer Kenneth Goodwin

Sound Board Operator Junghoon Pi

Assistant Projection Designer Kristen Robinson

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SPECIAL THANKS Steven Albert

Scott Hillier

Fisher Neal

Jessica Amato

Kari Hodges

Roberta Pereira

Suzanne Appel

Ben Horner

Mike and Pat Peterson

Dede Ayite

Jake Jeppson

The Playwriting

Beatrice Basso

Jesse Jou

Workshop at YSD

Danny Binstock

Martha Kaufman

Da’Vine Joy Randolph

Stephen Buescher

Gabe Levey

Amelia Roper

Celina Burgueño

Anna Loar

Kim Rosenstock

Helena Burgueño

Irene Sofia Lucio

Laraine Sammler

Linda Cohen

Martyna Majok

Blake Segal

Tanya Dean

Deb Margolin

Shannon Marie Sullivan

Bill DeMerritt

Caroline V. McGraw

Dominic Taylor

Lee Faulkner

Kellen McNally

Justin Taylor

Lauren Feldman

Michael McQuilken

Doug Wright

Kristin Fiebig

Chris Mirto

Yale Center for British Art

Sunder Ganglani

Hannah Rae

Stephanie Ybarra

Rachel Spencer Hewitt

Montgomery

Megan Sandberg-Zakian

Max Gordon Moore

CARloTTA MonTEREy , the widow of eugene o’neill, chose Yale university press as the publisher of Long Day’s Journey into Night. it is written on the copyright page of the first paperback edition that the proceeds from this publication of one of america’s greatest plays are to go to playwriting at Yale university.

Thank you, Carlotta.

Carlotta Festival of New Plays, May 6 –14, 2011 Yale School of Drama Iseman Theater, 1156 Chapel Street 24

YALE REP’S 2011–12 SEASON

SPECIAL THANKS Steven Albert

Scott Hillier

Fisher Neal

Jessica Amato

Kari Hodges

Roberta Pereira

Suzanne Appel

Ben Horner

Mike and Pat Peterson

Dede Ayite

Jake Jeppson

The Playwriting

Beatrice Basso

Jesse Jou

Workshop at YSD

Danny Binstock

Martha Kaufman

Da’Vine Joy Randolph

Stephen Buescher

Gabe Levey

Amelia Roper

Celina Burgueño

Anna Loar

Kim Rosenstock

Helena Burgueño

Irene Sofia Lucio

Laraine Sammler

Linda Cohen

Martyna Majok

Blake Segal

Tanya Dean

Deb Margolin

Shannon Marie Sullivan

Bill DeMerritt

Caroline V. McGraw

Dominic Taylor

Lee Faulkner

Kellen McNally

Justin Taylor

Lauren Feldman

Michael McQuilken

Doug Wright

Kristin Fiebig

Chris Mirto

Yale Center for British Art

Sunder Ganglani

Hannah Rae

Stephanie Ybarra

Rachel Spencer Hewitt

Montgomery

Megan Sandberg-Zakian

SUBSCRIPTIONS START AT $30 PER TICKET— SUBSCRIBE NOW!

YALEREP.ORG 203.432.1234

YALEREP@YALE.EDU

THREE SISTERS

By Anton Chekhov A New Version by Sarah Ruhl Directed by Les Waters A co-production with Berkeley Repertory Theatre

September 16 to October 8, 2011 World Premiere

BELLEVILLE

By Amy Herzog Directed by Anne Kauffman

October 21 to November 12, 2011

A DOCTOR IN SPITE OF HIMSELF

By Molière Adapted by Christopher Bayes and Steven Epp Directed by Christopher Bayes A co-production with Berkeley Repertory Theatre

November 25 to December 17, 2011

A NEW PLAY TO BE ANNOUNCED

Max Gordon Moore PLAYS, DATES, AND ARTISTS SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

February 3 to 25, 2012

THE WINTER’S TALE Carlotta Monterey, the widow of Eugene O’Neill, chose Yale University Press as the publisher of A Long Day’s Journey into Night. It is written on the copyright page of the first paperback edition that the proceeds from this publication of one of America’s greatest plays are to go to playwriting at Yale University.

By William Shakespeare Directed by Liz Diamond

March 16 to April 7, 2012 World Premiere

THE REALISTIC JONESES

By Will Eno Directed by Sam Gold

April 20 to May 12, 2012

Thank you, Carlotta.

Carlotta Festival of New Plays, May 6 –14, 2011 Yale School of Drama Iseman Theater, 1156 Chapel Street 24

JAM VICT ES BUND ORIA Y NOLA , ARTIST IC N, MA NAGIN DIRECTO R G DIR ECTO R