LAST
DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF DRAMA AT YALE
James Bundy, Elizabeth Parker Ware Dean Florie Seery, Associate Dean
Chantal Rodriguez, Associate Dean Carla L. Jackson, Assistant Dean Nancy Yao, Assistant Dean of Student Life
PRESENTS
LAST
By Christopher Bayes and The Company
Conceived and directed by Christopher Bayes
creative team
Composer and Music Director
Michael VQ
Production Dramaturg
Fabiola Andújar
Additional Music Composition
Aaron Halva
Stage Manager
Josie Cooper*
*Member of Actors’ Equity, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
Juice Mackins
“Little Magic Timmy (Don’t Compare me to Leslie) but I wish my name was Brooklyn Sinclair” as Harlequino and Angry Zanni
Gretta Marston
“trophy wife Jeannette but you can call me creamy nugget or cry-babysquirt” as Zanni and Shim
Francisco Morandi Zerpa
“Boy Scout Earnest (or if I may Derek, I have a follow up)” as Brighella
Bella Orobaton
Patootie Pootwell, or you can call me ‘one last fall apart’. But don’t EVER call me ‘Nothing Special’!!” as Pantalonx
Michael Saguto
“Lonely Christmas Wallingford, but you can call me Turtle, but I wish my name was Old Man Jenkins” as Fix It Guy, Tartaglia, and Pantalone
Max Sheldon
“plain ol’ timmy pick me up” as Fix It Guy
Emma Rosalyn Steiner
“Laugh it off Tina, but you can call me Boom Boom Boom” as Smeraldina
Henita Telo
“Vice principal Ruth but all my friends call me gazette” as Mr. Fix It and Pulcinella
content and atmospheric guidance
This production may contain profanity and (of) coarse language. It includes softly flashing lights throughout the show.
LAST is performed without an intermission.
This production is supported by The Benjamin Mordecai III Production Fund.
production
Associate Production Manager
Chloe Waters
Associate Safety Advisor
Mae Mironer
Run Crew
Andrew Rodriguez
Nicole Brooks Sanwandee
administration
Associate Managing Director
Victoria McNaughton
Assistant Managing Director
Jocelyn Lopez-Hagmann
Management Assistants
Chanel Johnson
Maya Simon
House Manager
Maura Bozeman
Production Photographer
Doaa Ouf
David Geffen School of Drama productions are supported by the work of more than 200 faculty and staff members throughout the year.
special thanks
Annie, E & Cos Acme Lighting
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.
The Studio Projects are designed to be learning experiences that complement classroom work, providing a medium for students at David Geffen School of Drama at Yale to combine their individual talents and energies toward the staging of collaboratively created works. Your attendance meaningfully completes this process.
THE BENJAMIN MORDECAI III PRODUCTION FUND , established by Peggy Cowles ’65, honors the memory of the Tony Award-winning producer who served as Managing Director of Yale Repertory Theatre, 1982–1993, and as Associate Dean and Chair of the Theater Management Program from 1993 until his death in 2005.
LAST
CLOWNFRONTATION
Particularly during periods of heightened political tension, those who interpret power through comedy soon find themselves among the targeted. Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel have recently exemplified the precariousness of humor, demonstrating (at the expense of their careers) the power laughter wields as an instrument of critique. Our recognition of laughter’s power has rhymed across histories of authoritarianism. From court jesters to contemporary late-night hosts, humor has persisted as a tool of resistance through its lucid inspection of the present moment. In its maneuvering of perception, its alteration of scale, and its composition of our collective anxieties, it recognizes the contingency of the “inevitable.” It is the humor we find in power that registers its limits. LAST draws from this lineage, utilizing the clowns as diagnosticians tasked with identifying the absurdities of the present moment and inviting us to sit inside its nonsense and explore.
DURATION
“Last” operates as a question and a condition. How long will this last? How long will we last? Is this the last time? What lasts when systems strain or begin to fail? Throughout the piece, “last” transmutates and destabilizes in meaning, moving across a spectrum of finality, endurance, survival, and delay. It signals endings while also gesturing towards persistence. It holds us in a prolonged present, emphasizing the value of continuing even when it feels uncertain. LAST
sustains a tensegrity between collapse and continuation, exposing the points of tension that hold us together and asking what it means to exist with both. It questions ENDings and how things ENDure, and what it means to exist within that uncertainty.
OVERSTIMULATION
LAST constructs a theatrical experience through accumulation and overload. Language will spiral and songs will interrupt to capture the shared condition of disorientation, or what the play names as, “cognitive and emotional bamboozlement.” Structurally, the piece reflects contemporary modes of perception. It illustrates the fragmented, repetitive, perpetual, intensified, and overstimulating flow of information that shapes how we encounter the world we live in.
CREATION
Created by Christopher Bayes and company, LAST has emerged from a collaborative process grounded by the stylistic elements of commedia dell’arte, improvisation, physical exploration, and ensemble authorship. Devising allowed the work to remain responsive to current events, and the shared experience of the ensemble and creative team. Crafting became a journey of privileging discovery over prescription, and multiplicity over a singular voice. What you encounter is not a fixed text, but an evolving composition that has been shaped through introspection, personal and technical discovery, repetition, and a collective inquiry of how the present moment can be held, examined, and performed.
—Fabiola Andújar, Production Dramaturg