Tempt Me, David Geffen School of Drama 2024

2024–25 SEASON LANGSTON HUGHES FESTIVAL OF NEW WORK

NOVEMBER 11–16, 2024 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 Anne Erbe and Marcus Gardley, Co-Chairs, Playwriting

PRESENTS THE LANGSTON HUGHES FESTIVAL OF NEW WORK

Tempt Me

By Andrew Rincón Directed by Andreas Andreou

Creative Team

Cast

Production Dramaturg

Lillith

Shyama Iyer

Chinna Palmer

Fight and Intimacy Director

Lucy/Adam

Michael Rossmy Stage Manager

Thomas Nagata

Kamal Sehrawy Animal

Marlon Alexander Vargas Eve/God

Lauren F. Walker

Content Guidance

This play contains sexual content and simulated violence.

Tempt Me is performed without an intermission.

This production is supported by The Benjamin Mordecai III Production Fund.

Artistic Production Stage Manager

Adam Taylor Foster

Assistant Stage Manager

Claire Young

Production Technical Supervisor

Meredith Wilcox

Properties Manager

Shannon Dodson

Associate Safety Advisors

Steph Lo 盧胤沂 Kay Nilest

Associate Production Manager

Bryant Heatherly Production Crew

Micah Ohno Run Crew

Surrey Houlker Juice Mackins

Administration Associate Managing Director

Jeremy Landes

Management Assistant

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.

Alesandra Reto Lopez House Manager

Maura Bozeman Production Photographer

Maza Rey

David Geffen School of Drama productions are supported by the work of more than 200 faculty and staff members throughout the year.

Special Thanks Chloe Howard, Max Sheldon, Darius Sakui, Kim Vilbrun-Francois

THE BENJAMIN MORDECAI III PRODUCTION FUND, established by a graduate of the School, 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.

Recreating the world They say Lucifer is evil personified. His great and fiery fall from Heaven due to demonic irreverence. They say Adam and Eve, the first man and woman to walk the earth, are perfection personified. Made in the image of God, they were once placed in the center of a splendid garden and oversaw the naming of every facet of God’s freshly created life. When Eve stole God’s forbidden fruit and invited a barrage of divine curses on all humankind, most blame it on a limbless creature who tempted her to sin. Thus, the world was created according to Christian scripture. But, whether received as fact or fiction, scriptures are merely stories. Stories can be rewritten.

In Tempt Me, playwright Andrew Rincón rewrites the creation myth, asking us to reconsider the archetypal characters we know so well. In this world, Adam and Eve are far from perfect. Eve, trapped by duty to her husband and the Almighty, is stuck in a miserably familiar patriarchal structure. Here Lilith, Animal, and Lucifer, so often portrayed as demons with ulterior motives, are far from evil. Lucifer, who self-identifies as Lucy, aches to be good even when God’s goodness falls short. In his search, he discovers theater and the “magic of storytelling,” which leads to other discoveries: A lonely animal and Adam’s forgotten first wife Lilith, who are both making discoveries of their own. Rincón suggests that sexual preference is the main reason Lucy, Lilith, and Animal have been left to fend for themselves. They try their very best to exist in God’s heterosexual “paradise.” But when it comes time they ask if an all-powerful God didn’t want me to exist, why did he create me at all?

With Good and Evil repositioned, Tempt Me makes space for a new creation centering queer identity. By placing creativity in all its myriad forms into queer hands, it celebrates resilience and reclamation.

—Shyama Iyer, Production Dramaturg