At 9 PM, in the middle of technical rehearsals, on the third floor of 217 Park Street, playwright Danielle Stagger and I met to discuss rent free. I have rearranged, cut, and edited our conversation: we didn’t say these things in this order. We used more “ums” and “likes.” And in addition to what’s included, we also touched on spike tape, cat anuses, and dogs with human names. But what you’re about to read is the truth of my conversation with Danielle Stagger, or at least, the truth that she and I have decided to share with you. —Gabrielle Hoyt I do not think of my plays as my art. What?? I do not think of my plays as my art. I think of my plays as my job. I feel like art is when I’m playing the bass alone. Or painting alone. My relationship to art is not my relationship to playwriting. That’s something I interrogate all the time: the concept of my plays being my art or my plays being my work, and whether those things can be the same. If art is your job, you have to interrogate: “What is my job?” Is your job making people feel a certain way? Making people think a certain way? If so, you want to start asking yourself whether you’re making propaganda. It’s the squirrel that eats its tail.
rent free
But other paradigms don’t work either, do they? For instance, art making as duty, or as moral imperative. A lot of artists have come up being told that you have a duty as an artist—particularly artists of color, particularly Black artists, particularly Black women artists, particularly Black queer women artists, and, and, and. But that traps you in a very precarious box. It’s a box where you’re always working towards something, proving something, saving something, documenting something, protecting something. It becomes all resistance and very little creation. Very little life. This box you’re describing feels close to what you’re delineating in rent free. This play is an invitation to think of the thing that feels the truest to you and to think of how you have constructed it out of art and duty. We are not very good as people at working through things. We are very good at reframing, and we do a lot of framing and reframing in life. First addendum, from a text Danielle sent me at 11:42 PM that night: The update is that I’m watching How to Get Away with Murder in bed, and I love art. I am pro art. Pro representation. Pro drama. Pro kissing the girl whose best friend’s boyfriend murdered your estranged father! Second addendum, from an email Danielle sent me at 7:21 PM the next day: I just REALLY wanted to add that writing IS my art. But the creation of plays is my job. The writing and thinking I do just for its own sake feels like my art. But the crafting it into a play for an audience is a job. … I just realized that it made it seem like writing is not my art. And that’s not true, hahaha
LANGSTON HUGHES FESTIVAL OF NEW WORK | 2022–23 SEASON
NOVEMBER 14–18, 2022
Production Staff
DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF DRAMA AT YALE
Associate Safety Advisor
James Bundy, Elizabeth Parker Ware Dean Florie Seery, Associate Dean Chantal Rodriguez, Associate Dean
Megan Birdsong
Associate Production Manager
Kino Alvarez
Technical Supervisor
PRESENTS
John Simone
rent free
Charlie Lovejoy
Production Stage Manager Production Crew
by Danielle
Stagger (she/her) directed by Sammy Zeisel (he/him)
Jason Dixon Run Crew
Rea Brown Jasmine Moore
Creative Team
Cast
Production Dramaturg Gabrielle Hoyt (she/her)
Bridget
Stage Manager
Aura Michelle (she/her) Assistant Stage Manager
Adam Taylor Foster
Administration Elodie
Janiah François (she/her)
Matthew Sonnenfeld Management Assistants
William
Kandice
Jeremy Landes Roman Sanchez
BK
Colleen
Spencer Knoll
Michael Allyn Crawford Tyler Cruz (she/her)
The Langston Hughes Festival of New Work productions 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.
Associate Managing Director
in alphabetical order
Whitney Andrews (she/her)
Yale University 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 and continuing relationship that exists between these peoples and nations and this land.
Tavia Hunt (she/her) Abigail C. Onwunali (she/her)
House Manager
Production Photographer
Maza Rey
There will be one ten-minute intermission.
David Geffen School of Drama productions are supported by the work of more than 200 faculty and staff members throughout the year.
Special Thanks
Benjamin Donaldson, Dr. Pamela Viscione
This production is supported by The Benjamin Mordecai III Production Fund.
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.
All patrons must wear masks at all times while inside the theater except when eating or drinking. Our staff, backstage crew, and artists will also be masked at all times. The taking of photographs or the use of recording devices of any kind in the theater without the written permission of the management is prohibited.
NOVEMBER 14–18, 2022
Production Staff
DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF DRAMA AT YALE
Associate Safety Advisor
James Bundy, Elizabeth Parker Ware Dean Florie Seery, Associate Dean Chantal Rodriguez, Associate Dean
Megan Birdsong
Associate Production Manager
Kino Alvarez
Technical Supervisor
PRESENTS
John Simone
rent free
Charlie Lovejoy
Production Stage Manager Production Crew
by Danielle
Stagger (she/her) directed by Sammy Zeisel (he/him)
Jason Dixon Run Crew
Rea Brown Jasmine Moore
Creative Team
Cast
Production Dramaturg Gabrielle Hoyt (she/her)
Bridget
Stage Manager
Aura Michelle (she/her) Assistant Stage Manager
Adam Taylor Foster
Administration Elodie
Janiah François (she/her)
Matthew Sonnenfeld Management Assistants
William
Kandice
Jeremy Landes Roman Sanchez
BK
Colleen
Spencer Knoll
Michael Allyn Crawford Tyler Cruz (she/her)
The Langston Hughes Festival of New Work productions 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.
Associate Managing Director
in alphabetical order
Whitney Andrews (she/her)
Yale University 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 and continuing relationship that exists between these peoples and nations and this land.
Tavia Hunt (she/her) Abigail C. Onwunali (she/her)
House Manager
Production Photographer
Maza Rey
There will be one ten-minute intermission.
David Geffen School of Drama productions are supported by the work of more than 200 faculty and staff members throughout the year.
Special Thanks
Benjamin Donaldson, Dr. Pamela Viscione
This production is supported by The Benjamin Mordecai III Production Fund.
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.
All patrons must wear masks at all times while inside the theater except when eating or drinking. Our staff, backstage crew, and artists will also be masked at all times. The taking of photographs or the use of recording devices of any kind in the theater without the written permission of the management is prohibited.
At 9 PM, in the middle of technical rehearsals, on the third floor of 217 Park Street, playwright Danielle Stagger and I met to discuss rent free. I have rearranged, cut, and edited our conversation: we didn’t say these things in this order. We used more “ums” and “likes.” And in addition to what’s included, we also touched on spike tape, cat anuses, and dogs with human names. But what you’re about to read is the truth of my conversation with Danielle Stagger, or at least, the truth that she and I have decided to share with you. —Gabrielle Hoyt I do not think of my plays as my art. What?? I do not think of my plays as my art. I think of my plays as my job. I feel like art is when I’m playing the bass alone. Or painting alone. My relationship to art is not my relationship to playwriting. That’s something I interrogate all the time: the concept of my plays being my art or my plays being my work, and whether those things can be the same. If art is your job, you have to interrogate: “What is my job?” Is your job making people feel a certain way? Making people think a certain way? If so, you want to start asking yourself whether you’re making propaganda. It’s the squirrel that eats its tail.
rent free
But other paradigms don’t work either, do they? For instance, art making as duty, or as moral imperative. A lot of artists have come up being told that you have a duty as an artist—particularly artists of color, particularly Black artists, particularly Black women artists, particularly Black queer women artists, and, and, and. But that traps you in a very precarious box. It’s a box where you’re always working towards something, proving something, saving something, documenting something, protecting something. It becomes all resistance and very little creation. Very little life. This box you’re describing feels close to what you’re delineating in rent free. This play is an invitation to think of the thing that feels the truest to you and to think of how you have constructed it out of art and duty. We are not very good as people at working through things. We are very good at reframing, and we do a lot of framing and reframing in life. First addendum, from a text Danielle sent me at 11:42 PM that night: The update is that I’m watching How to Get Away with Murder in bed, and I love art. I am pro art. Pro representation. Pro drama. Pro kissing the girl whose best friend’s boyfriend murdered your estranged father! Second addendum, from an email Danielle sent me at 7:21 PM the next day: I just REALLY wanted to add that writing IS my art. But the creation of plays is my job. The writing and thinking I do just for its own sake feels like my art. But the crafting it into a play for an audience is a job. … I just realized that it made it seem like writing is not my art. And that’s not true, hahaha
LANGSTON HUGHES FESTIVAL OF NEW WORK | 2022–23 SEASON