TWELFTH NIGHT (2022) David Geffen School of Drama

TWELFTH NIGHT SHAKESPEARE REPERTORY PROJECTS | 2021–22 SEASON —Hannah F. Gellman, Production Dramaturg

FEBRUARY 17–19, 2022 Iseman Theater, 1156 Chapel Street DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF DRAMA AT YALE James Bundy, Elizabeth Parker Ware Dean Florie Seery, Associate Dean Chantal Rodriguez, Associate Dean Kelvin Dinkins, Jr., Assistant Dean

PRESENTS

Twelfth Night

by William

Shakespeare directed by James L. Fleming Creative Team Scenic Designer

Cat Raynor

Costume Designer

Meg Powers

Sound Designer and Composer

Matthew Suttor Lighting Designer

Yichen Zhou

Production Dramaturg

Hannah F. Gellman Technical Director

Cast

in alphabetical order Sir Andrew Aguecheek

Olivia

Sebastian

Malvolio

Maria

Orsino

Viola

Antonio

Feste

Sir Toby Belch

Samuel DeMuria Sola Fadiran Tavia Elise Hunt

Alexandra Maurice Reed Northrup

Madeline Seidman Adam Siddiqui Shaukat Kayodè Soyemi Thomas Pang (yao) Jessy Yates

Nate Angrick Fight Director

Michael Rossmy Intimacy Choreographers Kelsey Rainwater and

Michael Rossmy

Setting Illyria, a coastal country living through a plague Twelfth Night is performed without an intermission.

Stage Manager

Amanda Nita Luke

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

Artistic

Scenic Charge

Jihane Fareseddine Lighting Design Advisor

Graham Zellers

Associate Sound Designer

Joe Krempetz

Assistant Sound Designer and Engineer

Ro Burnett

Assistant Stage Manager

Chloe Liu

Production Associate Safety Advisors

Jacob Santos Eric Walker

Associate Production Manager

Megan Birdsong

Assistant Technical Director

Luanne Jubsee

Production Electrician

Sydney Garick Run Crew

Risa Ando Sophie Greenspan Jacob Santos Jimmy Stubbs

Administration Associate Managing Director

Emma Rose Perrin

Assistant Managing Director

Chloe Knight

House Manager

Jason Gray

Production Photographer

Leigh Busby

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

All patrons must wear masks at all times while inside the theater. Our staff, backstage crew, and artists (when not performing on stage) 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.

Land Acknowledgment

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.

The Shakepeare Repertory Project 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.

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.

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word “love” here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.”

—James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

My part of death, no one so true Did share it.

Twelfth Night plunges us into a world of grief. Of family members lost to plague and lost at sea. Of lovers unrequited, imagining they may die alone. “Come Away Death” is a song of deep loneliness, and Viola and Orsino bond over the way it touches their individual sadness. For each of the characters, loss and love are intertwined.

O’ the twelfth day of December This is also a play of revelry and antics. The show’s title refers to Epiphany Eve (the twelfth night of Christmas), when Elizabethan people abandoned social hierarchy to drink and play pranks.

Similarly, the play’s comic structure relies on Viola’s arrival turning Illyria’s social order upside down temporarily.

In delay there lies no plenty In “O Mistress Mine,” Feste reminds us that time ticks on no matter how anyone resists. The song celebrates chasing desire while we are young because the future is unknown. However, Viola cannot pursue her love while she is disguised, so instead she must trust in time itself. Time drives everyone deeper into chaos, and yet time is the only force capable of untangling the crossed wires in this play.

The rain it raineth every day It is February 1602, and it is February 2022. We are in Illyria and in the Iseman Theater. We are carrying pain and hurt. We are in the midst of many plagues. Maybe it will even be raining when we walk outside. The rain it raineth every day, and so let us offer each other shelter from the storm. Offer each other love.

—Hannah F. Gellman, Production Dramaturg