This Is Fact, Not Fiction Isolation breeds a natural kind of curiosity: What exists beyond? Curiosity gives way to the imagination and fiction, to the creation and consumption of worlds that are different—safer, weirder—than the one we’re in. Sometimes we escape into worlds created for us by other people: plays, television shows, video games, novels, porn. Other times, we create these respites for ourselves: daydreams, sexual fantasies, diary entries, delusions. Perfectly Timed Photos Taken Before a Disaster peers into what happens when these realms fold into one another. What happens when a lonely, obsessed consumer commandeers the setting, characters, and emotions of an already established fictional world? Should society put brakes on individual imagination?
Perfectly Timed Photos Taken Before a Disaster
Then there’s the question of fact. Postmodern thought has encouraged us to question truth as a stable category. Truth is subjective—the product of lived experiences connected to identity, social location, and privilege. But there must be a limit to this obscuring: danger brews when fact is dismissed as fiction and fiction heralded as fact. In the United States today, ruled by a calculating manipulator of truth, we have a responsibility to investigate the limits of our imaginative appropriations and the real consequences of tearing down the wall between facts and their “alternatives.” Alternate universes and fanfiction grant us escape from the banalities and struggles of daily life, but lies and fantasies cosplaying as truth possess the dangerous potential to embolden the factual horrors of racism, white nationalism, and Islamophobia. —MICHAEL BRESLIN, PRODUCTION DRAMATURG
Thursday, November 9 at 8PM Friday, November 10 at 4PM and 8PM Saturday, November 11 at 4PM Iseman Theater, 1156 Chapel Street
The Studio Series productions are designed to be learning experiences that complement classroom work, providing a medium for students at Yale School of Drama to combine their individual talents and energies toward the staging of collaboratively created works.
2 0 1 7– 1 8 S E A S O N
NOVEMBER 9–11, 2017
YALE SCHOOL OF DRAMA James Bundy, Dean Victoria Nolan, Deputy Dean Chantal Rodriguez, Associate Dean Kelvin Dinkins, Jr., Assistant Dean PRESENTS
Perfectly Timed Photos Taken Before a Disaster BY ALEX LUBISCHER DIRECTED BY ANEESHA KUDTARKAR CREATIVE TEAM
CAST
PRODUCTION STAFF
in alphabetical order Sound Designer ANDREW ROVNER Production Dramaturg MICHAEL BRESLIN Stage Manager SAMANTHA TIRRELL
The Actor ABUBAKR ALI Jody Finkral PATRICK FOLEY Addison Finkral STEVEN LEE JOHNSON Carl Hurtado ARTURO SORIA
Associate Production Manager SAYANTEE SAHOO Production Stage Manager SHELBY NORTH Crew ZACHRY J. BAILEY AUSTIN J. BYRD BEATRICE VENA
ADMINISTRATION Associate Managing Director MELISSA ROSE Assistant Managing Director and House Manager LAURA CORNWALL Management Assistants LUCIA BACQUÉ DANI BARLOW Yale School of Drama productions are supported by the work of more than 200 faculty and staff members throughout the year.
SETTING
Time: The Last Semester of High School, 2017 Place: Jody’s hometown of Milton, Nebraska... and Omaha. There will be one ten-minute intermission.
SPECIAL THANKS Charlie Carver, Cory Michael Smith, Rohina Malik, Jamil Khoury, Malik Gillani, Osh Ghanimah, Owais Ahmed, Adnan Alam, Shauna Warren, Michelle Veik, Isaias Solorio, Alex Huntsberger, Steven Strafford, Wendy Bolling, Janet Oberhauser, Isaac Gomez, Walid Sankari, Chicago’s Downtown Islamic Center, Rebecca Adelsheim, A. Rey Pamatmat, Elly Green, Cole Eisenmenger, Renee Engel, Brandon Rivera, José Arellano, Mike Tepeli, Yousof Sultani, David Fisch, Julia Siple, Peter Moore, Omer Bajwa, Jill Rafson, Nicole Tingir, Nick Mecikalski, Kathryn Zukatis, Kimberly Colburn, Andrew Knight, Jason Najjoum, and Alexis Roblan.
Front: image credit
NOVEMBER 9–11, 2017
YALE SCHOOL OF DRAMA James Bundy, Dean Victoria Nolan, Deputy Dean Chantal Rodriguez, Associate Dean Kelvin Dinkins, Jr., Assistant Dean PRESENTS
Perfectly Timed Photos Taken Before a Disaster BY ALEX LUBISCHER DIRECTED BY ANEESHA KUDTARKAR CREATIVE TEAM
CAST
PRODUCTION STAFF
in alphabetical order Sound Designer ANDREW ROVNER Production Dramaturg MICHAEL BRESLIN Stage Manager SAMANTHA TIRRELL
The Actor ABUBAKR ALI Jody Finkral PATRICK FOLEY Addison Finkral STEVEN LEE JOHNSON Carl Hurtado ARTURO SORIA
Associate Production Manager SAYANTEE SAHOO Production Stage Manager SHELBY NORTH Crew ZACHRY J. BAILEY AUSTIN J. BYRD BEATRICE VENA
ADMINISTRATION Associate Managing Director MELISSA ROSE Assistant Managing Director and House Manager LAURA CORNWALL Management Assistants LUCIA BACQUÉ DANI BARLOW Yale School of Drama productions are supported by the work of more than 200 faculty and staff members throughout the year.
SETTING
Time: The Last Semester of High School, 2017 Place: Jody’s hometown of Milton, Nebraska... and Omaha. There will be one ten-minute intermission.
SPECIAL THANKS Charlie Carver, Cory Michael Smith, Rohina Malik, Jamil Khoury, Malik Gillani, Osh Ghanimah, Owais Ahmed, Adnan Alam, Shauna Warren, Michelle Veik, Isaias Solorio, Alex Huntsberger, Steven Strafford, Wendy Bolling, Janet Oberhauser, Isaac Gomez, Walid Sankari, Chicago’s Downtown Islamic Center, Rebecca Adelsheim, A. Rey Pamatmat, Elly Green, Cole Eisenmenger, Renee Engel, Brandon Rivera, José Arellano, Mike Tepeli, Yousof Sultani, David Fisch, Julia Siple, Peter Moore, Omer Bajwa, Jill Rafson, Nicole Tingir, Nick Mecikalski, Kathryn Zukatis, Kimberly Colburn, Andrew Knight, Jason Najjoum, and Alexis Roblan.
Front: image credit
This Is Fact, Not Fiction Isolation breeds a natural kind of curiosity: What exists beyond? Curiosity gives way to the imagination and fiction, to the creation and consumption of worlds that are different—safer, weirder—than the one we’re in. Sometimes we escape into worlds created for us by other people: plays, television shows, video games, novels, porn. Other times, we create these respites for ourselves: daydreams, sexual fantasies, diary entries, delusions. Perfectly Timed Photos Taken Before a Disaster peers into what happens when these realms fold into one another. What happens when a lonely, obsessed consumer commandeers the setting, characters, and emotions of an already established fictional world? Should society put brakes on individual imagination?
Perfectly Timed Photos Taken Before a Disaster
Then there’s the question of fact. Postmodern thought has encouraged us to question truth as a stable category. Truth is subjective—the product of lived experiences connected to identity, social location, and privilege. But there must be a limit to this obscuring: danger brews when fact is dismissed as fiction and fiction heralded as fact. In the United States today, ruled by a calculating manipulator of truth, we have a responsibility to investigate the limits of our imaginative appropriations and the real consequences of tearing down the wall between facts and their “alternatives.” Alternate universes and fanfiction grant us escape from the banalities and struggles of daily life, but lies and fantasies cosplaying as truth possess the dangerous potential to embolden the factual horrors of racism, white nationalism, and Islamophobia. —MICHAEL BRESLIN, PRODUCTION DRAMATURG
Thursday, November 9 at 8PM Friday, November 10 at 4PM and 8PM Saturday, November 11 at 4PM Iseman Theater, 1156 Chapel Street
The Studio Series productions are designed to be learning experiences that complement classroom work, providing a medium for students at Yale School of Drama to combine their individual talents and energies toward the staging of collaboratively created works.
2 0 1 7– 1 8 S E A S O N