Danish princes, singing Argentines, and you

Weekends are full of Yale theater, spanning from the low budget to the lavish and the tame to the outlandish.

PATRICK MCGARVEY/YH Manny Caixeiro, BR '00, is one of 'Twelve Angry Men.'

Yale has great athletes. Dedicated, skillful, and intelligent, the Bulldogs dominate crew races and swim meets, electrify the Yale Bowl, and boast some powerhouse fencing. Ninety percent of the student population participates in some form of athletic activity, and the varsity playing fields are an integral battlefield for those all-encompassing Ivy rivalries.

Yet for all that, Yale isn't exactly known as a sports school. If you were to open up a U.S. News and World Report or just ask your barber, chances are you'd get the same skinny on Yale's ultimate strength: theater. From the number-one ranked School of Drama to the undergraduate Dramat, from the sturdy floorboards of the Yale Rep to the caving-in floor of the Silliman Dramatic Attic, from Shakespeare's oldest script to your roommate's newest creation, Yale abounds and astounds with theatrics of every kind.

PATRICK MCGARVEY/YH 'The Importance of Being Earnest' was one of many student shows.

"The kinds of plays completely vary," Sarah Pike, TD '00, said. "Usually they're instigated by people who've always wanted to put on a certain show, either because they just love it, or they think it will help them become better directors." With the abundance of hopeful professionals in the Theater Studies major, putting on a show can be a very serious affair. Moreover, students can direct or perform in productions as their senior project for the major. "I've directed shows just for fun, sure," Ari Edleson, PC '98, said. "But they're also to learn from." Recent plays put on entirely by students include Zoo Story, She Loves Me, and Twelve Angry Men.

In addition to such well-known scripts, Yalies are constantly mounting student-written plays as well. This year, for example, Daniel Levin, PC '98, wrote and directed The Impression of Panic Rising. "Student playwrights are incredible to work with," Pike, who has performed in several student-written productions, said. "There's something so exciting about something so brand new." While students write in any number of styles, many of their plays tend toward the experimental. Even the actors sometimes find them a bit strange. "They can get really weird," Pike admitted. "I was in one play that was actually called Misogyny."

Although this experimentation may not yet include Kabuki puppet theater, if you want to do it, you can get funding for it.

PATRICK MCGARVEY/YH 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses' went up at the Dramat in February.

The Sudler Fund is Yale's own version of the National Endowment for the Arts, a seemingly bottomless pit of money used to fund student cultural projects from photography exhibits to performance art. Student playwrights, directors, and actors have come to utter the word "Sudler" in hushed tones of reverent awe, since they use this money to fulfill their artistic dreams. Student-run theater of this sort is the most prevalent, exciting, and vital drama a college campus can foster—and Yale teems with it. On any given weekend, one is likely to find at least two new student-run plays going up around campus.

Often, students with similar dramatic interests band together to form various theater groups. Some of the most well-established of these include the Yale Undergraduate Shakespeare Company, the Gilbert and Sullivan Society, and Triple Threat, a group dedicated to putting on musicals. This and past years' offerings from these organizations include The Winter's Tale, The Gondoliers, and The Fantasticks, respectively.

Other students form groups to pursue less traditional dramatic styles. The Ensemble consists of actors who dislike the short life of common theater experiences, and spent all of last year performing one play. Physical Impulse explores movement-based performance, while Acting Locals produces political theater on the streets of New Haven. The Homeless Theater Troupe works with the city's homeless, and the Yale Playwrights Guild brings to life staged readings of student plays once each month.

"It was good for me to break away from traditional theater," Ensemble member Elisabeth Waterston, DC '99, said. "I learned a lot from normal productions, and met great people. But I really felt like trying something new, and growing with one cast over the course of the year, instead for just five weeks."

Those with more conservative (and expensive) tastes stick to the official undergraduate theater organization, the Yale Dramatic Association. Every year, the Dramat mounts two lavish mainstage productions (a musical and a straight play) with professional directors as well as four student-run experimental shows. Also producing a Freshperson Show and a Commencement Show, the Dramat's annual output is a dizzying eight plays. This year, the Freshperson Show was The Marriage of Bette and Boo, and the Commencement Show was Guys and Dolls; other Dramat productions included Into the Woods and Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard.

According to Edleson, a past president of the group, "The Dramat is the oldest college theater organizations in the nation." Previous members include Cole Porter, '13, Thornton Wilder, '19, Richard Maltby, BR '59, DRA '62, and David Shire, TD '59. Maltby and Shire began their collaboration here at Yale; their most recent score was for the Broadway musical Big.

For many Yalies, the Dramat is a training ground, preparing them for careers in the professional world (recent grad Blake Lindsley, SY '96, had a featured role in 1996's smash film Swingers—she's the one with the cigar). These students don't have far to look for role models: the Yale Repertory Theater on York and Chapel is one of the nation's premiere regional theaters and has won multiple Tony awards for its production of shows like August Wilson's The Piano Lesson and Fences. Although next year's season is not yet definite, students always find that the sets alone worth the price of a $51 pass to all the Rep's six shows. Other professional theaters in the area include the Shubert, which gets Broadway tours, and the Long Wharf Theater, another strong regional stage.

From community service to late night carousing, theater pervades every element of Yale life. Volunteers teach after-school drama in nearby elementary schools; the Dramat Children's Theater entertains children of all ages with their improv comedy; cast parties are often the biggest (and craziest) parties on campus. With actors and audience members combined, Yale drama equals the 90 percent participation mark set by Yale athletics—and more plays seem to go up each year. So if you're looking for a place to launch your career as a thespian, or maybe just an empty room to try out your newest scene, Yale is the place to be.

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