Danish princes, singing Argentines, and you

There's something for everyone in Yale theater: musical romps, intense drama and a chained titan.

JULIA TIERNAN/YH Two actors converse on stage in a scene from the production of 'Oleanna'.

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 battleground for those all-important 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 they'd give you the same 411 on Yale's ultimate strength: theater. From the number-one ranked School of Drama to the undergraduate Dramat, from the Grand Guignol of the Yale Rep to the sweaty intimacy of Nick Chapel, from Shakespeare's First Quarto to your roommate's latest masterpiece, Yale abounds and astounds with theatrics of every kind.

"The kinds of plays vary completely," 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 great abundance of hopeful professionals majoring in theater studies, putting on a show is often a very serious affair. Moreover, students can direct or perform in productions as their senior project for the major. Recent plays put on entirely by students include such diverse offerings as How I Learned to Drive, Art, Richard II and Prometheus Bound.

In addition to such well-known scripts, Yalies are constantly mounting student-written plays as well. "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. "They can get really weird," Pike admitted. "I was in one play that was actually called Misogyny." This year, Hugh Murtagh, DC '99, and Thomas Shaw, DC '99, co-wrote and directed Triple Take, a unique melange of clowning, sketch comedy, and more traditional dramatics. Shana Katz, PC '00, wrote Snap Peas (directed by Autumn Leonard, JE '00), a series of short plays with feminist themes. But student playwrights also work in established genres, as in Just Call Me Eli, an old-fashioned musical romp about a 1923 Yale-Vassar ball, with music by Sam Carner, BR' 01, and book and lyrics by Isaac Meyers, BR '01.

PATRICK MCGARVEY/YH The cast of 'Falsettos' performing onstage.'

Although student experimentation may not yet include Kabuki puppet theater, if you want to do it, you can probably get funding for it. The Sudler Fund is Yale's own version of the National Endowment for the Arts, a 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 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 get together to form their own theater groups. Some of the most well-established of these organizations include the Yale Undergraduate Shakespeare Company and the Gilbert and Sullivan Society. Offerings from this year and past years have included The Winter's Tale, Romeo and Juliet, The Gondoliers, and H. M. S. Pinafore. Last year also saw the inception of the Imagine festival, which features staged readings of one act plays written by Yale students.

Other students form groups to pursue some less traditional dramatic styles. 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 to help them produce their own plays, while Yale Children's Theater (YCT) performs several shows a year that entertain both youngsters and their parents. YCT also conducts workshops in New Haven high schools, culminating in their annual student playwriting contest. This year, the Children's Theater has offered original adaptations of several plays, including Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret; Rikki Tikki Tavi; and The Little Prince.

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 Steve Martin's Picasso at the Lapin Agile, and the Commencement Show was A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum; other Dramat productions included Moliere's Tartuffe and a musical version of Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona.

According to Ari Edleson, PC '98, a past president of the group, "The Dramat is the oldest college theater organization in the nation." Previous members include Cole Porter, Class of 1913; Thornton Wilder, Class of 1919; Richard Maltby, BR '59, DRA '62; and David Shire, TD '59. Maltby and Shire began their lifelong collaboration here at Yale; their most recent musical score was for the successful Broadway production Big.

JULIA TIERNAN/YH Justin Garrick's SY '00, and Andre-Phillipe Mstier's, MC '00, production of 'Prometheus Bound'

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. Other professional theaters in the area include the Shubert, where Broadway shows on tour often perform, and the Long Wharf Theater, a strong regional stage which premiered Margaret Edsel's Wit (which later won the Pulitzer Prize for drama). Every summer, the New Haven International Festival of Arts and Ideas features original drama, some written by Yale playwrights or featuring Yalies as the performers.

From community service to late night carousing, theater pervades every element of Yale life. 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 latest play, Yale is the place to be.

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