Yale theater groups battle for center stage

The Dramat sweats it out while the competition for Yale's performance space heats up

SHAWN CHENG/YH

As Yale undergraduates rehearse for plays atop classroom tables in WLH, construct and deconstruct sets nightly in dining halls, and pile their sweaty bodies into the converted squash court fire-trap that is Trumbull's Nick Chapel, they search for someone to blame for their current scheduling problems and consistent lack of rehearsal and performance space. Sooner or later, that accusatory finger points down York Street to No. 222, the University Theater (UT), where the Yale Dramatic Association resides. The Dramat, as it's known around campus, puts up eight shows a year at the UT, three of which have budgets over $5,000.

The "privileged children" of the undergraduate theater scene, as Dramat member Shana Katz, DC '00, jokingly calls them, Dramat members possess the only dependable theater space for undergraduates on campus. With that space comes their own green room (where actors wait before going onstage), the use of sound and lighting equipment, a set shop, and often the resentment of their peers in the independent theater scene—students who must spend the bulk of their $1,000-$1,500 budgets just to obtain the performance space and equipment that the Dramat is virtually guaranteed.

A recent scheduling and space crunch within the UT itself indicates that the problems endemic to undergraduate theater have permeated even the rock-solid Dramat. With its Parents' Weekend show forced to open two weeks early, and its lavish mainstage spring musical scheduled for February instead of its usual April date, the Dramat has its own finger-pointing to do—even if it seems reluctant to do so on the record—towards the University and the Dramat's co-occupant at the UT, the Yale School of Drama.

History

When preparations began in 1924 to form a drama department in the School of Fine Arts (it became its own school in 1956), the Dramat already occupied an elite position on campus. Entering a theater scene that in 1900 consisted of only burlesque shows performed by fraternities, the new Dramat, its founders insisted, would be "a real dramatic club, serious in its nature and high in its aims." In its first two decades, the Dramat performed respected English dramas, hired professional directors and technical advisors (which it still does for its mainstage productions), and cast actual females in female parts. In 1922, it joined with the Playcraftsmen, an older group, to produce student-written plays, and by 1926 it was the only established, respected theater group on Yale's campus.

When Edward S. Harkness donated $1 million for the construction of the UT and the creation of the drama department, the Dramat jumped on the chance to contribute $28,000 to the cause. Nearly everyone involved assumed the Dramat's contribution and reputation would give it and its coach, Monty Woolley, a prominent position in both the department and the UT—one that reflected the respect it had accrued on campus. Everyone, that is, except the new head of the drama department, Harvard's George Pierce Baker. Baker insisted so stringently against participation of the well-liked but relatively unknown Woolley that Woolley resigned, returning only after Dramat alumni personally funded his appointment as director of undergraduate dramatic activities—a position that effectively barred him from the graduate department.

The University's clear bias towards its fledgling drama department enraged Dramat students and alumni alike. They chastized the University for supporting "a dramatic enterprise set down in Yale in which the Association has no share...and which, before it has even become a vital and integral part of Yale, is so amply provided with the financial ease, public interest, and official approval, which the Association has long and painfully lacked." The Dramat's monopoly position in the Yale theater community had come to an end. They were, after all, just an undergraduate club.

History repeated

While tempers have long since settled from their peak in the "Monty Woolley Affair"—in which the virulent personal attacks by Woolley and Baker on each other eventually resulted in Woolley's resignation—subtle sparring still simmers below the surface.

Most of these tensions arise from the fact that two powerful organizations are forced to share the same space. "We're an inconvenience," says Ryan Karels, BR '00, an active member and former Production Manager of the Dramat. "I can see where they'd see us as getting in the way." While the now world-renowned School of Drama (SOD) has almost total access to the space at 222 York, in addition to the Yale Cabaret and the Yale Repertory Theater, it is forced each year to schedule SOD performances around certain key dates which the Dramat is contractually guaranteed. Baker's public disdain for the agreement, which wrested the UT from him every Harvard-Yale football weekend, prompted John V. Farwell of the Yale Corporation to note, "I know Professor Baker sincerely believes that undergraduate Dramatic Associations have very little educational value or at least not enough to warrant his trying to coordinate such a one with his work."

By the time Robert Brustein, the second great enemy of the Dramat, became president of the SOD, these restrictions had expanded to guarantee the UT for the Dramat during Commencement and the weeks around Parents' Weekend. According to Mark MacDonald, who, as Technical Advisor to the Dramat, serves as a liason between the Dramat and the SOD, Brustein founded the Yale Repertory Theater as a direct result of his displacement during those key weekends. "He didn't like being told he couldn't do shows whenever he wanted," says MacDonald. Brustein later bought a church on the corner of Chapel and York, creating a venue for bringing professional companies to New Haven to work with the Drama School students. Even this, though, did little to assuage Brustein's chagrin over those pesky kids at the Dramat, and he expressed his frustration frequently and frankly. According to MacDonald, "Brustein hated the Dramat so much he actually padlocked the [UT] door."

Current Dramat president, Matt O'Neill, DC '00, insists that "[the Dramat and the School of Drama] are now at a point in the relationship where we're trying to make things work," but vestiges of past contentions are apparent in recent problems. Every May, representatives from the University Administration, the Dramat, and the Drama School sit down to set the schedule for the following school year, and according to MacDonald, "once the schedule is set in the summer it rarely changes." A number of unexpected changes in the schedule at large, though, have pushed Dramat performances much earlier than previously expected. By moving the Parents' Weekend show two weeks ahead of schedule, SOD scheduler Ben Sammler effectively cut the rehearsal time for the show nearly in half. While this rushed preparation for Lend Me a Tenor, the consequences of moving the spring musical from April to February are much more drastic. According to Karels, the benefits of bringing in a professional director for this mainstage production may be lost in a production so quickly following the beginning of the semester. "[The Dramat and the director] either get to work for a month or have to contend with a huge winter break," Karels said. "Stuff of this scale doesn't happen. It shouldn't happen."

Are undergraduates, most of whom have experienced both the luxuries of the UT and the frustrations of the meager space available for independent projects, just overly sensitive to these issues of schedule and space? It probably seems that way to much of the SOD. According to Karels, who works closely with the Drama School as well as with fellow undergraduates, "The Drama School is not concerned in any way, shape, or form with undergrads scrambling around to find theater space because their facilities are closed. The Drama School doesn't have a crunch for space."

To infinity and beyond

To assume that the SOD has a stake in the undergraduate theater scene is an exaggeration. "In their ideal world, they would not have to share facilities with us," Karels added. "They're a world-renowned institution—their concern is not undergraduate theater." The feeling isn't mutual. While the decisions of the Dramat may not affect the graduates, the Drama School's ability to affect the Dramat, in areas as simple as scheduling and performance space, does have a great impact on undergraduate theater organizations.

The University has acquiesced to the Drama School's request for more theater space, and it continues to thwart undergraduate efforts for the same. Yale's continual reneging on promises to create more undergraduate performance space has placed the Dramat in a precarious position. With access to the UT and its large budgets, the Dramat may appear to be the "privileged children" of undergraduate theater, but in the end, that façade is all that really separates them from the rest of the Sudler Fund proletariat.

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