School of drama

School Notes: David Geffen School of Drama
September/October 2020

James Bundy ’95MFA | http://drama.yale.edu

Recent faculty appointments

Gregory Wallace ’87MFA has been named the Lloyd Richards Professor in the Practice of Acting. This chair honors the late Lloyd Richards, dean of the School of Drama and artistic director of Yale Repertory Theatre from 1979 to 1991. Wallace has been teaching at the highest levels of conservatory training for more than two decades, first at American Conservatory Theater, and later as professor and head of graduate acting at the University of California, San Diego. He joined the Yale faculty in 2016.

Two-time Tony Award winner Michael Yeargan ’73MFA has been appointed the Donald M. Oenslager Professor in the Practice of Design. This chair honors the late Donald M. Oenslager, who was the first chair of the design department, teaching from 1925 to 1970. Yeargan arrived at the School of Drama in the fall of 1969 as a first-year student and was taught by both Oenslager and by Ming Cho Lee, who succeeded Oenslager as chair and taught at Yale for 49 years, eventually becoming the first holder of the Donald M. Oenslager chair endowed by Professor Oenslager’s extended family. Michael was recruited to the faculty by Ming just one year after his graduation from the school, and he succeeded Ming as cochair with Stephen Strawbridge in 2012.

Alan Hendrickson ’83MFA has been named the Henry McCormick Professor in the Practice of Technical Design and Production. This chair honors Henry McCormick, a Yale College alumnus, industrialist, and civic leader of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Hendrickson has been teaching since 1979, and has offered at least a dozen different courses during his career. At Yale Rep, he has designed and built or advised students on scores of mechanized scenery effects with electric motors and variable frequency drives, a technology he helped to introduce to the profession.

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