School Notes: David Geffen School of Drama
July/August 2012

Center for New Theatre receives permanent endowment

Since its creation in 2008 with a grant from the Robina Foundation, the Yale Center for New Theatre has devoted major resources to the commissioning, development, and production of new plays and musicals at Yale Rep and across the country, and has supported residencies of playwrights and composers at Yale School of Drama. To date, the center has supported the work of more than 30 Yale Rep–commissioned artists as well as the world premieres and subsequent productions of twelve new American plays and musicals—including this coming season’s Marie Antoinette by David Adjmi,Dear Elizabeth by Sarah Ruhl, and Bill Camp and Robert Woodruff’s new adaptation of In a Year with 13 Moons by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Now, a transformational $18 million gift from the Robina Foundation will permanently endow the center and support the production of new theater for generations. Peter Karoff, speaking for the Robina Foundation, called the gift “an investment in creativity, and in the exciting and important role that theater plays in the human experience.” The Yale Center for New Theatre has been renamed the Binger Center for New Theatre in honor of James H. Binger ’38, the noted businessman, theater impresario, and philanthropist who created the Robina Foundation.