School of drama

School Notes: David Geffen School of Drama
September/October 2010

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

Grants support Center for New Theatre

Yale Repertory Theatre has received $950,000 from the Robina Foundation and $1 million from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support the activities of the Yale Center for New Theatre, an integrated, artist-driven initiative to support the creation of new plays and musicals for the American stage through residencies, readings, workshops, and full productions. The Yale Center for New Theatre also facilitates playwrights’ and composers’ residencies as lecturers at the School of Drama.

The center was established in 2008 through a gift from the Robina Foundation. To date, the center has supported the work of more than two dozen commissioned artists, including Adam Bock and Todd Almond, authors of the musical We Have Always Lived in the Castle, which will have its world premiere at Yale Rep in September. Other Yale Rep world premieres supported by the center include Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground (2009), adapted by Bill Camp and Robert Woodruff; the musical POP! (2009) by Maggie-Kate Coleman and Anna K. Jacobs; Rinne Groff’s play Compulsion (2010), a co-production with the Public Theater and Berkeley Repertory Theatre; as well as Bossa Nova by Kirsten Greenidge later this season.

Additionally, the center administers a production fund as support to other not-for-profit theatres producing world premiere, second, or third productions of plays commissioned by Yale. Productions supported to date include On the Levee by Marcus Gardley, Todd Almond, and Lear deBessonet, which premiered at Lincoln Center Theater’s LCT3 in July; and Notes from Underground, which will be seen at both California’s La Jolla Playhouse and New York’s Theatre for a New Audience in association with Baryshnikov Arts Center this fall.

Student receives Princess Grace Award

Charlotte Brathwaite ’11MFA, a student in the directing department at Yale School of Drama, has been named a recipient of the 2010 Princess Grace Award. Administered by the Princess Grace Foundation–USA, the awards for theater, dance and choreography, and film continue the legacy of Princess Grace (Kelly) of Monaco, who anonymously helped emerging artists pursue their artistic goals during her lifetime. The award winners exemplify both classical and experimental artistic disciplines and, while still considered emerging talent, already show exceptional promise in their areas of expertise. The foundation’s support assists their theater and dance studies, helps pay their artistic fees at nonprofit theater and dance companies, and helps support their thesis film projects. The awards will be distributed at a black-tie gala in New York in November.

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