School Notes: David Geffen School of Drama
January/February 2016

Drama series features world theater

Yale Rep’s annual No Boundaries series, which explores the frontiers of theatrical invention through cutting-edge and thought-provoking performance from around the world, opened in November with South African artist William Kentridge’s multimedia chamber opera, Refuse the Hour, which was presented in collaboration with several other campus partners: the Andrew Carnduff Ritchie Fund, Yale Center for British Art, Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Yale School of Music, and Yale University Art Gallery. The No Boundaries series continues with three performances of Esculea, written and directed by Chilean theater artist Guillermo Calderón, February 24–26. 

Developing new music theater works

Each year, the Yale Institute for Music Theatre selects two original music theater works by current students or recent graduates to be developed in an intensive two-week summer lab at Yale School of Drama. The institute matches the authors of the selected works with collaborators, including professional directors and music directors, as well as a company of actors and singers that includes professionals and current Yale students. The lab culminates with open rehearsal readings of each project, presented in June as part of New Haven’s International Festival of Arts and Ideas. Applications for the 2016 program are being reviewed, and the two selected works will be announced in late March.

A new alumni residency, introduced in 2015, provides an environment for a writing team to work on a project already in development. It is open only to past institute participants.

Established in 2009, the Institute for Music Theatre is a program of Yale’s Binger Center for New Theatre, which bridges the gap between training and the professional world for emerging composers, book writers, and lyricists.