School Notes: David Geffen School of Drama
May/June 2016

Carlotta Festival highlights new plays

The 11th annual Carlotta Festival of New Plays features three fully produced plays by School of Drama playwrights performed in repertory of 12 performances over eight days, May 6–14. This year’s plays are New Domestic Architecture by Brendan Pelsue ’16MFA, Some Bodies Travel by Jiréh Breon Holder ’16MFA and Tori Sampson ’17MFA, and Amy and the Orphans by Lindsey Ferrentino ’16MFA. The Carlotta Festival is named for Carlotta Monterey, the widow of Eugene O’Neill, who chose Yale University Press as the publisher of her late husband’s masterpiece Long Day’s Journey into Night. The proceeds from this publication support playwriting at Yale University.   

2016 Yale Institute for Music Theatre

The Yale Institute for Music Theatre announces the two original book musicals that have been selected for this year’s two-week summer lab:  Blessing, music and lyrics by Andrew R. Butler and book by Andrew Farmer, directed by Kent Nicholson; and The White City, music by Avi Amon and book and lyrics by Julia Gytri, directed by Mark Brokaw ’86MFA (who serves as artistic director of the institute). The 2016 institute, which runs June 12–25, will culminate with open rehearsal readings of each project on June 24 and 25, presented as part of the International Festival of Arts and Ideas. In addition, the institute welcomes back Tim Rosser and Charlie Sohne, authors of The Profit of Creation (2011), who are returning to work on their musical Run Away Home as this year’s alumni residents. 

Collaborating on a new play

Yale School of Drama is collaborating this spring with the Dmitry Krymov Lab to create a new production that will have its world premiere in June at the Iseman Theater as part of the 2016 International Festival of Arts and Ideas. The Square Root of Three Sisters, which will be created and performed by artists from the School of Drama and the Krymov Lab, comes on the heels of seminars led by internationally acclaimed director Krymov at Yale last year and earlier this year. The production is made possible by Trust for Mutual Understanding, Sonja Berggren and Patrick Seaver, Azamat Kumykov ’15MAS, Dmitry Ananiev, and Aram Piruzyan.