About Us
Student Life
For information about life at Yale, including housing, transportation, health and wellness, and more, please visit the Yale Student Life website. Matriculating School of Drama students can find additional information about life at our school in the DGSDinfo website's New Students section.
Student Government
School of Drama Student Government (SDSG) strives to enhance the educational experience of each student by being a forum for students' ideas and concerns; acting as a liaison between students and the faculty and administration; and promoting education and social activities that help foster a strong sense of community within the David Geffen School of Drama.
Davon Williams, President + General Student Body Rep + GPSS Rep
Karen Loewy Movilla, Vice-President + International Student Body Rep
Jasmine Brooks, Secretary + Summer Cabaret Advisory Board Rep
Mia Van Deloo, Treasurer + Dramaturgy Rep
Amanda Burtness, Communications Co-Coordinator + Design Rep
Destyne Miller, Communications Co-Coordinator + EDI Rep
Emily Breeze, Playwriting Rep
Jeremy Fuentes, Acting Rep
Andrew Rodriguez, Directing Rep
Mithra Seyedi, Theater Management Rep
Caileigh Potter, Stage Management Rep
Yun Wu, Technical Design and Production Rep
Raekwon Fuller & Shawn Bowers GPSS Reps
Naomi Rodriguez & Toni Carton, Technical Design and Production Interns Rep
Student Groups
All David Geffen School of Drama student groups are open to all students.
ActOUT strives to create, foster, and strengthen bonds between LGBTQIA students and faculty within David Geffen School of Drama and to support theater that speaks to queer identity and issues. Through engagement with historical and contemporary queer theater practice and practitioners, ActOUT advocates for the visibility of queer students, faculty, art, and artists.
Founded at David Geffen School of Drama in 2015, A.M.P. is a learning group that aims to unpack privilege and leverage it to ignite necessary change. We strive to support affinity groups and all members of the David Geffen School of Drama community, and to provide a safe place where people can ask questions, challenge one another, and set changes in motion.
New Leaf supports Asian, Asian-American, and Pacific Islander (AAPI) students and alumni at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale. Originally founded in 2015 as Asian Potluck for our rich history of gathering around food, the group was renamed New Leaf in 2022 to acknowledge the vast array of AAPI experiences. Offered by Baylina Pu (Yale College ‘23), New Leaf is named with an eye on AAPI innovations, including tea and paper; it is also an homage to the diasporic experience of turning a new leaf and starting anew in America and the West. We convene to discuss topics relevant to current issues affecting the AAPI population in the theatre community, at Yale and in the world at large. New Leaf encourages sharing and celebration of Asian American theatre, culture, and communities . We aim to celebrate and promote a more inclusive canon of AAPI theatrical works.
Our mission is to foster an inclusive community of AAPI artists and thinkers, empower AAPI voices, dreams, questions, build networks of AAPI artists and other members. Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander experiences and cultures are often collapsed, misrepresented, and made invisible. We seek to support AAPI artists as socially and politically engaged artists and activists, while understanding that the AAPI identity is a label that is often imposed on members of the community en masse despite linguistic, cultural, and experiential differences.
Beyond Borders, founded in 2019, aims to raise awareness of, to support, and to empower the international community at David Geffen School of Drama. We aim to cultivate global perspectives at the School by celebrating international experiences, and bringing in diverse understandings of culture, identity, and aesthetics. Beyond Borders is a welcoming space for international community members as well as anyone experiencing culture shock in their life at David Geffen School of Drama, to share our experiences, frustrations, joys, and hopes.
DEFY: Disability Empowerment for Yale (DGSD), is a disability affinity group founded in 2018. DEFY uses the term disability purposefully and politically. Disability is a condition imposed by cultures that actively disable variant bodies and minds. DEFY exists to create accessible spaces of community and support by and for the disabled community of YSD. It advocates for stories of disability on the stage and for disabled voices in the room. In all of its work DEFY acknowledges that disability identities are intertwined with race, gender, sexuality, citizenship, age, religion, and class, and it strives to hold space for discussion and action that piece through these intersections and honor their complexities.
Established in 2015, El Colectivo welcomes members to share expressions of Latinidad to uplift stories, art, and communities in conocimiento.
Founded in 1981, FOLKS exists to cultivate solidarity, legacy, and high-risk artistry of its members and Black artists; it honors the rich history and informs the culture of the School through performances, activism, and discussion.
People of Marginalized Genders (PMG) is committed to hosting productive conversations about gender in the industry and at the School, advocating for people of marginalized genders as individuals, artists, and equal members of society through the medium of theater and by raising awareness of their issues, challenges, and victories—yesterday, today, and in the future. We honor the history of our founding in 2015 as Womxn’s Voices in Theatre and remain committed to evolving as necessary to ensure PMG is an inclusive, intersectional, and essential space at the School.