Directing

Production Opportunities

Production work, involving intensive collaboration with fellow students in all School of Drama programs, is central to our training. During their time at the School of Drama, directors practice their craft in diverse forums, ranging from scene work in classrooms to full productions in various performance spaces. Through these opportunities, directors put theory into practice, developing their ability to respond to a range of artistic, logistical, and leadership  challenges. In the first year of training, directors participate in collaboratively created short compositions in DRAM 50a, The Theatrical Event, and direct workshop stagings of new plays by first-year playwrights in the New Play Lab. In the second year, directors direct a Shakespeare Repertory Project and a new play by a peer playwright. In the culminating year of training, directors direct a full production of their own thesis project and may direct a new play by a peer playwright in the Carlotta Festival. In addition, directors may be assigned to serve as assistant directors on Yale Repertory Theatre or School of Drama productions.

All directing and assistant directing assignments are made by the chair of the Directing program (pending approval by the dean). Additional or alternative projects may be assigned to directors in all years of training, including new works, assistantships, and, on occasion, casting in School of Drama and Yale Rep productions.

Drama 50

Drama 50 is a 3-week classroom workshop in theatrical collaboration and composition for first-year actors, designers, directors, dramaturgs, and playwrights. The purpose is twofold: to challenge each student artist to develop their flexibility and fluency as a contributing member of a professional theatrical collaboration, whether as an actor, designer, director, dramaturg, or playwright; and to challenge the ensemble to collaboratively create an original emotionally and intellectually charged theatrical event.

New Play Lab

First-year playwrights in the spring semester participate in a three-week lab on new one-act plays with actors, directors, and dramaturgs. The New Play Lab has no design elements and minimal technical support, and is presented exclusively for the faculty and students of the School of Drama.

Langston Hughes Festival of New Work

The Langston Hughes Festival of New Work incorporates and advances the principles of the New Play Lab, bringing playwrights, directors, actors, dramaturgs, and stage managers together to work on a new play. The Festival embraces the significant artistic, technical, and managerial challenges of producing new plays in rotating repertory. The process is managed by students from the Theater Management and Technical Design and Production departments, and is presented to a public audience.

Shakespeare Repertory Projects

Clarity of language, lucidity of storytelling, and impact of performance are the primary objectives of these productions of works from Shakespeare’s canon, which are proposed and staged by second-year directors, and approved by the department chair and the dean. Directors lead their peers from the Acting, Design, Sound Design, Dramaturgy, and Stage Management departments in rigorous mutual exploration and imaginative realization of the text with the collective purpose of generating an imaginatively conceived and skillfully executed production. These productions are managed by students from the Theater Management and Technical Design and Production departments and they are presented to a public audience.

Directors’ Thesis Productions

Third-year directors propose productions of contemporary or classical plays, musicals, adaptations, or original works as the production portion of their thesis, which must be endorsed by the faculty, and approved by the department chair and the dean. Directors lead their peers from Acting, Design, Sound Design, Dramaturgy, and Stage Management in circumstances resembling as closely as possible those they will encounter in a professional context. These productions are managed by students from the Theater Management and Technical Design and Production departments. Performances are presented to a paying public audience.

Carlotta Festival of New Plays

Students in all disciplines collaborate on the production of three new plays written by third-year playwrights. The Festival’s name honors Carlotta O’Neill who designated that the proceeds from the publication of Long Day’s Journey Into Night by her husband, Eugene O’Neill, would support playwriting at Yale University. The Festival embraces the significant artistic, technical, and managerial challenges of producing new plays in rotating repertory, in circumstances similar to those in the professional theater. The third-year playwrights are paired with third-year Directors, who lead their peers from the Acting, Design, Sound Design, Dramaturgy, and Stage Management departments to fully realize the playwright’s work. The Festival is managed by students from the Theater Management and Technical Design and Production departments, and performances are presented to a paying public audience.

Yale Cabaret

The Yale Cabaret is an independent, student-run theater company in residence at David Geffen School of Drama. It provides an additional, strictly extracurricular outlet for the exploration of a wide range of material, including self-scripted material, company-devised original work, adaptations, and musicals. Directors are encouraged to direct productions for Yale Cabaret and to participate in the work of the Cabaret in other capacities. All students must seek prior approval from the department chair for participation in any area of the Cabaret. No student with an incomplete and no second- or third-year student on probation may participate in the Yale Cabaret in any capacity.

Yale Repertory Theatre

Yale Repertory Theatre is the multiple Tony Award-winning professional theater in residence at David Geffen School of Drama, which produces an annual season of new and classic plays as well as the No Boundaries performance series. In a relationship analogous to that of a medical school and a teaching hospital, nearly every student at the School of Drama receives a meaningful production assignment at Yale Rep during their three years of training.