Technical Design and Production

Production Opportunities

Professional work assignments (PWA) place our students in key technical management roles in mounting David Geffen School of Drama, Yale Repertory Theatre, and Yale Cabaret productions. Those roles typically include the following management positions:

• Associate Safety Advisor
• Production Electrician
• Production Manager
  • Associate Production Manager
• Projection Engineer
• Properties Manager
  • Assistant Properties Manager
• Sound Engineer
• Stage Carpenter
• Technical Director
  • Assistant Technical Director

All first- and second-year students complete three production assignments; third-year students, only two. At the end of each year, students continuing in the program submit their requests. The program chair uses those requests along with faculty recommendations, as the basis for making assignments for the following year.

Each student's PWA promotes their professional growth. When appropriate, we devise special assignments to suit a student's career goals. We also permit second and third-year students to substitute an approved research project for one PWA. In all this, the guiding principle is to allow students to pursue practical experiences that would most benefit them and work as independently as possible.

Acting Projects

First-, second-, and third-year actors employ skills from class in rehearsal and performance of a modern classic or contemporary work of challenging dimension with directors from among their faculty and professionals in the field. Dramaturgs are assigned to these projects. Designers and sound designers are assigned to Fall Project. Spring Project and the Commedia Project are designed by the company. The processes are managed by students from the Stage Management, Theater Management, and Technical Design and Production departments. The Fall Project is open to a small public audience, while the Spring Project and Commedia Project are presented by invitation only from members of the companies.

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 faculty 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 a well-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 student directors propose productions of contemporary or classical plays, musicals, adaptations, or—more rarely—original works, as the production portion of their thesis, which must be endorsed by their faculty and approved by 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 outlet for the exploration of a wide range of material, including self-scripted material, company-devised original work, adaptations, and musicals. Technical Design and Production students are encouraged to work in all capacities at the Yale Cabaret; however, this participation is understood to be in addition to and in no way a substitution for required departmental work. 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.