THE PLAYWRIGHTS
TIM ACITO (YSD ’02) has written the book, music, and lyrics for three stage musicals, as well as a full-length children’s animated musical screenplay. His musical, Zanna, Don’t!, for which he received three Drama Desk Award nominations, is currently being developed for a Broadway run in the 2004-5 season.
ROBERTO AGUIRRE-SACASA’s The Mystery Plays was recently produced by Yale Repertory Theatre before moving to New York’s Second Stage Theatre as part of its New Plays Uptown series. His occult comedy Say You Love Satan won an Excellence in Playwriting Award from the 2003 International Fringe Festival.
ARON AND MICHAEL EGNER have been telling stories together since Aron was two-years-old and Michael was finishing up in the womb. The brothers are the recipients of dozens of writing honors, from organizations such as the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference, The Writers Film Project, Newsweek, The Humana Festival and The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Their playwriting work has been produced on both Coasts and in Chicago. TV/film work includes Dharma & Greg and freelance screenwriting work for the US Military. When they’re not writing, they each work for international think tanks: Michael for the RAND Corporation and Aron for The Advisory Board. They each hold a BA from Princeton University. They live in Santa Monica, California.
DAVID HENRY HWANG’s plays include M. Butterfly (Tony Award), Golden Child (Tony nomination, OBIE Award), The Dance and the Railroad, and FOB (OBIE Award). His new book for Rodgers & Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song earned him his third Tony nomination in 2003, and he is currently represented on Broadway as co-author of Disney’s Aida. His libretti include three works with Philip Glass, as well as operas for composers Bright Sheng and Osvaldo Golijov. Hwang also penned the feature films M. Butterfly, Golden Gate, and Possession (co-writer). He serves on the Council of the Dramatists Guild.
SUNIL KURUVILLA’s plays Rice Boy and Fighting Words have both been produced by Yale Repertory Theatre. He has received commissions from the Joseph Papp Public Theater, The Wilma Theatre, and South Coast Repertory.
JAMI O’BRIEN’s play Banditos received a reading at New Dramatists in New York City last December and a workshop production at the Yale School of Drama in April. Other workshop productions at Yale include Jami’s plays Cancer Thanksgiving and Turnpike. The Home received a reading at the Abrons Arts Center in New York in 2001, and a production at the Yale Summer Cabaret in 2003. The Yale Cabaret has produced three of Jami’s short plays: Painting with the Cousin, Magic Eight Ball, and Freaks. Jami holds an M.F.A. from the Yale School of Drama.
VICTOR KAUFOLD graduated from Bard College in ’02 where he studied playwriting under the tutelage of JoAnne Akalaitis and Chiori Miyagawa. His first full length play, The Why, was produced by The Blank Theatre in Los Angeles in ’00 and was nominated for an Ovation award for best new play. It is now published with Playscripts Inc. Recently The Special Interest Case of Special Agent Esteban Martinez received readings with the Black Cat Group and New York Theater Workshop. Victor currently attends The Yale School of Drama where he is scheduled to receive his MFA in playwriting in ‘05.
EDWIN SANCHEZ’ s newest play, Diosa, was produced in the spring by Hartford Stage after a successful workshop by New York Stage and Film. Other recent productions include Trafficking in Broken Hearts at the Bank Street Theater in New York , Unmerciful Good Fortune at the Intar Theater in New York , for which he received my Princess Grace Playwriting Award in 1994, and Barefoot Boy with Shoes On at Primary Stages in New York . He was among the playwrights involved with Brave New World, an organization commemorating the events surrounding September 11th. He is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and New Dramatists.
ALENA SMITH will enter her second year at Yale School of Drama this fall. Her plays include Saturnalia in Poughkeepsie, produced this spring at the School of Drama; Apple of Discord, produced at the 2003 Philadelphia Fringe Festival; and Alice Eat Your Words, produced at Haverford College in 2001. She graduated from Haverford with honors in Philosophy, and studied at Oxford. Alena is also Associate Artistic Director of Summer Cabaret 2004.
WENDY WASSERSTEIN’s off-Broadway play Uncommon Womenand Others was produced at the Phoenix Theatre in 1978. In 1989, Wendy Wasserstein was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the New York Drama Critics Circle Prize, the Drama Desk Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and the Tony Award for her play The Heidi Chronicles. Her other plays include Isn’t It Romantic and The Sisters Rosensweig. Her play Old Money had its run at The Mitzi E. Newhouse at Lincoln Center Theater fall 2000. Her newest plays, Welcome To My Rash and Third were done at Theatre J in Washington DC in winter of 2004. For television she has adapted her plays An American Daughter, Uncommon Women and Others and The Heidi Chronicles. Her screenplay, The Object of my Affection, was made into a major motion picture featuring Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd and directed by Nicholas Hytner. Wendy Wasserstein’s publication credits include a collection of essays, Bachelor Girls (Knopf); The Heidi Chronicles and Other Plays (Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich); The Sisters Rosensweig (Harcourt, Brace), a children’s book, Pamela’s First Musical (Hyperion) and her most recent book of essays Shiksa Goddess (OR HOW I SPENT MY FORTIES) (Knopf). She serves on the Council of the Dramatist’s Guild.
SUMMER CABARET 2004 CREATIVE TEAM
10 Minute Plays will feature scenic design by Lee Savage, costume design by Christine Mok, lighting design by Bryan Keller, and sound design by Amber Papini. Alena Smith is the dramaturg, Drew Farrow is the technical director, and Shawn Senavinin is the stage manager.
LEE SAVAGE (Scenic Design) has designed settings for The Servant of Two Masters (Pittsburgh Public Theater), Hot Star, Nebraska (Speak Easy Stage Company), A School For Scandal (Trinity Repertory Company), and Gas/House Bang/Gang (The New York International Fringe Festival and HERE). At Yale School of Drama Lee designed the set for Orpheus Descending. At Yale Cabaret Lee has designed: Faust is Dead, Fefu and her Friends, In the Heart of America , The House of Yes , Vladimir Mayakovsky: A Tragedy, Funeral Games, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Once More, with Feeling, and Nocturne. Lee is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design and is currently an MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama. Lee is a recipient of the Donald M. Oenslager Scholarship in Stage Design.
CHRISTINE MOK (Costume Design), an MFA Candidate in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism, is about to begin her final year at Yale School of Drama. Her production credits at Yale School of Drama include Orpheus Descending (dramaturg), The Merchant of Venice (dramaturg), Spring Awakening (dramaturg), and New (dramaturg). Her credits at Yale Cabaret include Fefu and Her Friends (director), Faust Is Dead (dramaturg), In the Heart of America (costume design), The Wild Party (costume design), Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Musical (costume design), and The Santaland Diaries (costume design). She was an Artistic Associate of the 2003-2004 Yale Cabaret. She is Managing Editor of Theater and a Teaching Fellow of Yale College. She received her BA in English and Theater from Dartmouth College.
AMBER PAPINI (Sound Design) is a third-year MFA sound design candidate. Previous designs include: The Summer People by Maxim Gorky, Dance the Holy Ghost by Yale playwright Marcus Gardley, Spring Awakening by Frank Wedekind and Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Yale Cabaret credits: Fefu and Her Friends, Painting with Cousin, 24 Hour Theatre and Kennedy’s Children. Amber has also been involved in several public radio shows including NPR’s Sunken Garden Poetry and New Letters on the Air. She received a BA in American Studies from The University of Missouri at Kansas City.
THE CAST
RICHARD GALLAGHER is a second-year MFA Acting candidate at Yale School of Drama. Previous Yale productions: Faust Is Dead, Romeo & Juliet, Summer People, Devil Caught Rope. New York: A Taste of Heaven, 2003 New York International Fringe Festival; Genesis: 7 Breakthrough Plays, First Hand Theatre Company at 78 th St. Theatre Lab; Savage/Love, Grove Street Playhouse. Regional: Fugitive Kind, Marin Theatre Company and Center Repertory Company; the west coast premiere of Wendy Wasserstein’s Old Money, TheatreWorks, Palo Alto; Spinning Into Butter, TheatreWorks; the world premiere of a new Rebecca Gilman play, The American In Me, Magic Theatre, San Francisco; also in San Francisco, Snakebit and Corpus Christi, both at the New Conservatory Theatre Center; Playground Festival, Traveling Jewish Theatre; Savage/Love, Theatre Rhinoceros; and Othello in a studio production at A.C.T.
MIKELLE JOHNSON is a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama. She has been seen on the Yale stage in Romeo and Juliet (Juliet), The Skin of Our Teeth (Sabina), and Dance the Holy Ghost: a Play on Memory by Marcus Gardley. This is her second summer with the Summer Cabaret.
BRIDGET JONES will begin her second year at Yale School of Drama in the fall.
DAVID MATRANGA begins his second year as at Yale School of Drama in the fall. He was last seen at Yale Rep in The King Stag, where he also understudied The Black Dahlia. At the Yale School of Drama he appeared in The Summer People, Romeo & Juliet and Glengarry Glen Ross at the Yale Cabaret. Prior to attending Yale School of Drama he spent a season at Actors Theatre of Louisville.
ALEXIS MCGUINNESS is a second-year actor at the Yale School of Drama. Previously at Yale Cabaret, she performed in Fefu and Her Friends (Julia). She is an '03 graduate of Dartmouth College.