Under the leadership of Artistic Director Kristina Mendicino and Associate Artistic Director Tea Alagic, Summer Cabaret (at Yale) is pleased to announce the fourth and final play in its 31st season. Baal will be presented from July 27-August 6 at 217 Park Street in New Haven, Connecticut. Tea Alagican international artist, actress, emerging director, and Yale School of Drama MFA candidate known for her work with Robert LePage and Richard Foremanwill direct the production. Single tickets are $15-$22 and subscriptions are $36-$58. Groups of ten or more can purchase tickets for $15 per individual. Tickets can be reserved ahead of time by calling (203) 432-1567 and can be purchased at the door prior to performances (subject to availability). Post-performance discussions with the Artistic Director and Artists take place on Thursday evenings following the performance.
All productions are performed at 217 Park Street, New Haven, Connecticut with performances taking place at 8PM Wednesday through Saturday of the first week of each production’s run and Tuesday through Saturday of the second week of each production’s run. Doors open for dinner and drinks at 6:30.
Summer Cabaret’s season will conclude with Bertolt Brecht’s Baal (July 27-August 6). Baal will bring the season to a poetic close by presenting a break through work of a young Brechta play about which a Berlin reviewer wrote, “At 24 the writer Brecht has changed Germany’s literary complexion overnight.” Similarly, Baal will provide one last opportunity in the season for Summer Cabaret’s artists to leave their own mark upon New Haven’s theatrical and literary world. Summer Cabaret’s production of Baal will be set in Andy Warhol’s Silver Factory and will present Mendicino and Alagic’s views of a culture that they perceive as celebrity-obsessed. The production will include contemporary sound design and 1960’s-style costumes thereby referencing modern society and particularly the era of the 1960’s.
The original Baal traces the title character’s disintegration as he (a poet) retreats from a society that is prepared to consume himthe same society in which the rock star-like Brecht found himself. The play is comprised of short scenes and Brecht returned to it throughout his career considering it a critique of fin de siecle decadence that bred the wars of the early and mid-twentieth century.
Kristina Mendicino, Artistic Director of Summer Cabaret 2005, is a first-year student in the Dramaturgy Program at Yale School of Drama. During her undergraduate years at Dartmouth College she served as the dramaturg for play such as Laughing Wild, by Christopher Durang; The Apple Tree by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick; and Dona Rosita, The Spinster, by Frederico Garcia Lorca. Currently, Mendicino is dramaturg for Hedda Gabler, by Henrik Ibsen; and Alone, a new work by Terrell McCraney (MFA candidate, Yale School of Drama, 2007). In the fall of 2005, Mendicino collaborated with Summer Cabaret Associate Artistic Director Tea Alagic and created a work based on Alex DeTocquville’s Democracy in America and The Bill of Rights.
Tea Alagic, Resident Artistic Director, of Summer Cabaret 2005, has worked with cutting edge multi-media artist and director Robert LePage, as well as with the famous New York City avant-gardist Richard Foreman. Her numerous acting credits have taken her all over the world (including Edinburgh’s International Fringe Festival; Royal National Theatre, London; Brooklyn Academy of Music, United States; Salzberg Festpiele, Austria), and in 1997 Alagic founded her own New York City-based theatre company, Stateless (dedicated to new work, international artists, and multi-media). Alagic is currently a first-year MFA candidate in Directing at Yale School of Drama and her recent directing debut at the term-time Cabaret was noted in the Yale Dale News as being exceptionally strong in its directing.
Zane Pihlstrom is the costume and set designer for BAAL. Gina Scherr is the lighting designer and Greg Hennigan is the sound designer.
Individual tickets and group tickets can be reserved by calling (203) 432-1567 or at the door prior to performances (subject to availability). Individual tickets for Summer Cabaret are $15-$22 ($15 students; $18.50 seniors; $22 full price). All productions are performed at 217 Park Street, New Haven, Connecticut with performances taking place at 8PM Wednesday through Saturday of the first week of each production’s run and Tuesday through Saturday of the second week of each production’s run.
Summer Cabaret was founded in 1974. It is dedicated to providing emerging professionals with the opportunity to explore innovative artistic and/or managerial concepts in theatrical production. In addition to its on-stage productions, Summer Cabaret aims to provide library lectures that help establish and maintain deeper, richer community relations in New Haven while increasing awareness of the arts. Summer Cabaret gratefully acknowledges the support of The New Haven Advocate, Ideal Printing, CT Presort, The Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, and WSHU.