nothin Yale Cabaret Fires Up New Season | New Haven Independent

Yale Cabaret Fires Up New Season

Patrick Dunn as Kiki Lucia.

Is winter on the wane already? It’s the time of year when the Yale Cabaret announces the remaining shows of the spring semester. Artistic directors Zachry J. Bailey, Brandon E. Burton, Alex Vermillion, and managing director Jamie Totti have made their final selections for the 52nd season of the Yale Cabaret, which ends in late April. From this week until then, there are two more shows per month. And up this week is one of the shows that has earned its place by tradition and popular response: Dragaret.

The Yale School of Drama drag show is now in its fifth year. In 2013, according to then-Artistic Director Ethan Heard, the drag show began as a special event to coincide with the Yale LGBTQ Alumni reunion. It also happened to be the year of a record blizzard and the show, which featured drag versions of great dramatic heroines such as Joan of Arc, Cleopatra, and Hedda Gabler, is remembered very fondly by those who braved the storm and managed to attend. In 2018, during the 50th anniversary year of the Cabaret, the drag show expanded into a two-night affair. That’s in part because of some criticism leveled at the show by Patrick Dunn of New Haven Pride, who felt that the show was insufficiently aware of the history of drag culture and its longtime existence in New Haven.

This year the Friday night drag show, on Feb. 21, features Connecticut queens in two shows at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. The performers, says Dunn — who hosts both shows as Kiki Lucia — are the same in each show, but their acts are completely different. These are drag artists, both professional and amateur, who are dedicated to drag as an aspect of queer identity. On Saturday night, Feb. 22, current students in the Yale School of Drama will perform their own drag routines for three shows, at 8 p.m., 10 p.m. and 12 a.m. The host for the YSD night is Tipsy Von Tart, a third-year costume designer, and the theme is an homage to the underground nature of drag for much of its history. There will be some new features — such as go-go cages — and Danilo Gambini, who will be DJing, said the intention is to bring joy into the conversation of consent and pleasure,” while respecting that drag is both political theater and queer art.” The Cabaret has this week made available additional seats to all shows, so grab them up while they last.

The final show of February is called Cock. The play, by British playwright Mike Bartlett, was proposed by John Evans Reese, a third-year actor who will play John, a gay man with a male partner who finds himself falling in love with a woman. Burton said the play is a love story” that makes us face the question: Could it be that the labels we impose on ourselves and each other limit our container of empathy and reduce our capacity for pleasure and love on love’s terms?” For Vermillion, the play, which ze called witty and sharp,” shows identities clashing” and how relationships can get tricky.” Cock can be seen at the Cabaret Feb. 27 to Feb. 29.

After that rather adults-only offering, the next month starts off, March 5 to 7, with a show that’s family-oriented. Van Gogh Café is based on a children’s book by Cynthia Rylant, proposed and adapted by Madeline Charne and Emily Sorenson, both third-year students of dramaturgy and dramatic criticism. Vermillion likened the show to contemporary cartoons” that have humor adults will appreciate while telling a magical story about a young girl named Clara, her father’s café, and her wry and touching coming-of-age adventure. The Cab team aims to schedule early shows for families with younger children.

After two weeks dark, the other March slot — the 25th to the 28th — will be filled by another tradition. The Satellite Festival, which began in 2016 and is now in its fourth year, was conceived as a moveable feast of theater offerings at the Cab and in surrounding locations. It has become an opportunity for collaborations between students in the Yale School of Drama and other Yale schools, such as art or music. It’s also been a showcase for YSD students working out of discipline and for the students working in the various tech disciplines — such as sound design or projection design — to present work. Students with musical abilities get a chance to show talents that may not find an audience in dramatic work. This year the Festival will be curated by executive producers Markie Gray (Theater Management, 20), Erin Sullivan (Projection Design, 20), and Caitlin Volz (Theater Management, 20). More on the lineup and the curators’ plans to develop what Vermillion called a festival on different stages” idea will be forthcoming.

In April, the Cabaret will showcase work by two current students. First-year playwright a. k. payne will direct her play Ain’t No Dead Thing, April 16 to 18. The play dramatizes events leading up to the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, a massacre of African-American families and the destruction of homes and businesses in the Greenwood district in Oklahoma that, Bailey said, is not often told in history books.” The play transforms the Cab into a safe haven bar/café called Noa’s Ark, a sanctuary for queer Black womxn.”

Group Fitness, by first-year actor Maggie McCaffery and directed by first-year director Jacob Basti, is modeled on a fitness studio in New York where a women’s choreo-workout group attempts to empower women physically and mentally,” Vermillion said. Like Lucas Hnath’s Red Speedo, which the Cab produced in the fall, the play, Burton said, looks at the intensity of sport culture, but this time we are in the Lululemony tart of a fitness class. What happens when our safe space laboratories become tainted by the social poison we are trying to concoct the antidote to?” The show, Vermillion said, ends the season with a loud burst of energy.”

As Totti pointed out, the team had three show proposals for each of the remaining five slots. That made for a tough selection process. Those proposed by students who will return in 2020 – 21 may yet get their chance. For now, the team of Cabaret 52 are excited by what’s ahead and are confident their choices reflect diverse forms of art, bold reinterpretations, new experimentations, and challenging plays.”

For a second year, the Yale Cabaret is partnering with Chef Dana Cesnik Doyle of Queen of Tarts Catering for its dinner and dessert menu. Totti called Doyle a wonderful partner for the Cab. Her stylish, unfussy California cuisine goes well with our shows, and her love for this community makes her a most welcoming host in our little basement.” Three-course dinner is available prior to 8 p.m. performances, with an abbreviated menu of desserts and drinks available at 11 p.m. performances. Prix-fixe pricing is offered for all dinner menus.

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