Yale Drama School Announces Its Season

Graduate students at the Yale School of Drama will direct four plays this season at University Theatre on York Street. The productions will be “The Pope and the Witch” by Dario Fo, directed by Stephan Genn; “Troy Women,” an adaptation of Euripides’ “Trojan Women,” directed by Laura Stribling; Peter Handke’s “The Ride Across Lake Constance,” directed by Andrew Utter; and “Happy End,” a Brecht/Weill musical, directed by Eleanor Holdridge.

These productions serve an academic purpose, and are equivalent to a master’s thesis for the third-year directing students, who will graduate in 1997. An integral part of the Drama School’s renowned training program, the productions will also be acted, designed, researched and managed entirely by students.

The selected works for the upcoming season represent “an exquisite theatrical range” that includes tragedy, social satire, musical theater and a “modern masterwork,” says Stan Wojewodski Jr., dean of the School of Drama.

The season opens with Fo’s “The Pope and the Witch,” which runs Oct. 29-Nov. 2. In the play, the celebrated satirical playwright focuses on the Pope in the Vatican as he comes to terms with significant sociopolitical issues often side-stepped by the government.

“Troy Women”, adapted by School of Drama playwright Karen Hartman, will be presented Jan. 14-18, 1997. The theme of the work – which opens in the aftermath of the Trojan War, where the surviving women of Troy are being divided into groups and sent into slavery by their Greek captors – is that a war often leaves no victors.

“A Ride Across Lake Constance” will run March 11-15. In this play, five self-conscious people begin to build alliances and feel secure with one another – until the arrival of a pair of twins, who threaten the delicate balance of their relationships.

The School of Drama season will close with “Happy End,” performed May 2-7. The work is at once a straight-forward pre-Depression musical set in Chicago’s seedy underworld and a complex political commentary on the forces of capitalism.

All plays will be performed at University Theatre, 222 York St. Ticket prices are $10-15. Group discounts are available. For more information, call the Yale Repertory Theatre box office at 432-1234.

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