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The Yale Alumni Magazine is owned and operated by Yale Alumni Publications, Inc., a nonprofit corporation independent of Yale University. The content of the magazine and its website is the responsibility of the editors and does not necessarily reflect the views of Yale or its officers. |
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Because the Yale Alumni Magazine rents office space in the same Yale building at 149 York Street where the drama school holds rehearsals, trips to the vending machine and recycling bins can be exciting. We warn our new employees not to be alarmed if they hear screams. Once I stepped around two women who were sitting on the floor in a hallway, holding a loud, lively discussion in Commonwealth accents about going to the Betty Ford Center if they became addicted to crack. Another time I almost bumped into a tall young man, looking melancholy in makeup and a long blue gown—Olivia in Twelfth Night, possibly—who was pacing back and forth talking to himself by the freight elevator. But the best moment recently took place in the women’s restroom. I was washing my hands when two women came in behind me. “That wasn’t bad,” said the first, with satisfaction. The second one replied, “No one ever got two standing ovations before!” The first woman was Michele Shay, Tony nominee and Obie Award winner, who was rehearsing for her role as Mame Wilks in Radio Golf. By the time you read this, Radio Golf’s run at the Yale Repertory Theater will be well under way (it ends May 15), and Shay and her fellow cast members may have earned many more ovations. Radio Golf is the last play in August Wilson’s century cycle—one play for every decade of the African American experience in the last hundred years. Wilson has won two Pulitzers and two Tonys with the cycle and established his reputation as a playwright to be read alongside Arthur Miller and Harold Pinter. The world premiere of Radio Golf is a national event. Wilson likes to start his plays in regional theaters before taking them to larger venues. (He’s the last playwright, the Washington Post pointed out in December, who can reliably get serious new plays onto Broadway. The rest of the theaters are filled with sequins and dance numbers.) He could likely have had Radio Golf’s premiere produced almost anywhere in the country. But the Yale Repertory Theater’s reputation is particularly bright right now, after several outstanding seasons. And, more important than that, 20 years ago the Rep took a chance on Wilson. He was an unknown in 1984 when Yale premiered Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. It went directly to Broadway, earned Wilson a New York Drama Critics Circle award, and transformed him from unknown to sought-after. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom was the first play in the century cycle. To close the circle, Wilson is coming back to the Rep. Everyone at Yale agrees that the drama school needs better facilities; Michele Shay and her fellow actors should be able to rehearse without running into stray magazine staff, and the building at 149 York, a former bakery, has seen better times. It is slated to be demolished in a few years and its site put to other uses. At that point the magazine will find other offices. They may not be as interesting, however. The other day, on my way to buy a sandwich, I met August Wilson on the street outside our building. He was in town to take Radio Golf through its final stage of development—listening to the actors rehearse, reworking lines and scenes. He said it felt good to be back at Yale. |
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©1992–2012, Yale Alumni Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Yale Alumni Magazine, P.O. Box 1905, New Haven, CT 06509-1905, USA. yam@yale.edu |
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