Cast and Creative Team Set for the World Premiere of THE SALVAGERS at Yale Repertory Theatre

Yale Repertory Theatre will continue its 2023-24 Season with the world premiere of The Salvagers by Harrison David Rivers, directed by Mikael Burke, November 24–December 16, at Yale Repertory Theatre (1120 Chapel Street). Opening Night is Thursday, December 1, which is also press night. 
 
The production features choreography by Tislarm Bouie, scenic design by B Entsminger, costume design by Risa Ando, lighting design by Nic Vincent, sound design by Stan Mathabane, projection design by John Horzen, production dramaturgy by Eric M. Glover, technical direction by Luke Tarnow-Bulatowicz, vocal coaching by Grace Zandarski, fight and intimacy direction by Michael Rossmy, casting by Calleri Jensen Davis, and stage management by Nakia Shalice Avila.
 
The cast of The Salvagers includes Mikayla LaShae Bartholomew, Taylor Blackman, McKenzie Chinn, Toni Martin, and Julian Elijah Martinez. 
 
The Salvagers was commissioned by Yale Repertory Theatre. Development and production support provided by the Binger Center for New Theatre.
 

More About The Salvagers
 

Meet the Bosemans Salvage: 37-year-old Senior and 23-year-old Junior, at odds under the same roof during a snowy Chicago winter. Their icy relationship is further strained as potential romances for both father and son compel them to reckon with the past. The Salvagers is a beautifully observed and humorous play about the second, third, and fourth chances that may be possible when hard truths are delivered in love.

Ticket Information and Performance Calendar
 
Tickets are $15 and $30 (all previews), $15 and $45 (weeknights), and $15 and $65 (weekends and matinees). Student tickets are $15 for all performances. Tickets are available online at yalerep.org, by calling (203) 432-1234, and in person at the Yale Rep Box Office (1120 Chapel Street).
 
Friday, November 24                       8PM    Preview
Saturday, November 25                  8PM    Preview, Post-Show Discussion 
Monday, November 27                    8PM    Preview, Post-Show Discussion
Tuesday, November 28                  8PM    Preview
Wednesday, November 29             8PM    Preview
Thursday, November 30                 8PM    Opening Night
Friday, December 1                         8PM
Saturday, December 2                    2PM
Saturday, December 2                    8PM
Tuesday, December 5                     8PM
Wednesday, December 6               2PM    Pre-performance Discussion 
Wednesday, December 6               8PM
Thursday, December 7                   8PM     
Friday, December 8                         8PM
Saturday, December 9                    2PM    Audio Description, Touch Tour, Talk Back
Saturday, December 9                    8PM    ASL
Tuesday, December 12                  8PM     
Wednesday, December 13             8PM
Thursday, December 14                 8PM
Friday, December 15                       8PM
Saturday, December 16                  2PM    Open Captioning
Saturday, December 16                  8PM
 

The Creative Team

 
Harrison David Rivers (Playwright) is an award-winning playwright, librettist, and television writer based in St. Paul, Minnesota. His works include we are continuous (Williamstown Theatre Festival, Geva Theatre Center, New Conservatory Theatre Center), the bandaged place (Roundabout, NYSF), This Bitter Earth (NCTC, Penumbra, About Face, Theater Alliance, Richmond Triangle Players, The Road, InterAct, TheatreWorks Hartford, Seattle Public, Blank Page), among others, and the musicals Five Points with Douglas Lyons and Ethan Pakchar, We Shall Someday with Ted Shen, and I Put a Spell on You with Nubya Garcia. His television credits include One of Us Is Lying (Peacock), The Nevers (HBO), and Wytches (Amazon). Harrison is a recipient of McKnight, Jerome and Van Lier Fellowships; residencies with the Siena Art Institute, NYTW, Williamstown, Geva and Duke University; and commissions from Yale Rep, the Roundabout, Transport Group, Penumbra, Geva, La Jolla Playhouse, and Minnesota Opera. He sits on the Board of Directors of The Movement Theatre Company and the Playwrights' Center. M.F.A., Columbia University. harrisondavidrivers.com 
 
Mikael Burke (Director) is a Chicago-based director, deviser, and educator. A Princess Grace Award winner in Theatre and Jeff Award-nominated director, Mikael has worked with Goodman Theatre, About Face Theatre, Victory Gardens Theatre, Northlight Theatre, Raven Theatre, Jackalope Theatre Company, First Floor Theater, American Theatre Company, Chicago Dramatists, The Story Theatre, and Windy City Playhouse in Chicago, and regionally with TheatreWorks Hartford, Forward Theatre Company, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Asolo Repertory Theatre, Geva Theatre Center, Third Avenue PlayWorks, and Phoenix Theatre Indianapolis. Mikael previously served as Associate Artistic Director of About Face Theatre and has taught at DePaul University, Roosevelt University, and Butler University. Recent directing credits include Two Mile Hollow by Leah Nanako Winkler, the American premiere of Routes by Rachel De-lahay, The Wanderersby Anna Ziegler, Shakespeare's Richard III, the world premiere of The Magnolia Ballet by Terry Guest (2022 Jeff Award Winner, Production, Short Run), and Fireflies by Donja R. Love (Black Theatre Alliance Award, Best Direction of an Ensemble). 
 
Tislarm Bouie (Choreographer) is a choreographer and creative director from Brooklyn. He attended Professional Performing School and University of the Arts for Dance. He's a Princess Grace Award winner for theater and a Drama Desk nominee for Roundabout Theatre Company's Off-Broadway production of the bandaged place. His work has been supported by residencies at Ars Nova and CUNY Dance Initiative. As a performer, select credits include In the Heights (film), Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus (Broadway), Saturday Night Live, and Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. He's danced for Coldplay, Alicia Keys, Jon Batiste, and Bebe Rexha, and appeared in advertisements for Vogue, Estee Lauder, and Cadillac.
 
B Entsminger they/them (Scenic Designer) is a scenic designer and theater maker currently pursuing their M.F.A. at David Geffen School of Drama, where their credits include Marys Seacole. Scenic design credits include Sleeping Car Porters, Chroma Key (The Brick); The Tulsa Swinton Variety Hour (Flux Factory); L.A. Pretty Boy (Playwrights Horizons Theater School); and The Gas Heart (McNay Museum SATX). Assistant/associate credits include Affinity (the Geffen School) and True West (Tobin Center SATX). B holds a B.A. from Trinity University San Antonio. 
 
Risa Ando (Costume Designer) is a fourth-year M.F.A. candidate at David Geffen School of Drama, where she designed the costumes for furlough's paradise and Next to Normal. She received a B.F.A. in costume design from SUNY Purchase College. Selected credits include Mamma Mia! (Forestburgh Playhouse, NY), #4 (Yale Cabaret), Switch No Otoko (Éclo, Tokyo), Dracula (Gekidan Ijin-Butai, Tokyo); Otoko-kai (Gekidan Ijin-Butai, Tokyo), The Best Place For Love (Fire & Ice Production, Dublin), Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles (Wonderland Productions, Dublin). risaando.myportfolio.com 
 
Nic Vincent (Lighting Designer) is a Brooklyn-based lighting designer. He designs for theatre, dance, opera, film, and everything in-between. Recent Off-Broadway includes Lincoln Center Theater LCT3, Roundabout, Atlantic, New Ohio, and New York Live Arts. Other Credits include BONEZ, Thurgood (People's Light); The Indigo Room (Under the Radar/La Mama); Wéi 成为 (Aki Studio/Tiger Princess Dance); Wolf Play, Everybody, Constellations (Brown/Trinity Rep); NIGHTGOWNS (Sasha Velour/ Quibi); El Huracán (Yale Repertory Theatre/The Sol Project); The Barber of Seville (Sacramento Opera); All the Lonely Women and DirectorJam (Rattlestick). He is a member of the Associated Designers of Canada ADC IATSE 659. M.F.A: David Geffen School of Drama. nicvincent.com
 
Stan Mathabane (Sound Designer) is a sound designer, audio engineer, composer, multi-instrumentalist, DJ, actor based in New York City, by way of Portland, Oregon—the coastal opposite of his birthplace, High Point, North Carolina. Stan's work spans theater, film, dance, virtual/augmented reality, video games, installation, and live performance. His design has resonated with audiences of the U.S. National Exhibition produced in collaboration with USITT at the Prague Quadrennial, The Public Theater: Under the Radar Festival, The Juilliard School, The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Stanford Live, and more. Stan is a fourth-year sound designer at David Geffen School of Drama, where his credits include Color Boy. He also served as assistant sound designer and engineer for Choir Boy and Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles at Yale Rep.  @stanmathabane | stanmathabane.com 
 
John Horzen he/him (Projection Designer) is a fourth-year M.F.A candidate in projection design at David Geffen School of Drama. He received his bachelor's degree in violin performance from the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University and is constantly examining the connective tissue that binds his rhyming loves of producing, designing, and communal music-making in order to discover new ways of storytelling. John's selected projection credits include The Planets (Woolsey Hall, co-projection designer), Cuatro Bailes (The Bushnell, Co-Producer and Set/Projections designer), and The Kite Runner (Broadway, 3D Animator). johnhorzen.com | @johnhorzen
 
Eric M. Glover (Production Dramaturg) is an Assistant Professor Adjunct at David Geffen School of Drama and a Faculty Fellow in the Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration. Glover served as a production dramaturg at Yale Rep for productions of the ripple, the wave that carried me home, Choir Boy, and A Raisin in the Sun (canceled due to COVID-19).
 
Luke Tarnow-Bulatowicz he/him (Technical Director) is a fourth-year technical design and production student at David Geffen School of Drama, where his credits include Next to Normal (technical director), Love's Labor's Lost (assistant technical director), and She Kills Monsters (projection engineer). He also served as assistant technical director on Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Yale Rep). Prior to Yale, Luke attended the University at Buffalo, where he received a B.A. in theater technology and a minor in computer science. While at UB he was a member of the Prague Quadrennial build team in 2019 and worked with the design teams to technical design and build each of the exhibits. 
 
Grace Zandarski (Vocal and Dialect Coach) is Associate Chair of the Acting program and Head of Voice and Text at David Geffen School of Drama, where she has taught Voice since 2002. She has coached numerous productions at Yale Rep and the Geffen School including The Brightest Thing in the World, An Enemy of the People, Hamlet, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, and Between Two Knees. New York coaching credits include Mike Nichols's productions of Death of a Salesman and Betrayal (Broadway), The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide… (The Public Theater), and Homebody/Kabul (BAM). She was named Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework in 1998. Grace is Co-Artistic Director of The Actors Center Workshop Company, a company member of Pantheatre (Paris), SAG-AFTRA, AEA, and VASTA. Acting credits include McCarter Theatre, OSF Ashland, Wilma Theatre, and ACT. Directing credits include the Peer Gynt Project and Chekhov Shorts. M.F.A., American Conservatory Theater; B.A., Princeton University. 
 
Michael Rossmy (Fight and Intimacy Director) is a Resident Fight and Intimacy Director for Yale Rep, a lecturer in acting at David Geffen School of Drama, and the Stage Combat and Intimacy Advisor for Yale College. Broadway credits include A Tale of Two Cities, Cymbeline, and Superior Donuts. Regional theater credits include The Public Theater, Westport Country Playhouse, Goodspeed Musicals, Paper Mill Playhouse, Asolo Rep, The Old Globe, TheaterWorks Hartford, Princeton University, The Acting Company, Soho Rep, The Geffen Playhouse, Long Wharf Theatre, McCarter Theatre, Kansas City Rep, People's Light & Theatre, and others. He was nominated for a 2017 Drama Desk Award for his work on Troilus and Cressida for The Public Theater's production in Central Park. Recent credits include Cyrano De Bergerac at Kansas City Rep directed by Nelson T. Eusebio III and the world premiere of Bonez written and directed by Steve Broadnax III. Upcoming is the New York premiere of Sally & Tom by Suzan-Lori Parks.
 
Calleri Jensen Davis (Casting Director) is a creative casting partnership among James Calleri, Erica Jensen, and Paul Davis of over 20 years. They began their collaboration with Yale Rep last season with Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles and the ripple, the wave that carried me home. Broadway credits: The Piano Lesson, Topdog/Underdog, for colored girls..., Thoughts of a Colored Man, Burn This, Fool for Love, The Elephant Man, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Of Mice and Men, Venus in Fur, A Raisin in the Sun, 33 Variations. Television: Love Life, Queens, Dickinson, and The Path, to name a few. callerijensendavis.com 
 
Nakia Shalice Avila she/they (Stage Manager) is a black afro-latine abolitionist, dreamer, and multi-hyphenate artist. Credits include Today is My Birthday, the ripple, the wave that carried me home (Yale Rep); Skeleton Crew, Othello (Trinity Repertory Company); Big River (Utah Shakespeare Festival); Familiar, True West(Steppenwolf Theatre Company); I was waiting for the echo of a better day (Fisher Center at Bard); The Tempest (Elm Shakespeare Company); the father, the son, and the holy spirit (Yale Summer Cabaret); love i awethu further, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, and Macbeth (David Geffen School of Drama). Nakia holds a B.A. in psychology from Claflin University. They dedicate their work on this production to the black and queer stage managers before them. 
 

THE CAST
 

Mikayla LaShae Bartholomew (Paulina Kenston) appears as a Williams sister alongside Will Smith in the Academy Award-winning King Richard (Warner Brothers). Mikayla is a two-time NAACP Image Award nominee and leads the NAACP Image Award winning short film titled Dear Mama (SXSW, The New Yorker, Best Actor CFF). 2020 Special Tony Award for her work with the Broadway Advocacy Coalition and Artist Ambassador at the NYCLU. Other credits/upcoming projects: Grace, So You're Just Sitting with Her While She Bleeds, The Bottoms with Jon Bernthal, The Niceties (RTCC Award Winner), Pure (HBOMax), The Great Khan, WET, A Doll's House: Part 2. Facilitator/Programs Producer: Tina, The Lion King, Girl from the North Country, Broadway for Black Lives Matter… Again, What Now: Unplugged, Arts in Action Festival. B.F.A. in theater performance, minor in pre-nursing, gender, sexuality and women's studies, Virginia Commonwealth University. Gratitude to God, Mama and Pops, Mya Lauren, Max, and her manager Barney Slobodin for believing in her always. @carpeingdiem 
 
Taylor Blackman he/him (Boseman Salvage Junior) is a writer and actor and is very excited to be making his Yale Rep debut. Most recently he was seen in the Broadway National Tour of Tina: The Tina Turner Musical. Notable collaborations include work with Playwrights Horizons, Roundabout Theatre Company, The Movement Theatre Company, The Public Theater, Ensemble Studio Theatre, and New York Stage & Film. Television and film credits: FBI (CBS), Alternatino (Comedy Central). Writing credits: To Infinity (Roberta P Sloan/EST 2023 Commission), Riverside Drive (Hi-ARTS Residency), Black Boy Writes Competition (Semi-Finalist), Fire This Time Festival 2023 (Finalist). As movement director: Sweet Chariot (The Public Theater/Under the Radar Festival).
 
McKenzie Chinn (Elinor DeWitt) is honored to make her Yale Rep debut as Elinor in The Salvagers. McKenzie has originated roles in the world premiere plays Sender and Lottery Day by Ike Holter, The Belfast Girls by Jaki McCarrick, and Nothing to Lose…But Our Chains by Felonious Munk, among others. Regional credits include work with Steppenwolf, Goodman, Woolly Mammoth, The Studio Theatre, and others. McKenzie recently made her stage directing debut with the world premiere of Alaiyo at Chicago's Definition Theatre. Her on-camera credits include recurring and guest star roles on ABC's Will Trent, Fox's The Big Leap, CBS's The Red Line, and others. She is a 2021 Sundance Screenwriters and Directors Lab fellow, and is the writer and director of the short film A Real One, which premiered at the Oscar-qualifying Pan African Film Festival in LA in 2023. mckenziechinn.com
 
Toni Martin she/her (Nedra Salvage) is making her Yale Rep debut. Broadway: Airline Highway (Manhattan Theatre Club). Regional (selected): The Crucible (Delaware Rep), Skeleton Crew (Westport Country Playhouse), Nina Simone: Four Women (Arena Stage Theatre), Airline Highway (Steppenwolf Theatre), A Raisin in The Sun (TimeLine Theatre). Television: Chicago Fire, New Amsterdam (NBC), Gypsy (Netflix), Gotham (FOX), God Friended Me (CBS), Three Women and Billions (Showtime). Awards: Black Theatre Alliance Award: Best Supporting Actress, A Raisin in The Sun. Upcoming: Nina Simone: Four Women (Kansas City Rep/Milwaukee Rep). Education: B.F.A,; University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; M.A., The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. @theetonimartin
 
Julian Elijah Martinez (Boseman Salvage Senior) is so grateful to return to Yale Repertory Theatre, where he was last seen in Father Comes Home From the Wars, Parts 1, 2 & 3. Recent theater credits: Network(Broadway, with Bryan Cranston), This Land Was Made (Vineyard Theatre), Sanctuary City (New York Theatre Workshop), and Anatomy of a Suicide (Atlantic Theater Company). Regional: King Lear (Shakespeare Theatre Company) and 9 Circles (Forum Theatre, Helen Hayes nomination). Select television: Wu-tang: An American Saga, Law & Order: SVU, Prodigal Son, and Elementary. Julian is a member of The Acting Company and Board Member of Developing Artist. M.F.A., David Geffen School of Drama. julianelijahmartinez.com 
 

About Yale Repertory Theatre
 

Yale Repertory Theatre, the internationally celebrated professional theatre in residence at David Geffen School of Drama, has championed new work since 1966, producing well over 100 premieres—including two Pulitzer Prize winners and four other nominated finalists—by emerging and established playwrights. Seventeen Yale Rep productions have advanced to Broadway, garnering more than 40 Tony Award nominations and ten Tony Awards. Yale Rep is also the recipient of the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre. Established in 2008, Yale's Binger Center for New Theatre has distinguished itself as one of the nation's most robust and innovative new play programs. To date, the Binger Center has supported the work of more than 70 commissioned artists and underwritten the world premieres and subsequent productions of more than 30 new plays and musicals at Yale Rep and theaters across the country.
 
Yale Repertory Theatre is supported by CT Humanities, and the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development.

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