Yale Rep Continues 50th Season Celebration with INDECENT, HAPPY DAYS and MARY JANE

Yale Repertory Theatre continues its 50th Anniversary celebration with three productions in New York and New Haven.

The acclaimed new play Indecent, created by Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel and director Rebecca Taichman, commissioned, developed, and first produced by Yale Rep in 2015 and currently playing at Broadway's Cort Theatre, has been nominated for three Tony Awards: Best Play, Best Director of a Play (Ms. Taichman), and Best Lighting Design of a Play (Christopher Akerlind). It has also been nominated for six Outer Critics Circle Awards, four Lucille Lortel Awards, two Drama Desk Awards, and the Drama League Distinguished Production of a Play Award. Indecent was developed by Yale's Binger Center for New Theatre and co-commissioned with Oregon Shakespeare Festival through its American Revolutions: The United States History Cycle. It was staged at La Jolla Playhouse and the Vineyard Theatre following its world premiere at Yale.

On Thursday, May 4, Yale Rep's production of Happy Days by Samuel Beckett, featuring two-time Oscar winner Dianne Wiest reprising her acclaimed turn as Winnie opposite Jarlath Conroy as Willie, first staged last season by Artistic Director James Bundy, officially opens at Theatre for a New Audience in New York.

And on Friday, May 5, the Yale Rep-commissioned world premiere of Mary Jane, a finalist for the 2016 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, written by Pulitzer Prize finalist Amy Herzog and directed by Anne Kauffman, will open in New Haven.

"This is a thrilling moment that caps an already exhilarating season for all of us at Yale Rep," says Artistic Director James Bundy. "It's particularly joyous to celebrate the distinguished work of these female theatre makers on stages on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and at Yale, as well as those behind the scenes whose passionate commitment has made it possible: Yale Rep Managing Director Victoria Nolan; Jennifer Kiger, Associate Artistic Director and Director of New Play Programs at the Binger Center for New Theatre; and Literary Manager Amy Boratko, who served as production dramaturg on Indecent and Mary Jane."

The 50th Anniversary Season also included the Yale Rep-commissioned world premieres of Scenes from Court Life, or the whipping boy and his prince by Sarah Ruhl, directed by MarK Wing-Davey, and Aditi Brennan Kapil's Imogen Says Nothing, directed by Laurie Woolery; as well as new productions of August Wilson's Seven Guitars directed by Timothy Douglas and the musical Assassins by John Weidman and Stephen Sondheim, directed by James Bundy.

Elsewhere across the country this past season, peerless by Jiehae Park, which had its world premiere at Yale Rep in 2015, was staged at Barrington Stage Company, Marin Theatre Company, and Chicago's First Floor Theater. Jen Silverman's The Moors, which had its own world premiere at Yale Rep in 2016, recently made its New York debut at the Playwrights Realm. And Yale Rep's award-winning 2010 production of Goldoni's A Servant of Two Masters directed by Christopher Bayes and featuring Steven Epp, was performed at Theatre for a New Audience following runs in Boston, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.

For six years running, new plays staged at Yale Rep have been named among the Best Plays of the Year by The New York Times: Belleville by Amy Herzog, Yale Rep world premiere, 2011; The Realistic Joneses by Will Eno, Yale Rep world premiere, 2012; Belleville, Off-Broadway, 2013; The Realistic Joneses, Broadway, 2014; Eclipsed by Danai Gurira, Broadway, 2015; and Indecent, 2016.

Yale Repertory Theatre, the internationally celebrated professional theatre in residence at Yale 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. Thirteen Yale Rep productions have advanced to Broadway, garnering more than 40 Tony Award nominations and eight 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 50 commissioned artists and underwritten the world premieres and subsequent productions of 25 new American plays and musicals at Yale Rep and theatres across the country-including next season's Field Guide created by Rude Mechs.

Yale Rep's 2017-18 season will also include Ibsen's An Enemy of the People, in a new translation from the Norwegian by Paul Walsh, directed by James Bundy; Native Son by Nambi E. Kelley, adapted from the novel by Richard Wright, directed by Seret Scott; Pulitzer Prize winner Suzan-Lori Parks's Father Comes Home from the Wars, Parts 1, 2 & 3, directed by Liz Diamond; and Kiss by Guillermo Calderón, directed by Evan Yionoulis.

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