Yale Rep Presents BATTLE OF BLACK AND DOGS, Opens 4/22

Yale Repertory Theatre (James Bundy, Artistic Director; Victoria Nolan, Managing Director) presents BATTLE OF BLACK AND DOGS by Bernard-Marie Koltès, translated by Michaël Attias, and directed by RoBert Woodruff, at Yale Repertory Theatre (1120 Chapel Street, at York), April 16-May 8. Opening Night is Thursday, April 22.

The cast of BATTLE OF BLACK AND DOGS is Albert Jones (Alboury), Tracy Middendorf (Léone), Andrew Robinson (Horn), and Tommy Schrider (Cal).

BATTLE OF BLACK AND DOGS features original music composed by Michaël Attias, sets by Riccardo Hernandez, costumes by Tom McAlister and Ilona Somogyi, lighting by Stephen Strawbridge, sound by Chad Raines, dramaturgy by Amy Boratko, fight direction by Rick Sordelet, vocal coaching by Walton Wilson, and stage management by Jenna Woods.

ABOUT BATTLE OF BLACK AND DOGS

Set in a remote corner of Africa, Battle of Black and Dogs is a politically, sexually, and culturally charged tale of psychological warfare that erupts at an isolated construction compound. When a hired man mysteriously dies, his brother arrives at the compound to collect the body-and the site manager, his fiancé, and an engineer all become embroiled in the cover up of the worker's death.

The haunting thriller by acclaimed French writer Bernard-Marie Koltès is directed by visionary theatre artist RoBert Woodruff, whose 2009 production of Notes from Underground was hailed as "a brilliantly original work of art" (The Boston Globe).
TICKET INFORMATION AND PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE

Tickets for BATTLE OF BLACK AND DOGS range from $35-82 and are available online at www.yalerep.org, by phone at (203) 432-1234, and in person at the Yale Rep Box Office (1120 Chapel Street, at York Street). Student, senior, and group rates are also available.

In addition, all tickets for the Monday, April 19 performance are $10.

Albert Jones (ALBOURY) is making his Yale Rep debut. New York credits include the Broadway production of Henry IV (Lincoln Center Theater); and Off-Broadway: Oroonoko (Theatre for a New Audience, AUDELCO Award nomination), Pericles (Theatre for a New Audience at BAM), Iphigeneia at Aulis and Richard III (The Pearl Theatre Company). Regional theatre credits include A Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare on the Sound); The Brothers Size (City Theatre); A Raisin in the Sun (Hartford Stage); Intimate Apparel (Intiman Theatre); The Piano Lesson (Cleveland Play House); Flag Day (Contemporary American Theater Festival); Much Ado About Nothing (Portland Center Stage); Arms and the Man (Barrington Stage Company); Edward II, The Threepenny Opera (American Conservatory Theater); As You Like It and Scapin (California Shakespeare Festival). Film and television credits include Salt, Cadillac Records, The Magnificent Cooly-T, American Gangster, The Bourne Ultimatum, Proud (Tribeca Film Festival, 2005), Army Wives, Law & Order (original series, SVU, and Criminal Intent), Rescue Me, Kidnapped, and Love Money. Mr. Jones received his MFA from the American Conservatory Theater.
Tracy Middendorf (LÉONE) is making her Yale Rep debut. Her previous stage performances include Ah, Wilderness! at Lincoln Center Theater, directed by Daniel Sullivan; The Big Knife at Williamstown Theatre Festival, directed by JoAnne Woodward; The Pavilion at Westport Country Playhouse; as well as Summer and Smoke and After the Fall at The Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles, both of which earned her Ovation and Drama Critics Circle Awards for best actress. Her television and film credits include The Mentalist, Lost, 24, Bones, House, Alias, CSI, Just Add Water, Boy Wonder, The Assassination of Richard Nixon, and a recurring role on Martin Scorsese's upcoming HBO series Boardwalk Empire.
Andrew Robinson (HORN) is making his Yale Rep debut. Since receiving his Fulbright Fellowship to study at LAMDA, he has acted in and directed theatre and film all over the country for 45 years. His Broadway credits include Any Given Day, Mary Stuart, Narrow Road to the Deep North, and Operation Sidewinder. Off-Broadway credits include Macbird, Futz, The Cannibals, Woyzeck, Subject to Fits; and he is a founding member of La MaMa Plexus. He is also a founding member of the Matrix Theatre Company in Los Angeles, where he directed the award-winning productions of Endgame, The Homecoming, and Yield of the Long Bond. Other LA credits include In the Belly of the Beast, Aristocrats, The Genius, Wanderings of Odysseus (Mark Taper/Center Theatre Group); as well as productions at South Coast Rep, Pasadena Playhouse, and other theatres. Film credits include Dirty Harry, Charley Varrick, The Drowning Pool, and Hellraiser. His numerous television appearances include the title role in Liberace, and he has directed episodes of Deep Space 9 (also recurred as Garak), Voyager, and Judging Amy. He created and is currently Director of the University of Southern California's MFA Actor-training Program.

Tommy Schrider (CAL) is making his Yale Rep debut. Off-Broadway credits include Close Ties (Ensemble Studio Theatre); Race (Classic Stage Company); Acts of Mercy, St. Crispin's Day (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater); She Stoops to Conquer, Pigtown (Irish Rep); Indoor/Outdoor (Summer Play Festival); Greek Holiday (Abingdon Theatre Company); Septimus & Clarissa (Ripe Time); and I Lay Dying (Ohio Theatre/The Essentials). Regional theatre credits include The Importance of Being Earnest (South Coast Rep); The Caretaker, The Einstein Project, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Berkshire Theatre Festival); Victoria Musica (Cincinnati Playhouse); Love's Labour's Lost, Brendan (Huntington Theatre Company); Journey's End (Westport Country Playhouse); The Blue Demon (Williamstown Theatre Festival); Hamlet (Syracuse Stage); This Is Our Youth (Philadelphia Theatre Company); and Appointment with a High Wire Lady (Andrew's Lane, Dublin). Television credits include Medium, Numbers, Law & Order, Whoopi, and As the World Turns. He received his MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Acting Program.

CREATIVE TEAM

ROBert WoodRUFF (DIRECTOR) co-adapted and directed Yale Rep's 2009 production of Notes from Underground, which will be seen at La Jolla Playhouse next season. He has directed over 60 productions across the US at theatres including Lincoln Center Theater, The Public Theater, Brooklyn Academy Of Music, American Conservatory Theater, Guthrie Theater, and Mark Taper Forum, among others. Recent credits include Madame White Snake, a new opera by Zhou Long for Opera Boston, which will play in Beijing in the fall of this year; Orpheus X for Theatre for a New Audience; Ifigeneia in Aulis with Toneelgroep Amsterdam; and Philip Glass's Appomattox for the San Francisco Opera. Internationally, his work has been seen at the Habimah National Theatre in Israel, Sydney Arts Festival, Los Angeles Olympic Arts Festival, Edinburgh International Festival, Hong Kong Festival of the Arts, Jerusalem Festival, and Spoleto Festival USA. Mr. Woodruff has taught at the University of California campuses at San Diego and Santa Barbara, New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, and Columbia University. He is on the faculty of Yale School of Drama. In 1972, he co-founded the Eureka Theatre in San Francisco, where he served as Artistic and Resident Director until 1978. In 1976, Mr. Woodruff established the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, a summer forum for the development of new plays that is still flourishing. From 2002 to 2007, Mr. Woodruff was the Artistic Director of American Repertory Theatre. He was named a 2007 USA Biller Fellow by United States Artists, an arts advocacy foundation dedicated to the support and promotion of America's top living artists.

MICHAËL ATTIAS (TRANSLATOR, COMPOSER) is a New York City-based saxophonist/composer. He has performed concerts in clubs and festivals throughout the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Japan with musicians such as Paul Motian, Anthony Braxton, Anthony Coleman, Oliver Lake, and many others. A recording artist and leader of several ensembles, he has composed and designed for dance, theatre, and film, both in the US and Europe. His collaborations with RoBert Woodruff include Theatre for a New Audience's production of Edward Bond's Chair (The Duke on 42nd Street) and Yale Rep's production of Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, for which he designed sound, composed music, and in which he also performed.

Riccardo Hernandez (SCENIC DESIGNER) Broadway credits include Caroline, or Change; Elaine Stritch at Liberty (also National Tour, London); Topdog/Underdog (also London); Bells Are Ringing; Parade (Tony, Drama Desk nominations); Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk (also National Tour, Japan); and The Tempest. He designed the sets for Yale Rep's world premiere of The Evildoers in 2008. Recent credits include Fetch Clay, Make Man (McCarter Theatre); Philip Glass's Appomattox (San Francisco Opera); Let Me Down Easy, written and performed by Anna Deavere Smith (Second Stage Theatre); Lost Highway (London's English National Opera/Young Vic); Best of Both Worlds, The Seagull (American Repertory Theatre); Julius Caesar (also at ART, Festival Automne Paris), Ethan Cohen's Offices and Almost an Evening (Atlantic Theater Company); Alice Vs. Wonderland (Moscow MXAT); and Oresteia (Classic Stage Company). He has designed over 200 productions in the US and internationally at The Public Theater, Lincoln Center Theater, Brooklyn Academy Of Music, New York Theatre Workshop, Manhattan Theatre Club, Guthrie Theater, Goodman Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, Lyric Opera of Chicago, New York City Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Santa Fe Opera, London's National Theater, Old Vic, Royal Court, Centre Dramatique Orleans France, and Det Norske Teatret Oslo. He is a graduate of Yale School of Drama.

TOM McALISTER (COSTUME DESIGNER) has been costume shop manager for Yale Repertory Theatre/Yale School of Drama for twenty-one years, supervising over 250 productions. In the course of his nearly forty-year career, he has worked on such diverse projects as the world premieres of Paula Vogel's Desdemona: A Play About a Handkerchief (Circle Repertory Theatre/Bay Street Theatre), The Great Gatsby (Metropolitan Opera Company), and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (Broadway); as well as Muppet Babies on Tour (Henson Associates Inc), Live from Lincoln Center: Juilliard at 80 (PBS-TV), and Wayne's World 2 (Paramount Pictures). New York and regional theatre credits include productions at The Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan Theatre Club, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Boston Lyric Opera, and Houston Grand Opera. Tom is a professor in the Technical Design and Production department at Yale School of Drama.

Ilona SomogyI (COSTUME DESIGNER) Recent New York area productions include Clybourne Park (Playwrights Horizons); Crooked (Women's Project); Jerry Springer: The Opera (Carnegie Hall); Almost an Evening, Scarcity (Atlantic Theater Company); The Piano Teacher (Vineyard Theatre); Fever Chart, Controversy at Vallalodid, f-ing A (The Public Theater); Emma (New York Musical Theatre Festival); The American Pilot (Manhattan Theatre Club); Hot ‘n' Throbbin' (Signature Theatre Company); Savannah Bay (MCC); as well as God of Hell, Wit, Swimming with Watermelons, Unwrap Your Candy, Tabletop, and Hard Times. She also designed Princess Wishes for Disney on Ice, currently on tour. Her many regional credits include Passion Play, As You Like It (Yale Rep); Noises Off, A Midsummer Night's Dream (Hartford Stage); Lil's 90th (Long Wharf Theatre); The Torchbearer, The Autumn Garden, Sweet Bird of Youth, Top Girls, On the Razzle (Williamstown Theatre Festival); Scramble, Vigil, and Sedition (Westport Country Playhouse). She was also associate costume designer for Spamalot, The Crucible, and Art on Broadway, and the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Ilona is a graduate of Yale School of Drama and is currently a member of its faculty.

Stephen Strawbridge (LIGHTING DESIGNER) has designed the lighting for productions on and off Broadway, at most leading regional theatre and opera companies across the US, and internationally in Bergen, Copenhagen, The Hague, Hong Kong, Lisbon, Munich, Sao Paulo, Stockholm, and Vienna. Recent work includes Athol Fugard's Coming Home for Berkeley Rep and Long Wharf Theatre; School Boy Play for the Linz 09 Festival in Austria; Having Our Say (McCarter Theatre); At Home at the Zoo (American Conservatory Theater); Crime and Punishment (Berkeley Rep); The Glorious Ones, Bernarda Alba (Mitzi Newhouse Theatre at Lincoln Center); Prayer for My Enemy (Playwrights Horizons); Shipwrecked! (Primary Stages); and Souls of Naples (Mercadante, Naples, Italy, and Theatre for a New Audience). He has been nominated for or won the American Theatre Wing, Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle, Dallas-Fort Worth Theater Critics Forum, Helen Hayes, and Lucille Lortel awards. He is co-chair of the design department at Yale School of Drama and resident lighting designer at Yale Repertory Theatre.

Chad Raines (SOUND DESIGNER) is a second-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where his credits include Orlando (sound design and composition) and Baal (composition). He appeared as Tommy in The Who's Tommy and played drums for Fly-By-Night: A New Musical, both at Yale Summer Cabaret. He also wrote and performed Missed Connections, a new musical for Yale Cabaret. As associate sound designer for this year at Yale Cabaret, he sound designed Nijinsky's Last Dance and Language of Angels and occasionally performs with the electro-pop group, The Simple Pleasure.

AMY BORATKO (DRAMATURG) previously served as dramaturg on the Yale Rep productions of Compulsion, Notes from Underground, A Woman of No Importance, Eurydice, and The Cherry Orchard. Other dramaturgy credits include The Time of Your Life, The Summer People, Romeo and Juliet, The War Is Over (Yale School of Drama); as well as Voice and Vision's Envision Retreat at Bard College. She is the Literary Manager at Yale Rep. She has been a teaching fellow at Yale College and Yale School of Drama and was a managing editor of Theater magazine. A graduate of Rice University, she received her MFA in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism from Yale School of Drama.
Rick Sordelet (FIGHT DIRECTOR) 44 Broadway productions, including Disney's The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Tarzan, The Little Mermaid, and Aida. He has staged the fights for the opera Cyrano de Bergerac starring Placido Domingo at the Metropolitan Opera, The Royal Opera House, and the LaScala in Milan, Italy; and for over 40 productions on five continents. Film: The Game Plan starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson; Dan in Real Life starring Steve Carell and Juliette Binoche; and Hamlet starring Campbell Scott. He served as the chief stunt coordinator for Guiding Light and staged the fights for First Jedi, a CD-ROM for George Lucas. Rick received the Lucille Lortel Award for Sustained Excellence in 2007. He teaches at Yale School of Drama, The New School for Drama, and The Neighborhood Playhouse. He is a company member of The Drama Dept., a board member of The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, and the author of the play Buried Treasure. He is married to actress Kathleen Kelly and has three children: Kaelan, Christian, and Collin.

Walton Wilson (VOCAL COACH) is Head of Voice and Speech at Yale School of Drama. He was trained and designated as a voice teacher by Master Teacher Kristin Linklater and was trained and certified as an associate teacher by Master Teacher Catherine Fitzmaurice. He also studied with Richard Armstrong, Meredith Monk, and Patsy Rodenburg. His New York credits include The Violet Hour, Golden Child, and Victor/Victoria on Broadway; and the world premiere productions of The Laramie Project, Argonautika, and Endangered Species. Regional theatre credits include productions at Actors Theatre of Louisville, American Repertory Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre, McCarter Theatre, Shakespeare & Company, and Williamstown Theatre Festival. At Yale Rep, he has served as voice and dialect coach on Notes from Underground, Boleros for the Disenchanted, The Evildoers, The Cherry Orchard, The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow, The Black Monk, Medea/Macbeth/Cinderella, Betty's Summer Vacation, The Birds, and Richard III.

Jenna Woods (STAGE MANAGER) is a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where her credits include Man=Man, Romeo and Juliet, Baal, and Grace, or the Art of Climbing. Previous Yale Rep credits include the world premiere of POP! earlier this season, as well as last season's Notes from Underground. Jenna has toured with the national tours of The Music Man and Footloose (Props Supervisor) and the North American tour of Riverdance (Wardrobe Supervisor). Jenna holds a BFA in theatre design from the University of Kansas.

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