Stagger.
A photographer encountering the supernatural. Forty days of rain after the loss of a son. A six-decade love note to Hong Kong. According to playwright Danielle Stagger, the Carlotta Festival of New Plays 2024 — running May 2 to May 10 at the Iseman Theatre on Chapel Street — features three “funky plays” that are “not what you might imagine coming from Yale playwriting.”
Featuring the three students graduating with MFAs in playwriting from the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale, the festival was an annual part of New Haven’s theater season until the shutdown in 2020. This year is the second festival since the pandemic shutdown. The three students this year — Stefani Kuo, Doug Robinson, and Danielle Stagger — were accepted into the program in 2020. Because of the restrictions at that time, the incoming class for what is normally a three-year program were permitted to continue as students until 2024. Which is a way of saying that, yes, it’s been four years since the initial losses and closures of the pandemic.
Many might associate drama at Yale with the productions at Yale Repertory Theatre, but Stagger emphasized these plays “are not like the Rep.” They are collaborative efforts, drawing on the resources of the Drama School, with casts comprised mostly of actors concluding their first and second years in the program with a few other guests, and with technical support from graduating MFA students who have studied all elements of design and production. The Carlotta is thus always a fascinating opportunity to see what the latest crop at one of the best theater programs in the country is up to.
Robinson.
The plays this year are Stagger’s rent free, directed by graduating MFA in directing Sammy Ziesel; Robinson’s Cactus Queen, directed by graduating MFA in directing Bobbins Ramsey; and Kuo’s Pearl’s Beauty Salon, directed by Mina Morita, Artistic Director of San Francisco’s Crowded Fire Theater Company.
The festival opens Thursday, May 2 with rent free, the story of Kandice Phellan, a photographer enjoying the flush of success with an upcoming gala. Problems arise when she enlists her protégé as a babysitter, may face a supernatural visitation, and must deal with the complication of her personal and professional lives. Stagger’s play stays rooted in one time and “stays in one place for awhile,” the photographer’s home. The play received an initial run in last year’s Langston Hughes Festival, the showcase for second-year playwrights in the program and, though directed again by Ziesel, “a whole new cast brings a whole new energy to the play.” For Stagger, drama is “not her favorite medium” and plays are “not always super entertaining,” so she aims for a trifecta of fun: fun in rehearsal, fun for the audience, and fun for the author. The play evolved out of her interest in photography and reading about the meaning of hauntings and was developed, as much of her work has been, “out of a slow process.” The cast, which involves six actors, have come to think of the play, she said, as “the mother, the daughter, and the holy spirit.” rent free contains themes of death, simulated violence, and bright lights.
Cactus Queen, said Robinson, is “on an epic scale with a fluid set that creates multiple locations in one space.” The play opens Friday, May 3, and has a cast of five actors, three of whom are also a chorus, and a puppet. The play could be “set anywhere,” but Robinson felt he was drawing on his hometown of Sterling, Va. Queenie has lost a son, Ordell, through police violence and the 40 days since his burial have been marked by protests and constant rain. Now “it’s time for the next phase.” Robinson’s inspiration came while he was traveling abroad alone and began to think “if something happened to me …”; the thoughts made him consider “the limits of a mother’s power” to help her children. The title came from “the imagery of the cactus as both nourishing and untouchable.” The play took a long time to write, he said, and it was part of his goal to combine “heavy with laughter.” Cactus Queen contains themes of police brutality and anti-Black violence, loss of a child, haze, fog, and onstage cigarettes.
Kuo.
Pearl’s Beauty Salon, which opens on Saturday, May 4, depicts “an epic journey” in bringing together three different eras in different settings, moving around in them “like water.” Kuo calls the play “a love letter to Hong Kong,” sometimes called “the pearl of the Orient.” Maru, while experiencing her first session at a Brazilian waxing salon, finds herself on a quest for “a sense of home in a place that is continually changing.” The changes entail explorations of colonialism and capitalism and their effects on Kuo’s native city over the previous 60 years. Kuo said the story’s structure is reminiscent of books and movies in Chinese that have circular rather than linear plots. The play features six actors and “is half in Cantonese with English supertitles.” Pearl’s Beauty Salon contains partial nudity, smoke, and haze.
In addition to the plays these engaging playwrights have written at Yale, each has produced work that has received special recommendation: Danielle Stagger’s Content was a selection for the 2021 Judith Champion Butler Reading Series at Second Stage Theater; Doug Robinson’s Capture the Flag received the inaugural Re-Imagine New Plays for Young Audiences award in 2021; and Stefani Kuo’s Final Boarding Call was the winner of the 2021 Leah Ryan Fund for Emerging Women Writers Prize. In other words, catch them in New Haven while you can.
The Carlotta Festival plays run May 2 to May 10 at the Iseman Theater, 1156 Chapel St. Visit the festival’s website for tickets and more information.