ETHAN HEARD
Director
THE GAY IVY
Performed at Dixon Place, Shetler Studios and Yale University, April-July 2010
The Yale Alumni Magazine's recent cover story “Why They Call Yale The Gay Ivy” sparked a furor among its readers, igniting a larger controversy about homophobia, tradition and the generational divide in our country today. The Gay Ivy is a music/theater collage illuminating disparate perspectives on the article and its aftermath.
written by:
Robert Barnett YSD ’89
Bix Bettwy ’08
Jonathan Breit ’06
Joshua Cohen
Kyle Ewalt
Greg Edwards ’05
Laura Jacqmin ’04
Kyle Jarrow ’01
Eric Kubo ’07
Gordon Leary
Eric March ’07
Deb Margolin Assoc. Prof.
Julia Meinwald ’05
Michael Mitnick YSD ’10
Hannah Oberman-Breindel ’06
Bradford Proctor
Kevin Quinn ’01
Nathan Reiff ’08
Zak Sandler ’07
Michael Walker ’01
featuring:
Thomas Dolan ’05
Tim Eliot ’05
Emily Jenda ’10
Kobi Libii ’07
Megan Stern
Jared Weiss
conceived by:
Ethan Heard ’07
with
Thomas Dolan and Megan Stern
originally directed by Ethan Heard
music directed by:
Jonathan Breit ’06
“When my magazine arrived on July 17, I was horrified and embarrassed. To even realize that my postal deliverer had seen the cover was in itself a shock!”
The Yale Alumni Magazine’s July/August 2009 cover story was entitled “Why They Call Yale The Gay Ivy.” The 16-page article chronicled the history of gay students, activities and scholarship at the university for the past century. (Read the whole article here: http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2009_07/gayivy_033.html#top.)
After seeing the magazine, alumni were alternately “disgusted” and “grateful” - “embarrassed” and “proud.” They wrote dozens of letters to the editor and posted passionate messages online.
“I find the presentation, headline, and some of the content to be offensive, abhorrent, repugnant [and] nauseating.”
We read these letters and couldn’t stop thinking about them. They were filled with such emotion and intensity. Each composition seemed like a window into a whole story. Who were these letter-writers? Why did they feel compelled to write? We saw immediate dramatic potential in some of the letters, and then we began to realize that the whole event deserved, or even demanded, theatrical exploration.
“The Gay Ivy” is a music/theater piece that draws inspiration from these letters and postings - musicalizing and dramatizing the feelings, arguments, characters and memories represented in them. So far, eighteen writers and composers – most of whom are Yale alumni themselves – have contributed new works to the piece. The resulting theater-event is a chorus of unique voices, a collage of different perspectives: an alumnus recalls the “good old days,” a professor discovers the “Green Carnation Society,” two female students wake up in each others’ arms, President Levin announces emergency measures to “keep Yale straight,” a legacy-student confronts his grandfather’s hatred and his own sexual identity.
More excerpts from letters:
After reading "Why They Call Yale the Gay Ivy," I've decided to come out of the closet. To the entire world I now declare myself a flaming homophobe.
When I entered Yale in 1958 I fell in love, but in that environment was too afraid to let anyone know how I felt, terrified that if it were found out I was homosexual I would be expelled. I remember sitting on a window ledge with my legs hanging out, seriously moving toward suicide. I was saved by another student.
It was very refreshing to read the issue dealing with gay life at Yale. As an undergraduate in the late sixties and early seventies, my days were filled with self-loathing, anger at those who continuously made homophobic comments, and frustration.
Do not even think of sending me another issue of the Yale Alumni Magazine or expect me to send further contributions to Yale University. My testamentary gift to Yale will be eliminated.
In 1965 while a graduate student at Harvard I met my life partner, Yale '62, and after 39 years together we were legally married in Massachusetts, just in time for us to return as "the class newlyweds" at my 45th reunion.
With heavy heart I write this notice to sever all my connections with my beloved Alma Mater.
I'm prouder of being a Yalie now than I have ever been.
About the show
Check out more YouTube clips here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/eheard24#p/u
And more photos here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/ethan.heard/TheGayIvyAtDixonPlace#
Williamstown Theatre Festival 2010
- Assisted Artistic Director Nicholas Martin on OUR TOWN on the mainstage (July 28-August 8). http://wtfestival.org/2010/ourtown
-
-Directed Young Jean Lee’s PULLMAN, WA in the Workshop (July 3), featuring
Lucas Kavner, Lauren Blumenfeld (pictured) and Michael Bradley Cohen.
- Directed Lauren Yee’s IN A WORD in the Workshop (August 4), featuring Benjamin Mehl, Michael Wieser and Ariel Woodiwiss.
Drama 50s: Performing Gender
Rapunzel Gets A Haircut
November 22-24, 2010
at the Yale School of Drama
The first-year actors, directors, playwrights and dramaturgs were split into three groups of nine in order to devise original pieces about “performing gender.” My group created a musical collage featuring drag, dance, poetry and the beginnings of a new musical called Trannequin.
https://www.me.com/gallery/#100027
Future Oprah Lovesong
Written by Justin Taylor
Directed by Ethan Heard and Jack Tamburri
October 14-16, 2010 at the Yale Cabaret
An extravaganza of three plays by three collaborators begets a collage of images: Oprah, Hindu gods, a human-sized vagina, deadly balloons, a couple caught in an endless cycle of falling in and out of love, and a Dance of Universal Symbols! Future Oprah Lovesong is an evening of three short plays – “The Future, Gone out of Business”, “Oprah-Ganesh”, and “Lovesong” – presented by a team of first-year students at the Yale School of Drama (YSD) who can’t wait to communicate with the Cabaret audience. These first-year directors, designers, playwright and dramaturg come together for a surprising and delightful pastiche of unforgettable moments.
Trannequin! a new musical
http://www.trannequinthemusical.com
Book by Ethan Heard and Martha Jane Kaufman
Lyrics by Ethan Heard
Music by Max Roll and Brian Valencia
Conceived by the Ensemble
Directed by Ethan Heard
March 24-26, 2011 at the Yale Cabaret (http://yalecabaret.org)
Georgia the Mannequin has one of the most coveted gigs in the business: modeling evening wear in a window on Fifth Avenue. But ever since her days at Mannequin Modeling School, she’s felt more and more uncomfortable wearing women’s clothes. Now she’s starting to wonder what life would be like in the men's section... Trannequin! is a brand new musical conceived, written and performed by a tight‐knit ensemble of first‐year YSD students from Acting, Directing, Playwriting and Dramaturgy programs. A blend of sharp wit and stirring sentiment, it questions the gender binary in advertising, in musical comedy, and in life. What does it mean to be male or female? And could there be something in between?
"A daring and delightful production, Trannequin! should be seen and celebrated."
"Relentlessly funny, wry, affecting, with a lot of what musicals do best."
-New Haven Advocate
"A deliciously funny new musical."
"Every scene works, and each performance is nuanced in a different and charming way."
"Technically excellent and consistently entertaining."
-Yale Daily News
http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2011/mar/25/little-transgender-mannequin-could/
Watch videos here:
Eligible Receivers
by Martha Jane Kaufman
Directed by Ethan Heard
February 23-25, 2011
Martha wrote this play for our Drama 50s ensemble, inviting the nine of us to explore profound questions about conformity and enforced heterosexuality through music and movement. The play focuses on two girls, Rap and Sam, a cheerleader and a football player, in a small American town called Bushville. They both have “strange, long hair” and a burning desire to change the world around them.
Rodeo
by Justin Taylor
Directed by Ethan Heard
November 10-12, 2011
In Ransom, Arizona, meth is the drug of choice and the rodeo is the most important event of the year. But while everyone else is roping steers and drinking beers, 17-year-old Ruth is stuck working at Walmart—and having the strangest day of her life. Rodeo is about how a person in the blue-vest arena of overwhelming choice can still be all out of options.
