Because I Carlotta

It has never been my place, or my intention, to “review,” “critique,” or otherwise “assess” the works staged as part of The Carlotta Festival of New Plays. I have dutifully and eagerly covered the festival for its entire existence.

Yes, it could be argued that these are public performances, that they are written by seasoned Yale School of Drama writers who are mere days away from graduation, and (especially this year)  a coterie of industry professionals have been brought to New Haven to see them. (Schedule, tickets and other details can be found here.)

But I buy into the grander argument: they don’t need some tiresome local critic mucking up their fun.

I come to praise Carlotta, not to worry it. There is much more to write about than the ups and downs of specific productions.

The Carlotta festival, which stages three full productions of new plays every spring, is a wondrous learning experience for the participants, a wondrous community experience for Yale at large, a one-stop-shopping trip for theater agents and managers and producers, and—as I can personally scream from the rooftops—a terrific theatergoing experience for townies too.

The plays are by soon-to-graduate students from the Yale School of Drama graduate program. The plays are put on their feet by the writers’ classmates in the directing and design programs. The plays are profoundly better for being so given such respect and attention. They’re also better just for being staged at all; I can’t imagine how differently I might react if my first experience of these scripts were as unadorned readings. I’ve read some of them, and have seen how my instincts fail (and I think my instincts are pretty good) when envisioning how much grander a show can be with complete sets, costumes, lights, sounds and projections. They can be pretty damn grand.

One thing that’s bowled me over with all three Carlotta Plays this year is how impressive the sound design is. Three different challenges, all creatively met.  One designer, Jennifer Lynn Jackson, had to build a sonic environment already attuned to the loud bouncing of old leatherbound basketballs (for Meg Miroshnik’s Tall Girls). Another, Elizabeth Atkinson (billed as “sound composer”) created realistic background noise for an urban street scene which could be modulated for the varied tones and timeframes of each scene while staying true to that random environment of blaring car radios and far-off murmurings. The third, Michael Vincent Skinner (sound designer for Dipika Guha’s Passing) had to find an ethereal link between diverse cultures in exotic locations, a dreamscape with menacing undertones.

I could describe the challenge all the members of the respective Carlotta plays’ creative teams—staging, costume, set, lights, and the latest addition to the YSD design programs, projections—enhanced these productions. For jaded old theatergoers, it’s exciting to see collaborative work where

It’s like classical opera, where high standards are expected in all areas, and you feel let down if, say, the sets are rented or a performer’s doing a part by rote.

The YSD casts and creative teams have dressed the Iseman to impress. To impress the industry types who’ll be gathered to see them for the Carlotta-culminating “professional weekend,” of course. But also to impress each other, inspire each other and have a final creative fling with each other before some of them graduate and others go on summer break. It’s a community of mutual respect and high objectives. It’s also a party, with refreshments laid out after every performance.

My father was the chairman of a college theater department (a good, active one, at Tufts University in the 1970s and ‘80s) and I know what graduate students crave more than anything else: resources, intelligent feedback and respect.

I can’t describe how heartening it is to see a theater program click on so many levels—for proud overseer Paula Vogel (head of the School of Drama playwriting program, who’s built upon the Carlotta festival format she inherited from her predecessor in the department, Richard Nelson); for the students (there is creative delirium going on in there—delirium!) and for audiences, who have no stakes in the academic aspects of the exercise and have simply come to see good plays.

I caught this year’s Carlottas in a whirlwind back-to-back-to-back schedule with Tall Girls (that’s the basketball one, but don’t all the titles sound like they could be about basketball?) on Wednesday night, Blacktop Sky at a Thursday matinee and Passing on Thursday night. I admit to being overwhelmed. But I wish Yale would double the size of the department so I could savor this theater-exalting  voices-of-the-future feeling for a whole week.