Yale Rep Stages World Premiere of THE HOUSE THAT WILL NOT STAND, Now thru 5/10

Yale Repertory Theatre, in a co-production with Berkeley Repertory Theatre, presents the world premiere of The House that will not Stand by Marcus Gardley, directed by Patricia McGregor. The House that will not Stand will be performed at Yale Repertory Theatre (1120 Chapel Street) today, April 18-May 10. Opening Night is Thursday, April 24.

The House that will not Stand features choreography by Paloma McGregor, scenic design by Antje Ellermann, costumes by Katherine O'Neill, lighting by Russell H. Champa, sound design and original compositions by Keith Townsend Obadike, vocal arrangements and additional original compositions by Harriett D. Foy, and stage management by James Mountcastle.

The cast of The House that will not Stand includes Joniece Abott-Pratt, Harriett D. Foy, Lizan Mitchell, Petronia Paley, Flor De Liz Perez, Ray Reinhardt, and Tiffany Rachelle Stewart. Jocelyn Pleasant is the percussionist.

Following the mysterious death of her white lover, Beartrice Albans, a free woman of color in New Orleans in 1836, imposes a six-month period of mourning on herself and her three daughters. But as the summer heat intensifies, a handsome bachelor comes calling, a family secret is revealed, and the foundation of her household is rocked to its core.

The world premiere co-production of The House that will not Stand was performed at Berkeley Repertory Theatre January 31-March 23, 2014.

Production support is provided by Yale's Binger Center for New Theatre and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Tickets for The House that will not Stand range from $20-98 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). Student, senior, and group rates are also available.

Friday, April 18 8PM

Saturday, April 19 8PM

Monday, April 21 8PM All Tickets $20

Tuesday, April 22 8PM All Tickets $20

Wednesday, April 23 8PM All Tickets $20

Thursday, April 24 8PM Opening Night

Friday, April 25 8PM

Saturday, April 26 2PM Talk Back

Saturday, April 26 8PM

Tuesday, April 29 8PM

Wednesday, April 30 2PM Senior Reception Begins at 1PM

Wednesday, April 30 8PM

Thursday, May 1 8PM

Friday, May 2 8PM

Saturday May 3 2PM Open Captioning, Talk Back

Saturday, May 3 8PM

Tuesday, May 6 8PM

Wednesday, May 7 8PM

Thursday, May 8 8PM

Friday, May 9 8PM

Saturday, May 10 2PM Audio Description

Saturday, May 10 8PM

ABOUT THE CAST

JONIECE ABBOTT-PRATT (ODETTE) previously appeared in Yale Rep's 2011 production of The Piano Lesson. Her New York credits include The Good Negro (The Public Theater) and Alondra Was Here (Wild Project). She's been seen regionally in Stick Fly (Arden Theatre Company); A Raisin in the Sun (Palm Beach Dramaworks); Slippery as Sin (Passage Theatre Company); Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (Huntington Theatre Company); Gem of the Ocean (Hartford Stage); The Piano Lesson (Delaware Theatre Company); The Good Negro (Dallas Theater Center); Mama's Gonna Buy You (William Inge Theatre Festival); Stick Fly, The Overwhelming (Contemporary American Theater Festival); False Creeds (Alliance Theatre); Breath, Boom (Synchronicity Performance Group); and The Doll Plays (Actor's Express). Joniece attended Clark Atlanta University and received her MFA from the University of Iowa.

HARRIETT D. FOY (MAKEDA; VOCAL ARRANGEMENTS AND ADDITIONAL ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS) previously appeared at Yale Rep in the world premiere of Marcus Gardley's dance of the holy ghosts in 2006. She has appeared on Broadway in Mamma Mia! and covered roles in The American Plan and Once on This Island. Her Off-Broadway credits include The Total Bent, On the Levee (AUDELCO nomination), Crowns (AUDELCO Award for ensemble), and can be heard on the Off-Broadway cast recordings of Reunion, Inside Out, and Lone Star Love. Harriett has performed around the country in LMNOP and Amazing Grace (Goodspeed Musicals); F2M (New York Stage & Film's Powerhouse Theater); The Women of Brewster Place and Polk County (Arena Stage, Helen Hayes nominations for both plays); After the War (American Conservatory Theater); Seven Guitars (Center Stage); A Christmas Carol (McCarter Theatre Center); Ambassador Satch in Dubai; her one-woman show My Soul Looks Back in Wonder (directed by Marcus Gardley) at Fordham United Baptist Church; and the African American Spirituals Concert at Merkin Hall (debut). Her film credits include Winter's Tale, All Good Things, and In the Family. She has appeared in the TV shows Onion News Empire, Hostages, Orange is the New Black, Unforgettable, Law & Order, and Rescue Me. Harriett received her BFA from Howard University. harriettdfoy.com

LIZAN MITCHELL (BEARTRICE) Lizan's 2013 theatre credits include The Trip to Bountiful (Cleveland Play House), Marcus Gardley's The Gospel of Lovingkindness (Brown/Trinity Playwrights Repertory Theatre), This Was the End (Prelude 13 at CUNY), and Bil Wright's Celebrating Adrienne Kennedy (Phoenix Theatre Ensemble). She performed on Broadway in Electra, Having Our Say, and So Long on Lonely Street, and Off-Broadway in Rosmersholm, For Colored Girls... (25th anniversary show), Cell, and The Hurricane Katrina Comedy Festival (New York Fringe Festival, Best Play). Her film and television credits include The Human Stain, John Adams (HBO), The Preacher's Wife, The Good Wife, Sesame Street, Law & Order, The Wire, and The Golden Boy. Lizan has received a Black Theatre Alliance Award, a Helen Hayes Award, an AUDELCO Award for Best Actress, and Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations.

PETRONIA PALEY (LA VUEVE, MARIE JOSEPHINE) previously appeared at Yale Rep in King Lear in 2005. Her other New York credits include Volumnia in Coriolanus and Gertrude in Hamlet (Take Wing and Soar Productions); Clytemnestra in Electra (AUDELCO Award) and Madame Ranevskya in The Cherry Orchard (AUDELCO nomination) at the Classical Theatre of Harlem; Dr. Iris Preston in Relativity (Ensemble Studio Theatre, AUDELCO nomination); Gratiana in The Revenger's Tragedy (Red Bull Theater); The Trial of One Short-Sighted Black Woman vs Mammy Louise and Safreeta Mae (New Federal Theatre, AUDELCO Award); Dr. Tanya Baker in Stray (Cherry Lane Theatre); and understudied the role of Ethel in the Broadway production of On Golden Pond. Petronia's regional theatre credits include A Raisin in the Sun at (Crossroads Theatre Company); Death of a Salesman (Oberlin College); The Trojan Women (Helen Hayes nomination), The Oedipus Plays (Shakespeare Theatre); Nothing Sacred and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Arena Stage). Petronia's one-person show On the Way to Timbuktu was first produced at Ensemble Studio Theatre and received an AUDELCO Award. Her film and television credits include Transporter, 2 Days in New York, Almost Summer, White Girl, Damages, Solomon Northup's Odyssey, Guiding Light, and Another World. Petronia has also directed both classical and contemporary plays.

FLOR DE LIZ PEREZ (MAUDE LYNN) is making her Yale Rep debut. Her other regional theatre credits include the world premiere of Seven Homeless Mammoths Wander New England, directed by Ken Rus Schmoll (Two River Theater Company); In the Continuum, directed by Liesl Tommy, and Nicholas Nickleby, directed by Joe Haj/ Tom Quaintance (PlayMakers Repertory Company). She is an ensemble member/performer with New York's Neo-Futurists in Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind and an associate artist with Theatre 167. She has also performed in the world premiere of In the Time of the Butterflies, under the direction of Jose Zayas at Repertorio Español, which won the 2011 HOLA Award for Best Ensemble. Her film and television credits include the independent feature The House that Jack Built (directed by Henry Barrial), The Good Wife, and Made in Jersey. Flor De Liz received an MFA in acting at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a member of AEA/AFTRA/SAG. flordelizperez.com

JOCELYN PLEASANT (PERCUSSIONIST) is a percussionist and educator from Bloomfield, Connecticut. She received her first formal training from the Hartt School Community Division in classical percussion at age 10. In addition, she studied African percussion and jazz drum set at the Artists Collective, Jackie and Dollie McLean's community arts center in Hartford. Jocelyn continued her music studies at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C., as a Presidential Arts Scholar and American Studies major, where she earned a BA in 2004. She now resides in Middletown, and teaches and performs in a variety of genres and settings. She is currently on staff at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts, the Artists Collective, and Green Street Arts Center. She has performed with Jay Hoggard, Steve Davis, Warren Byrd, Phil Bowler, Kim Clarke, Paul Brown, Nat Reeves, Shawnn Monteiro, Sumi Tonooka, Sankofa Kuumba (Hartford), and many others.

RAY REINHARDT (LAZARE) is making his Yale Rep debut. In his over 40 years as an actor, Ray has had a wonderful time working at esteemed Bay Area theatres such as American Conservatory Theater (for 25 years in various roles, including leads in Desire Under the Elms, The Visit, The Miser, Sleuth, and Cyrano de Bergerac); Berkeley Rep as Con Melody in Touch of the Poet and James Tyrone in Long Day's Journey into Night; San Jose Repertory Theatre as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman; Marin Shakespeare Company and San Francisco Shakespeare Festival in the title role of King Lear; Aurora Theatre Company as Gregory Solomon in The Price and Jacob in Awake and Sing!; and SF Playhouse in The Fantasticks and Storefront Church. He has performed on Broadway in A Flea in Her Ear and in Tiny Alice with Sir John Gielgud, as well in television and film.

TIFFANY RACHELLE STEWART (AGNÈS) is making her Yale Rep debut. She was most recently seen in the Alliance Theatre's production of By The Way, Meet Vera Stark. Her New York credits include Blood Dazzler (Harlem Stage), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Lyceum Theatre), and Obama Drama (45th Street Theatre). Her other regional credits include Conference of the Birds (Folger Theatre), The African Company Presents Richard III and Love's Labour's Lost (Oregon Shakespeare Festival). Her film and television work includes the short Hotel Pennsylvania, which screened in New York as well as several international film festivals including Cannes; All My Children; and Royal Pains. Tiffany is also an avid dancer and choreographer, most recently choreographing the world premiere musical The Unfortunates at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Tiffany received her MFA in acting from Yale School of Drama in 2007.

ABOUT THE CREATIVE TEAM

MARCUS GARDLEY (PLAYWRIGHT) is a Bay Area-born poet-playwright who is the recent 2012 James Baldwin Fellow. He is also the 2011 Pen/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for a Playwright in Midcareer and a Mellon Foundation grantee for a playwriting residency with Victory Gardens in Chicago. The New Yorker has described Marcus as "the heir to Garcia Lorca, Pirandello and Tennessee Williams." His play The Box: A Black Comedy is being presented this spring at The Foundry Theatre in New York. His play dance of the holy ghosts had its world premiere at Yale Rep in 2006 and recently played at Center Stage in Baltimore to critical acclaim; and his epic trilogy The Road Weeps, the Well Runs Dry about the migration of African American and Indigenous people from Florida to Oklahoma is having a national tour. His play Every Tongue Confess had its world premiere at Arena Stage starring Phylicia Rashad and directed by Kenny Leon and recently was seen at Atlanta's Horizon Theatre. It was nominated for the Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics New Play Award, the Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play, and was the recipient of the Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award. His musical On the Levee, commissioned by Yale Rep, premiered in 2010 at Lincoln Center Theater's LCT3 and was nominated for 11 AUDELCO Awards including outstanding playwright. He is the recipient of the 2011 Aetna New Voices Fellowship at Hartford Stage, the Helen Merrill Award, a Kellsering Honor, the Gerbode Emerging Playwright Award, the National Alliance for Musical Theatre Award, a Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation grant, the Eugene O'Neill Memorial Scholarship, and the ASCAP Foundation Cole Porter Award, and he participated in the NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights. He holds an MFA in playwriting from Yale Drama School and is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America and the Lark Play Development Center. Marcus is a professor of theatre and performance studies at Brown University.

PATRICIA McGREGOR (DIRECTOR) is making her Yale Rep debut. Patricia is a Harlem-based director, writer, and deviser of new work. Recent credits include The Winter's Tale and Spunk at California Shakespeare Theater and the world premiere of Hurt Village at Signature Theatre Company. Other directing credits include Holding it Down, The Mountaintop, In the Cypher, Girl Shake Loose Her Skin, Jelly's Last Jam, Romeo and Juliet, Four Electric Ghosts, Cloud Tectonics, Eleemosynary, The French Play, Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, Sidewalk Opera, Dancing in the Dark, The Covering Skyline, and In the Meantime. She has worked on Broadway and at venues including New York's Shakespeare in the Park, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Second Stage Theatre, The Public Theater, the Kitchen, the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, Lincoln Center Institute, Exit Art, and Nuyorican Poets Café. She co-founded Angela's Pulse with her sister, choreographer Paloma McGregor. Angela's Pulse creates vital choreoplays and fosters collaboration among artists, educators, organizers, academics, and other diverse communities in order to illuminate undertold stories, infuse meaning into the audience experience, and animate progress through the arts. Patricia is a graduate of Yale School of Drama where she was a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow and artistic director of the Yale Cabaret.

PALOMA McGREGOR (CHOREOGRAPHER) Paloma is a Harlem-based movement artist, journalist, and community builder. Recent choreography credits include A Civil War Christmas (Center Stage); The Winter's Tale, Spunk (California Shakespeare Theater); Four Electric Ghosts (The Kitchen); Children of Killers (Castillo Theatre); For a Barbarian Woman (Fordham University); Indomitable: James Brown (SummerStage); and Blood Dazzler (Harlem Stage). She co-founded Angela's Pulse with her sister, director Patricia McGregor, to create collaborative performance work rooted in building community, telling undertold stories, and animating progress. They are currently collaborating with Marcus Gardley and composer Justin Ellington on a new musical about the Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia. Paloma is also developing Building a Better Fishtrap, an iterative performance project about water, memory, and home, inspired by the stories of her father, an 88-year-old fisherman. She is an artist in residence at New York University's Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, has written extensively about dance and civic engagement, and created Dancing While Black to support the work of black dance artists. After leaving a career as a newspaper journalist, Paloma toured internationally for six years with Urban Bush Women dance company and has performed work by choreographers Liz Lerman, Cassie Meador, Christal Brown, Jill Sigman, Camille A. Brown, and others.

ANTJE ELLERMANN (SCENIC DESIGNER) is making her Yale Rep debut. In New York she has designed shows at Signature Theatre Company, Theatre for a New Audience, the Play Company, Irish Repertory Theatre, New York Stage and Film, Manhattan Ensemble Theater, and New York Theatre Workshop. Her regional theatre credits include productions at Berkeley Rep, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Cleveland Play House, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Trinity Repertory Company, the Huntington Theatre Company, Arena Stage, the Denver Center Theatre Company, the Geffen Playhouse, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Mass MoCA, Bard SummerScape, and Pittsburgh Opera Center. She has been nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award, a Helen Hayes Award, an Ovation Award for 9 Parts of Desire, and an Emmy Award for Becoming American: The Chinese Experience on PBS.

KATHERINE O'NEILL (COSTUME DESIGNER) previously designed the costumes for Yale Rep's production of Death of a Salesman. Katherine's New York credits include A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Whale Play (New Theater House), In the Cypher (Nuyorican Poets Café), and Blood Dazzler (Harlem Stage). Her designs have been seen around the country in The Taming of the Shrew (California Shakespeare Theater); Island of Slaves, Love Song (Orfeo Group); The Emancipation of Mandy and Miz Ellie (Company One); Ti Jean and his Brothers (Central Square Theater); A Christmas Story (New Repertory Theatre); and Cosi Fan Tutti (Commonwealth Opera Company). Katherine received her MFA from Yale School of Drama.

RUSSELL H. CHAMPA (LIGHTING DESIGNER) Previous Yale Rep credits include Sarah Ruhl's Dear Elizabeth and Eurydice. His current and recent projects include Intimacy (The New Group); The Patron Saint of Sea Monsters (Playwrights Horizons); Water by the Spoonful, Modern Terrorism (Second Stage Theatre); The Twenty-Seventh Man (The Public Theater); and The Grand Manner (Lincoln Center Theater). On Broadway, Russell has designed In the Next Room (or the vibrator play) at the Lyceum Theatre and Julia Sweeney's God Said "Ha!" also at the Lyceum. Other New York theatres he has designed for include Manhattan Theatre Club, Classic Stage Company, New York Stage and Film, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. Regionally, Russell has designed for Berkeley Rep, American Conservatory Theater, the Wilma Theater, Arena Stage, the Old Globe, California Shakespeare Theater, Trinity Repertory Company, the Mark Taper Forum, and the Kennedy Center.

KEITH TOWNSEND OBADIKE (SOUND DESIGNER AND ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS) Keith's sound design and composition credits include The Mystery Plays (Connecticut Critics Circle Award for Sound Design) at Yale Repertory Theatre and Second Stage Theatre; The Winter's Tale (Milwaukee Shakespeare); Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 (Lincoln Center Institute); and Blood Dazzler (Harlem Stage). Many of Keith's interdisciplinary artworks are done in collaboration with his wife Mendi Obadike. Their awards include a Rockefeller and New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. They have released two albums on Bridge Records, The Sour Thunder and Crosstalk, and exhibited artworks at the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Whitechapel Gallery in London, among other institutions. They debuted their opera-masquerade Four Electric Ghosts (choreographed by Paloma McGregor and directed by Patricia McGregor) at The Kitchen. They are currently developing a new sound-art series and a new opera-masquerade, TaRonda Who Wore White Gloves.

JAMES MOUNTCASTLE (PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGER) has been at Yale Rep since 2004. He has stage managed productions of A Streetcar Named Desire, American Night: The Ballad of Juan José, Three Sisters, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, The Master Builder, Passion Play, Eurydice, and the world premiere of The Clean House. Broadway credits include Damn Yankees, Jekyll & Hyde, Judgment at Nuremberg, The Boys from Syracuse, The Smell of the Kill, Life x(3), and Wonderful Town. Mr. Mountcastle spent several Christmas seasons in New York City as stage manager for the now legendary production of A Christmas Carol at Madison Square Garden. Broadway national tours include City of Angels, Falsettos, and My Fair Lady. He served as Production Stage Manager for Damn Yankees starring Jerry Lewis for both its national tour and at the Adelphi Theatre in London's West End. In addition, Mr. Mountcastle has worked at The Kennedy Center, Center Stage in Baltimore, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and elsewhere. James and his wife Julie live in North Haven and are the very proud parents of two beautiful girls: Ellie, who is 14 years old, and Katie, age 12.

BERKELEY REPERTORY THEATRE (CO-PRODUCER) has grown from a storefront stage to an international leader in innovative theatre. Known for its core values of imagination and excellence, as well as its educated and adventurous audience, the nonprofit has provided a welcoming home for emerging and established artists since 1968. In four decades, four million people have enjoyed more than 300 shows at Berkeley Rep. These shows have gone on to win five Tony Awards, seven OBIE Awards, nine Drama Desk Awards, one Grammy Award, and many other honors. In recognition of its place on the national stage, Berkeley Rep received the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre in 1997. Its bustling facilities-the 600-seat Roda Theatre, the 400-seat Thrust Stage, the Berkeley Rep School of Theatre, the Osher Studio, and a spacious new campus in West Berkeley-are helping revitalize a renowned city. See tomorrow's plays today at Berkeley Rep.

ABOUT YALE REPERTORY THEATRE: Yale Repertory Theatre has produced well over 100 premieres-including two Pulitzer Prize winners and four other nominated finalists-by emerging and established playwrights. Twelve 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. Professional assignments at Yale Repertory Theatre are integral components of the program at Yale School of Drama, the nation's leading graduate theatre training conservatory.

Established in 2008, Yale's Binger Center for New Theatre is an artist-driven initiative that devotes major resources to the commissioning, development, and production of new plays and musicals at Yale Repertory Theatre and across the country. To date, the Binger Center has supported the work of more than 40 commissioned artists as well as the world premieres and subsequent productions of 18 new American plays and musicals, including next season's Yale Rep-commissioned world premieres, War, Familiar, and Elevada.

Other Binger Center-supported productions include the world premiere of Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, adapted by Bill Camp and Robert Woodruff, commissioned and produced by Yale Rep, and its subsequent west coast and NY premieres by La Jolla Playhouse and Theatre for a New Audience; the world premiere co-production of Rinne Groff's Compulsion at Yale Rep, Berkeley Rep, and The Public Theater; the world premiere of the Yale-commissioned On the Levee by Marcus Gardley, Todd Almond, and Lear deBessonet at Lincoln Center Theater's LCT3; the world premiere of Maggie-Kate Coleman and Anna K. Jacobs's musical POP! at Yale Rep, as well as its productions at City Theatre in Pittsburgh and Virginia's Firehouse Theatre Project; the world premiere of Amy Herzog's Belleville at Yale Rep and its subsequent New York Theatre Workshop production (Top Ten of 2011 and 2013, The New York Times); the world premiere of The Realistic Joneses by Will Eno at Yale Rep (Top Ten of 2012, The New York Times); the world premiere co-production of David Adjmi's Marie Antoinette at the American Repertory Theater and Yale Rep and its NY premiere at Soho Rep; and this season's These Paper Bullets!, adapted by Rolin Jones with new songs by Billie Joe Armstrong. Will Eno's The Realistic Joneses is currently playing on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre.

For more information about the Binger Center for New Theatre, visit yalerep.org/center.

To post a comment, you must register and login.