The Play’s the Thing: Fifty Years of Yale Repertory Theatre (1966-2016)

An insider’s spirited history of Yale Repertory Theatre

In this serious and entertaining chronicle of the first fifty years of Yale Repertory Theatre, award-winning dramaturg James Magruder shows how dozens of theater artists have played their parts in the evolution of a sterling American institution. Each of its four chapters is dedicated to one of the Yale Rep’s artistic directors to date: Robert Brustein, Lloyd Richards, Stan Wojewodski Jr., and James Bundy. Numerous sidebars--dedicated to the spaces used by the theater, the playwrights produced most often, casting, the prop shop, the costume shop, artist housing, and other topics--enliven the lavishly illustrated four-color text. This fascinating insider account, full of indelible descriptions of crucial moments in the Rep’s history, is based in part on interviews with some of America’s most respected actors about their experiences at the Rep, including Paul Giamatti, James Earl Jones, Frances McDormand, Meryl Streep, Courtney B. Vance, Dianne Wiest, and Henry Winkler--among many others.

More than just a valentine to an important American theater, The Play’s the Thing is a story about institution-building and the force of personality; about the tug-of-war between vision and realpolitik; and about the continuous negotiation between educational needs and artistic demands.

James Magruder has long-standing Yale ties: three advanced degrees; an award-winning dissertation, Three French Comedies, published by Yale University Press in 1996; two adaptations produced at Yale Repertory Theatre; and fourteen years’ teaching translation and adaptation at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale. He has also published four novels, among them Love Slaves of Helen Hadley Hall, set at Yale in 1983-84, and had two musicals reach the Broadway stage.