Evan Yionoulis is happy to talk about her exciting career transition, from longtime Yale School of Drama faculty member to the new head of the theater program at Juilliard.
She’s eager to discuss her upcoming theater projects, including “The Dread Pirate Project,” a torn-from-the-headlines piece about “the lack of anonymity in the digital age” that she’s been developing for years.
What she won’t talk about is the plot of “Kiss,” Guillermo Calderon’s political drama, which she’s directing at the Yale Repertory Theatre April 27 through May 19. “Kiss” is not a world premiere, and it’s been getting produced pretty steadily around the country, but giving away its story ruins the show for a lot of people.
During a recent in interview over breakfast at Heirloom restaurant, a block from the Yale Rep, Yionoulis discussed what she could.
Yionoulis’ description of the show is as spare as possible: “Lights up on a Damascus apartment in 2014, where four friends are watching a soap opera. There are declarations of love, betrayals, broken hearts… then there’s a Skype call that changes the whole trajectory of the story.”
Yionoulis had a Skype call herself with the playwright, and also met with him in New York, though Calderon is not officially connected to this production.
“Kiss” is the first play that the Chilean playwright has written in English. Yionoulis explains that this was because the play premiered in Germany, where the dramaturg working on it with Calderon did not speak Spanish. Another of Calderon’s political dramas, the revolution-themed “Escuela,” was seen as part of Yale Rep’s No Boundaries series in 2016.
Yionoulis says that with “Kiss,” Calderon “sees the current situation in Syria as an urgent thing to speak about, but he also asks what right he has to speak about it.There are themes of representation, cultural appropriation and our right to tell a certain story.”
Or the right to not tell it outside the theater, as the case may be. In any case, the Syrian settings in the meta-theatrical “make it remarkably timely. “There’s a line in the play: ‘Bombs are falling from the sky’,'” Yionoulis says. “When we started rehearsing, it was Assad dropping bombs. Now it could refer to America.”
“Kiss” will be Yionoulis’ final show as a resident director at the Yale Rep. She says she’ll miss the collaborative nature of the School of Drama and the chance to work with student designers.
At Juilliard, Yionoulis will oversee the school’s established four-year combined BFA/MFA program in acting. She’ll also (alongside playwrights Marsha Norman and David Lindsay-Abaire) run the school’s playwriting unit. Juilliard doesn’t have a directing program, and Yionoulis won’t be directing student-cast productions at the school.
Outside of her teaching, Yionoulis has directed many shows off Broadway, including the recent premiere of Adrienne Kennedy’s “He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box” at Theatre for a New Audience. Yionoulis and Kennedy previously worked together, at the same theater, 30 years earlier with “The Ohio State Murders.”
Yionoulis has directed at Yale every other year or so since joining the School of Drama faculty in the fall of 1998. Among her Yale productions: Shakespeare’s “Cymbeline,” with many of the key roles cast against their traditional gender; the harsh and frantic George F. Walker drama “Heaven”; and a rousing reworking of Carlo Gozzi’s “The King Stag,” which she co-adapted with her brother, composer Mike Yionoulis and longtime Yale dramaturgy professor Catherine Sheehy.
While at Juilliard, Yionoulis will continue to direct at theaters in New York and hopes to remain active in the regional theater realm.
In New York, Yionoulis is largely known for directing new works, but at Yale she helmed plays by Ibsen, Shakespeare, Brecht and Carlo Gozzi as well as modern pieces such as the premiere of Kirsten Greenidge’s “Bossa Nova” or a rare revival of Caryl Churchill’s “Owners.” Many of her shows featured strong female characters and commented on current social issues.
Yionoulis, who lives in New York’s Westchester County and has been dividing her professional life between New Haven and New York City for decades, says “if this position had not come along I would’ve gladly stayed at Yale for another 20 years. It’s been great to have this as an artistic home.” Yionoulis not only taught at the Yale School of Drama (including five years as chair of the acting program), she had been a student there.
“This is an incredible time of transition in the theater. We can address issues of equity, diversity and inclusion. We’re preparing actors and writers to work in a variety of media. We can tailor productions to actors’ needs.”
KISS is performed April 27 through May 19 at the Yale Repertory Theatre, 1120 Chapel St., New Haven. Performances are Tuesday through Friday at 8 p.m. and Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m. Tickets are $44 to $90. 203-432-1234 and yalerep.org.
