Noted Yale Alums to Celebrate Achievements of Drama School

Yalies have been in the forefront of the political scene in recent days, with George W. Bush and Joseph Lieberman on the ballot. And on Monday, another facet of the university will be showcased, with alumni participating in a bicoastal celebration of the 100th year of the undergraduate Yale Dramatic Assn. and the 75th year of the Yale School of Drama.

The gala event, “Stage Blue,” for which Jodie Foster, Meryl Streep and Sam Waterston are honorary chairs, will occur simultaneously at Manhattan’s New Amsterdam Theater and the Beverly Hilton Hotel with events in each city broadcast via satellite to the other location. Among the Yale graduates scheduled to participate in the star-studded production “I Get a Kick Out of Blue” are Charles S. Dutton, Harry Hamlin, Stacy Keach, Joan Van Ark, John Turturro, Robert Klein, James Naughton, Sigourney Weaver and John Shea--all of whom will sing songs and perform material from Yale composers and dramatists, such as Maury Yeston, A.R. Gurney, Wendy Wasserstein, David Henry Hwang, John Guare and Christopher Durang.

“It’s like a little birthday party at which some of your talented friends get up on the piano--with a 26-piece orchestra and a television hook-up,” says Richard Maltby Jr. (“Fosse”), a 1962 graduate who’s directing the logistically challenging event. “My small task is to make people’s jaws drop when they see the deep influence of Yale on the [entertainment] industry.”

To illustrate his point, Maltby notes that the 1969 hit musical “1776” was written by Peter Stone, directed by Peter Hunt and starred Ken Howard--all graduates of Yale. And when he and classmate David Shire created a college musical in the early 1960s, director John Badham (“Saturday Night Fever”) was stage manager, Austin Pendleton and Dick Cavett were cast members, and Waterston was part of the crew.

Emmy Award-winning director James Burrows (“Cheers,” “Will & Grace”) says he went to Yale to avoid serving in Vietnam--and to please his father, the legendary writer-director Abe Burrows (“Guys and Dolls,” “Cactus Flower”).

“ ‘Do what you will with your life,’ my father said, ‘but try theater for a few decades,’ ” Burrows recalls.

Studying acting, directing, theater management, set design and playwriting in his first year gave him an invaluable foundation, Burrows says.

“Unlike Hollywood, where you can wait years for a break and then fall on your face, Yale gives you a chance to practice your craft immediately,” he says. “That weeds out those with no talent. And that rock-solid theater training was directly applicable to TV. When I headed West to do ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’ in 1974, it was like shooting a live play each week.”

Burrows graduated from Yale Drama in ‘65, just before the period when Robert Brustein became dean and “pushed the envelope,” he says.

“Brustein ushered in a golden age,” Maltby adds, nurturing such artists as Wasserstein (“The Heidi Chronicles”), Weaver, Streep and Ted Tally (Off-Broadway’s “Terra Nova” and the screen adaptation of “The Silence of the Lambs”).

Brustein, founder and artistic head of the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Mass., since 1980, puts such accolades in perspective.

“If we initiated a golden age, it wasn’t because so many students went on to successful movie and TV careers but because we were trying to bring about a renaissance in American theater,” says Brustein, who presided over Yale Drama from 1966 to 1979. “Though there was a lot of excitement and vitality in the place, those were the days of the Vietnam War and protests against racism--not an easy time to put on plays. We tried to choose material that reflected the tensions of the time--to lead instead of follow.”

“Hollywood capitalized on the risks taken elsewhere,” Brustein adds. “Like Broadway, it can’t continue if someone’s not out there, forcing the borders of what’s possible. And students like Streep and Weaver, well-schooled in ‘transformation,’ became the industry’s character actors--not the ‘personality’ actors on whom Hollywood had thrived.”

* “I Get a Kick Out of Blue” will be performed at the Beverly Hilton Hotel and Manhattan’s New Amsterdam Theater Nov. 13 at 6 p.m. PST. Drinks 5 p.m. Tickets for dinner and show: $150 to $2,500. (310) 559-9334, Ext. 190.