New home for Yale's dramatic arts

View of the dramatic arts building facing east, Yale University, courtesy of KPMB architects, rendering by ADHOC studio.

An architectural rendering of the new Dramatic Arts Building from York Street. The building will include a new theater for the Yale Rep. View full image

For almost 60 years, the Yale Repertory Theatre has staged most productions from a converted church at Chapel and York Streets—cozy, but missing the amenities and backstage facilities that a professional theater needs. The Rep may soon have a state-of-the-art new home: The university recently released renderings for a seven-story, 207,000-square-foot Dramatic Arts Building at the corner of Crown and York Streets. 

James Bundy ’95MFA, dean of the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale and artistic director of the Rep, says it’s been a long time coming. “My office has on a bookshelf the schematic facilities plans of three previous deans that were unfulfilled.”

This time looks more promising. “When it seemed like we were doing well enough on the fundraising front,” Bundy says, “the university determined that it was time to hire an architect for the actual design.” Thanks to a pivotal (and anonymous) lead gift and other essential gifts, Yale retained KPMB Architects.Now, he says, the design is being priced for presentation to the Yale Corporation for approval.

The new building will do a lot more than house the Rep. For the first time, the entire David Geffen School of Drama will be under the same roof as a large portion of the undergraduate Program in Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, as well as a dedicated rehearsal space for the Yale Dramat. “In addition to two theaters, the building allows us to have colocated professional-quality production shops in scenery, paint, costumes, props, lighting, sound, and projection,” says Bundy. “This cuts down on the number of times materials have to be trucked, so it’s more efficient and safer. It allows us to have purpose-built classrooms and rehearsal halls that don’t have giant columns in the middle of them obstructing people’s movement.”  

The building is organized around central collaboration spaces alongside a feature staircase that the architects call “Theater Street”; they hope it will make for chance encounters that strike creative sparks. Visible from the street, the ornamental steel feature staircase flows to social and coworking spaces on each level. “We’re in a pretty specialized and detailed field,” Bundy says. “And what’s been wonderful is that the architects have managed to fit a very complicated program into an elegant facility and also create social spaces for undergraduates and graduate students and faculty and staff to see each other, run into each other, and create all kinds of connections throughout the theater community at Yale.”  

Bundy, who will step down as dean in June and return to full-time teaching, has been inspired by the project’s wide support. “It’s not just the ‘theater people’ who are making it happen. It’s really a university-wide commitment of alumni and friends and especially of the presidents and the provosts who have worked on it.”  
The new building will also be a beacon for locals, with sweeping swaths of glass on its limestone façade. “People will see light emanating from that space as they walk by in the evening,” Bundy says. “And the sense of accessibility to the community will be radically different. As pretty as the former Calvary Baptist Church is, the architecture itself is not welcoming or accessible. And so the warmth and the availability of the theater space, which will be open during the daytime with a coffee shop, is going to transform our community’s relationship to Yale Repertory Theatre.”