Yale Dramatic Association

Yale Dramatic Association

Logo of the organization
Established	1901
President	Collin Bentley
Students	120
Location	New Haven, Connecticut, United States
Website	dramat.org

The Yale Dramatic Association, also known as the "Yale Dramat," is the second oldest college theater company in the country, and the oldest continuously producing one. Founded in 1901 by undergraduates at Yale University, the Dramat has been producing some of the finest student theatre in the United States for over a century.

Though no formal theatre company existed at Yale during its first two centuries of existence, dramas and comedies were enjoyed by students from the earliest days. When Professor William Lyon Phelps, '87, commenced his teaching during the 1890s, he began a literary Renaissance that culminated in his sponsorship of the Dramatic Association, founded by Henry D. Wescott, Class of 1901, as a club for students interested in public performances of plays. The first meeting of the organization, chaired by Wescott, occurred on February 2, 1900.

As archivist Gerasimos Tsourapas described its first days: "For its premiere production, the new organization chose The Second Shepherds' Play, the medieval English comedy that offers both sacred and profane variation on the birth of Christ: the religious could take comfort in the play's theological interests; the secular could delight in the naughty pranks of the protagonist. All in all, a good choice to allay the fears of those distrustful of the theater. As if to reinforce the high moral tone of the inaugural performance, the Dramat Executive Committee added Wescott's own adaptation of Chaucer's The Pardoner's Tale. Frank Lea Short, a New York theatrical figure, was hired to direct; Phelps and Professor Albert Cook served as literary advisors. Although both plays called for small casts, an "audience-within-the-play"— some one hundred extras—was placed on stage as well; no doubt someone realized the importance of getting as many people involved in the new venture as possible. On May 13, 1900, the first production of the Yale Dramatic Association opened to the universal applause of town and gown."

Cole Porter was undoubtedly the best-known of the Dramat's early Twentieth-Century figures. Not only did he perform both male and female roles, but he wrote and directed three "smoker" productions and composed the totemic song "The Queen of the Yale Dramat" (1911) satirizing drag roles. His first show, And Still the Villain Pursued Her, poked fun at melodramas, while the second, Kaleidoscope, was a send-up of college life.