YIELD

Yield is an original, devised piece exploring the theme chosen by last year’s seniors, “The Meaning Behind the Madness,” and then interpreted by this year’s cast.

Devised collaborative works done at this level present a host of extra challenges not present with a pre-existing written play. Imagine, if you will, making an elaborate dinner from scratch, versus one that comes readymade. The experience is as much about the process as it is about the product of that process, a finished play. As a group, the cast, writers, and designers shared their thoughts, ideas, and inspirations focusing on the questions of meaningfulness and madness set against larger social and environmental forces. The result is what we offer to you tonight.

Yield stares in the mirror as it stares back, parsing our (dis)connections to ourselves and others through social media, consumerism, existentialism, and conspiracy. How do we create meaningful lives squeezed by internal and external pressures, grounded and buffeted by self-perceptions and outside-perfections? How do we organize and navigate the impermanence of the world around us and inside us—is it madness to assume we are constant and unchanging? Is the method to be found in observing ourselves and making active choices? Does the true self exist alongside the devised self, or is this self only realized in the very process of its seeking?

Traveling through different times and different lives, the cast addresses these questions through humor, movement, upscale perfume, drama, and combustion.