Theater
Written by Duncan Macmillan
Performed by Marty Chandler
Directed by Samantha White
Produced by Jun Ge, Emma Rutan, & Carson White
Stage Managed by Kayla Wagonfeld
Dramaturgy by Marty Chandler
Lighting Designed by Eitan Acks
Props Designed by David Donnan
Sound Designed by Dominic Sullivan
Assistant Directed by Elsie Harrington
Everyone, Everywhere
Charty Mandler is a PhD candidate in "Disaster Science and Inter- and Inner-Personal Crisis Management," and with his dissertation right around the corner, he needs to experiment with his new method for solving problems: solo, long-form improv. In this choose-your-own-adventure style show, an audience member helps guide the direction the improv goes. By the end of the show, we see four potential outcomes from the one original starting suggestion and see Charty do his best to help solve the audience member's problem.
Inspired by Everything Everywhere All At Once, and questions of our potentials, this show asks us if we, as Charty does in an improv set, can become anyone anywhere, why don't we?
Above photos from FRINGEPVD: The Providence Fringe Festival, presented by Wilbury Theatre Group; photo by Erin X. Smithers.
An Experiment in One-Person Improv
When
Where
Who
Performed by Marty Chandler
Directed by Jacob Yoder-Schrock
Dramaturgy by David Donnan
What
July 27-29th 2023
Providence, RI
Providence Fringe Festival
Every Brilliant Thing
Solo Performance meets Community-Engaged Theater
April 20th-22th, 2023
When
New Haven, CT
Where
Yale Schwarzman Center
Who
Written by Duncan Macmillan
Performed by Marty Chandler
Directed by Samantha White
Produced by Jun Ge, Emma Rutan, & Carson White
Stage Managed by Kayla Wagonfeld
Dramaturgy by Marty Chandler
Lighting Designed by Eitan Acks
Props Designed by David Donnan
Sound Designed by Dominic Sullivan
Assistant Directed by Elsie Harrington
In this performance of Duncan Macmillan's moving play, I took on the role of the narrator, who (with the audience's help) shares a list of brilliant things that make life worth living.
The Dome at the Schwarzman Center naturally invited the play to be performed in the round. As a performer, I loved using my improv background to interact extemporaneously with the audience and immerse them in the story with me.
I aimed to make audience members feel comfortable as they took on characters in the story and performed with me.
We produced this show at a particularly dark, emotional time for mental health on Yale's campus, and wanted to make space for the audience to process together. By meeting with mental health professionals and campus community members, we developed a post-show activity and discussion to do so. As the dramaturg, I addressed these questions of how our audiences would receive the piece and researched and updated references for my character.
Do Your Happy Dance, Jericho!
A New Piece of Improvised Solo Performance
Performed by Marty Chandler
Directed by Jacob Yoder-Schrock
Produced by Sarah Valeika & Eliza MacGilvray
Stage Managed by Naomi Schwartzburt
Dramaturgy by David Donnan
Set Designed by Robbie Skoronski
Lighting Designed by Eitan Acks
Assistant Produced by Jeffrey Steele
Assistant Stage Managed by Hank Graham
Collaborators included Jay Mehta, Ellie Burke,
Julian Hornos Kohl, Samantha White, & Gabi Poisson
Video edited by Jay Mehta
March 4th-6th, 2021
When
New Haven, CT
Whitney Theater & Zoom
Where
Yale Theater & Performance Studies
Who
What
"Do Your Happy Dance, Jericho!" is a new piece exploring the resilience of storytelling
For his 22nd birthday, one guy trapped in a theater decides to share with his Zoom party guests how he escapes from reality: making up a story on the spot, and playing all the characters (*cough* improv). He has happy-danced as “Jericho” and played around as many other characters, and now we get to see who he becomes next and what world will be built before our eyes, then left behind after the brief time that we’re together.
Through experimental and devising methods (including moment work, études, etc.), this piece was created through months of collaboration and explorations of ‘improv in isolation.’ If life is just one long improvisation, we can only do our best to keep up and keep going. And like living through a pandemic, we’re just winging it and taking it each day, week, month at a time. As my Senior Project in Theater and Performance Studies, this embodied research investigated questions of how we can use spontaneity to portray human experience onstage—an idea which comes into contact with themes of ephemerality, the joy of creation, and our desire for connection in unprecedented times.
A Butterfly in a Barbershop
A Reading of a New Play
Who
Where
Zoom
When
March 2021
Written by Marty Chandler
Directed by Jacob Yoder-Schrock
Produced by Rebecca Salzhauer
Cast included Logan Klutse,
Jeffrey Steele,
Jay Mehta,
Kayla Wagonfeld,
and Irene Vazquez
What
A Butterfly in a Barbershop is a play about a small barbershop in Upstate New York, and a family struggling to keep their business alive. After the sudden illness and subsequent passing of his mother, college student and aspiring filmmaker Matteo returns home for the summer in order to help his father, Lorenzo, stay afloat.
Set in the year 1993, external forces in the world add pressure to the atmosphere of the barbershop, as the space becomes the intersection of two national conversations: the economic repercussions of the rising popularity of unisex haircutting chains such as Great Clips, and the debate over the newly-inaugurated President Bill Clinton and his policy goals for LGBTQ participation in the military. The play speaks to themes of love, grief, and change, and asks us to consider what it means to “let go” or “move on,” what it means to stay or leave, and what it means to not ask or not tell.
Yale Playwrights Festival
What
Who
Schema
Written by Marty Chandler
Directed by Mikaela Boone
Produced by Rebecca Salzhauer
Stage Managed by Sophia Dopico
Dramaturgy by Jacob Yoder-Schrock
Sound Designed by Ethan Treiman
Lighting Designed by T Goldrick
Cast included Jay Mehta,
Julian Hornos Kohl,
Gabi Poisson,
Jose Davila,
Naomi Goodheart,
Caitlin O'Hara,
and Miki Cornwell
October 2019
When
New Haven, CT
Hopper Cabaret
Where
Yale Undergraduate Productions
A Staged Reading of a New Play
In this quasi-memory play, the psychological concept of “the self-schema” is explored through the life of Maxwell and the two other “selves” he thinks he has: a 10-year-old boy and a 70-year-old woman, who help him navigate various social situations, including moments at home growing up and his delivery of a TED Talk. The play questions how we act in different situations, and the manyness of who we are.
As a playwright, I loved playing with my background in psychology, writing split-scenes to symbolize multiple memories and selves in conversation, and working with the team to bring this to life.
