Jennie Kiesling first won the Head of the Charles in 1975, as a sophomore in a Yale Women’s four—joined by Chris Ernst, Anne Warner, and Lynn Baker. The third year in which women were invited to compete marked one year that Kiesling had rowed herself. In the following summer, half of their boat competed in the Olympics. But before their oars could touch the waters of Montreal, Yale Women’s Crew sent ripples across the country. 

Kiesling was one of nineteen rowers to participate in a now-famed Title IX protest. The team captured the scene in words and photographs—searing their stand into the archives of the New York Times. Even now, a shot of Kiesling’s shoulders blazes the cover of a film that was made about the women, twenty-five years later.   “I loved rowing because it was so terrifyingly hard. Every practice, I hoped I would survive,” Kiesling described the physical experience of rowing a 2000 meter race to me, a stranger to boathouses before arriving in New England. Only time in an eight-oar shell could help you understand its oppressive art. “Imagine someone has put a vacuum cleaner hose down your throat and is sucking out your lungs while somebody else pours sulfuric acid on your legs.” 

Professor Kiesling, alternating from rowing to revolving book pages, knows the ravages of war—both in historical text and the physiological impact of crew. Discipline rules her life. A voracious, life-long student of military history and West Point professor of military theory for twenty-eight years, the principles of soldiering combat do not stray far from those that push one to sit in a rowing shell each day. And for the Yale women rowers, daily battles against the limits of one’s own physicality also came with struggle on the Housatonic River shoreline. 

Despite the enactment of Title IX, after completing the same training course as the men, the Women’s Crew team was denied access to the boathouse locker rooms and restrooms—requiring them to sit cold and water-soaked until after dinner. It was from these frigid bus-seat puddles that something began to emerge. 

In March 1976, Yale Women’s rowers entered the athletic director’s office before removing their school sweatsuits to reveal their bodies beneath—naked, their backs and chests adorned with the words “Title IX”. The literal exposure backset a speech delivered by the team captain, expressing the exploitation of the bodies in the room. 

Reparations to the women’s “Declaration of Accountability” ensued, and universities in every crevice of the country followed—scrambling to cover systemic infractions. 

This moment, documented in print and film, was just that—a moment in each of their lives. When I sat down at my dining room table, checking my Zoom background to ensure that you could not see my still-unpacked suitcases, I was not sure of much beyond the archival articles I had read. Of course, I had questions catered to the persistent presence of the 1976 protest within Kiesling’s life. With over two million search results, Google had to agree with me—the hour that proceeded rather brought me to a different place. 

As each woman graduated, continued to study, row, or move beyond both, they maintained a connection that transcended their boat shells. In adulthood, they host “pajama parties”, spending weekends in each other’s homes to “just talk”. Though the dozen women that rotate between houses did not all row with Kiesling, they share a thread. 

“We bond easily, because we have a certain trust, and—I want to say—seriousness about the world. We don’t talk about the past a lot, although it’s not irrelevant. But we’re not fixated on the past, and we don’t just talk about our families. It’s just a little bit more–a little bit deeper. And I have that feeling with the people I rowed with and the people I didn’t, but who came up through the same program. And I think that’s incredibly special.” 

Intensity grips every part of Kiesling’s life—rowing, coaching, learning, teaching. There is even weight to the pauses in her sentences, as she methodically contemplates and reconstructs six decades of life with words. Her earnest framing of the world was apparent long before she spoke to a shared “seriousness”. Through her time at Oxford, where she met her husband of over four decades—between rowing and studying the classics—and Stanford—where a knee injury forced her to trade her aspirations to row in the Olympics for competitive cycling—she carried a sense of momentum. 

It landed her at the University of Alabama, where her battle for tenure was limited by those who couldn’t see her utter gravity about the world—beyond her blue jeans, sweat suits, and the bright red Mazda Miata that so frequently found her at the university boathouse. 

But her ceaseless exploration and experience of the world began long before she touched an oar, rather starting with a book. Professor Kiesling was only eight years old when she began to study military history, with second-grade hands grabbing volumes from the “big kid” shelf—The Monitor and the Merrimack, The Battle of Gettysburg, D-Day. She was only nine years old when she decided that she wanted to be an officer in the Army—an infantryman and a West Point graduate. For her, war was easier to romanticize when it lived in the past—when it wasn’t an immediate threat to her younger brothers. With the rest of the country, she spent highschool with thoughts hitting the ground in Vietnam. 

“Part of being a woman studying war in the 1970s was not being a woman; it was, I can do this just like the men, and I am not going to have any feminine thoughts. And if somebody asked me about the role of women in war, I’d say, ‘That’s women’s history’. I’m a military historian, I do tactics. I don’t study the Women’s Army Corps. They’re not in combat; I’m not interested. I’m tough. I row and I don’t talk about women.”

There is a sternness in Professor Kiesling’s face, laying just beyond her ponytail and fringe bangs, that somehow kept this statement from entirely surprising me. 

Until—within the same breath—she did. 

Professor Kiesling coached Army rowing and taught at West Point for fifteen years before she first began to study the role of women in combat, prompted by a request to give a conference lecture. Her first reaction was to question why she should be asked to speak beyond her field; then, she reconsidered why she hadn’t studied the topic before. 

“I started thinking about all the times that I had said, ‘Well, women aren’t in combat.’ Well, women are killed in combat — women are killed all the time.”

And with time, her exploration of stray combat violence against women became a broader consideration of military services in the United States.

“America is basically a nation of ostriches, who aren’t interested in war at all. There are some hawks, there are some doves and I define these as people who have visceral feelings about war.”

This, perhaps, was the last metaphor I expected Professor Kiesling to draw out for me. Our conversation became something more of storytelling: an experience worthy of a velvet-curtain stage. She was a historian sharing her craft—what she understands now as an art, not a scientific process of data collection.

Her art is to reconcile humanity with physical brutality—forty-eight years after she stood naked in the Yale athletic director’s office. Her stories now feature the cadets that fill her classroom and boathouse with the United States Army–what she calls the “final line of constitutional sanity”. 

Her art of thought exists on cycling trails, ski slopes, rock-climbing walls—and rowing shells.  

Six months ago, in a familiar October chill, Kiesling climbed back into a Women’s Four shell. The three women who joined her had been reaching for blue ribbons, placing second and fourth for the past four years. They wanted to win, and they needed a final rower; Kiesling—who just wanted to have a “good row” —found them rather in a record-breaking win. With four hundred thousand people watching the Head of Charles, they clocked in at twenty minutes and seven seconds. 

“The consistency in my life is rowing—the belief in teamwork and integrity. But the great transformation is the recognition that the hawkish attraction to war tends to have a lot more to do with some personal gratification. I have moved away from that to finding personal gratification in the thought that cooperation—which is a rowing virtue—hard work, and teamwork should be used for peaceful purposes.”

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The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is a hotline for individuals in crisis or for those looking to help someone else. To speak with a certified listener, call 988. 

Crisis Text Line is a texting service for emotional crisis support. To speak with a trained listener, text HELLO to 741741. It is free, available 24/7 and confidential.

To talk with a counselor from Yale Mental Health and Counseling, schedule a session here. On-call counselors are available at any time: call (203) 432-0290. Appointments  with Yale College Community Care can be scheduled here.

Additional resources are available in a guide compiled by the Yale College Council here.

From Feb. 29 to Mar. 2, the Off-Broadway Theater became a home for an undergraduate production of the 2015 Broadway musical “Fun Home.” The show adapts Alison Bechdel’s 2006 graphic novel memoir, documenting her relationship with her sexuality and her father through three stages of her life: childhood, her college years and finally, at 43 years old.

Audience chatters fell quiet in the Off-Broadway Theater as an upbeat piano melody bounced into the air. A spotlight landed on an upstage desk, complete with sketch pads, Micron pens and an adult Alison. Before her, a childhood memory with her father unfolded as her past was constructed through alternating memories.

In the play, it is revealed through non-linear vignettes that Alison’s father — a high school English teacher, funeral home director and closeted gay man — died by suicide in her freshman year of college, shortly after she came out as lesbian. Their psychologically complex and changing relationship, through her childhood and early adulthood, is examined as Alison turns 43 years old — the same age as her father when he died. Alison, never leaving the stage, becomes an audience to her life through lenses of grief and logic-seeking reflection. 

Bechdel, the show’s subject and creator, is an acclaimed cartoon artist. Her comic-strip serial “Dykes to Watch Out For” was published for 25 years, illustrating a string of unrelated plotlines between a group of lesbian women. The Bechdel Test, a metric for sexism in the fictional portrayal of women, originated within the series. Though Bechdel originally wrote the concept as comedy, it has grown to widespread use in film and media critique since its 1985 publication.

Her creation of “Fun Home” brought her to literary notability as the graphic memoir was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award. It also won the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Comic Book, the Stonewall Book Award for non-fiction, the Publishing Triangle-Judy Grahn Nonfiction Award and the Lambda Literary Award.

The memoir’s musical adaptation was equally recognized, winning five Tony Awards including Best Musical and Best Original Score. The musical adaption also received a nomination for the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album and was a finalist for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. 

Critics of “Fun Home,” in both its literary and theatrical forms, commented on the narrative’s poignant and vulnerable portrayal of the human experience. This trait was a focus of the undergraduate production’s direction. 

Naomi Schwartzburt ’24, the director of “Fun Home,” spoke about her connection to the show and its essential emotive arc in an interview with the News. 

“The structure of Fun Home is so unique and compelling because it’s nonlinear. We’re not necessarily seeing the story as it unfolded in real life, but we’re seeing the important emotional components come together and build,” Schwartzburt said. “This show just leaves you with so many feelings. Every single person has a different experience and identity and will connect to these characters in a very different way.” 

Connection, a central element of the story, is what distinguishes the musical from other representations of similar themes. Bechdel’s memoir roots the queer experience in nuclear family dynamics, shifting the show’s statement from a general comment on the queer community to an exploration of its role in intimate, domestic settings.  

Individual expression, combined with self-exploratory themes, was central to the show’s musical direction as well. 

Violet Barnum ’25, the show’s musical director, wrote in an email to the News that “Fun Home” demanded a stronger focus on musical interpretation and expression than on complex harmonies. 

The solo and small group songs allowed her to “guide the actors on taking more time with a certain phrase” or to be “more intentional about dynamics,” she wrote. Barnum added that this role allowed her to appreciate the show from all its angles, drawing attention to the complex intersection of joy, sadness, queerness and family. 

By nature of the novel’s form, the musical is also defined by its focus on artistry and expression through visual details. This element was preserved in the show through background graphic design, as actors were planted within the pages of Bechdel’s comic strips.  

An intimacy of creation was continued in the show’s graphic design, as it was hand-drawn to resemble frames of Bechdel’s novel. Mia Kohn ’27 used ink and watercolor to emphasize the show’s emotional fluidity, as well as to visually convey themes presented in the narrative. This connection to the form was also reinforced by the Off-Broadway Theater’s size, where a 130-person occupancy limit created a proximity with the set that neared audience involvement. 

Sitting only feet away from the actors, audience members were asked to view the characters as individuals with deeply complex lives, not simply tools for a larger movement. This is a perspective that the music aspires to promote, creating a space where audiences can consider human connection. 

This was emphasized by the musical’s co-producer, Marissa Blum ’24, who commented on the work’s significance. 

“‘Fun Home’ really demonstrates the unique, intergenerational nature of the queer community. It captures both the nostalgia and the pain that older generations of queer people have felt through not being able to express their identity,” Blum said. “But it also shows how they’ve laid the groundwork for future … queer people to live and be proud. It is an opportunity to remember the people who’ve come before.”

The complete slate of producers, actors and contributors for Yale’s adaptation of “Fun Home” can be found online.

The post  ‘Fun Home’ comes out to audiences with themes of queerness and family appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Sudler Hall thrummed with the Saturday night conversations of a full house, with latecomers perched on the stairs and crammed into back corners. Over 200 people came to watch Redhot & Blue perform “JAMbushed! A Valentine’s Day Murder Mystery,”  which shifted the typical a cappella spring concert to an experiential event, complete with complimentary Shirley Temples. 

The group’s signature black-and-red ensemble set a tone of what was to come, as they took the stage. As the lights dimmed, the audience was no longer sitting in Sudler Hall but in the Birdland Jazz Club during its open mic night. After the warbles of two songs, the room suddenly went dark and one of Birdland’s regular performers lay dead center stage. The club’s frenzied investigation into the death, fit with quips and one-liners, was interjected by solos and smaller group numbers. 

JAMbushed is not the first themed concert that the group has performed. It is traditional for a cappella groups to add theatrical elements to their spring performances, though not to this scale. In recent years, Redhot & Blue has presented “Gordon JAMsay,” “Disney JAMmel”, “Paper JAM” and “JAM Preserves.” However, these concerts featured a series of skits — detached from the musical work — rather than an integrated story. 

Jade Klacko ’25, the Jam Coordinator and the person responsible for organizing the event beyond musical direction, spoke about this shift. 

“We’ve never had all of [the group] buy in so intensely. I think it was just such a beautiful thing. Everyone was just so excited and had such an energy for all of the details and the whole [performance] because it is like nothing we’ve ever done before,” Klacko said about preparation for the show. “I think it brought a lot of life into our music. ”

An increased narrative role in their performance did not detract focus from their musical set. 

The group performed its entire musical repertoire, including songs by Peggy Lee, Paul McCartney, Britney Spears, Fleetwood Mac, Cole Porter and George Gershwin. As a tradition, each member performs a solo they have not sung before. 

Tradition has a large role in the structure of a “Jam,” though Redhot & Blue introduced both new and archived arrangements. Klacko sang a version of Etta James’ “At Last” — arranged by Jay Mehta ’24 — before the group  performed pieces for the first time in over a decade including “Night and Day” and “That Man.” 

Arranging songs for performance is a meaningful contribution for Redhot & Blue. Each composition in their 26-piece set is an original arrangement by a current or former member. Even if members do not contribute arrangements, they still have opportunities to influence their performance beyond stylistic choices. This was true for Dixon Miller ’27, who acted as a janitorial employee of the jazz club with unfulfilled dreams to sing, disapproved by the club owner for more than 15 years. 

As the performance neared its end, audiences learned that Miller’s festering passion for jazz led him to murder three club singers, by cleaning the microphone with arsenic. In the reveal, he launched into a solo that was littered with maniacal laughter. His proud declaration of guilt was originally intended to be a monologue, though Miller suggested that it would be more impactful if sung. 

“I arranged that little song at the end to sing,” Miller said. “I took part of it from a musical called ‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood,’” which is a murder mystery musical. It sort of fit and I thought, ‘Oh, this would be the perfect little song to sing here sort of as a murder reveal!’” 

A cappella groups are notified by the Singing Group Council of their “Jam” schedules in September and they focus on preparing new members for the repertoire, throughout the fall semester. The event is their largest in-house performance of the year, featuring alumni reunions and — in the spirit of the murder mystery’s interactive nature — a call for audience participation. 

Before 13 past members of Redhot & Blue took the stage to sing the alumni song — “Man Come Into Egypt” — Klako, who continued her coordinating position into the role of the jazz club owner, asked two audience members to sing at the open microphone. 

Alexander Kayne and his wife Jody Yetzer were approached by Joseph Kayne ’27, another scriptwriter, half an hour before the performance. Kayne did not know that he would be asked to sing when he told his son that he would join the stage during the performance. Backed by group vocals, Kayne and Yetzer offered a few phrases of “Moon River” before they returned to their seats.  

The nontraditional inclusion of family in the performance encapsulated how Redhot & Blue and JAMbushed differ from a typical approach to a cappella. 

Ruthie Weinbaum ’25, who has served as Redhot & Blue’s musical director for nearly two years, spoke to how the group’s departures from stereotypical performance are what makes it meaningful. 

“Redhot has always sort of been my place. This is my last Jam as pitch [music director]. I personally didn’t associate a cappella with jazz when I got to Yale, or jazz with a cappella,” Weinbaum said, “And I feel really proud to be in a group that’s promoting this genre and doing what I think is a lot of really cool things with a cappella music.” 
Redhot & Blue will travel to Colombia in May for their summer performance tour.

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Fate, greed and willful ignorance collide in Stravinsky’s opera. “The Rake’s Progress” follows Tom Rakewell, a man of modest means who, tempted by a promised inheritance, must reconcile with the consequences of his choices. His interactions with Nick Shadow, a mysterious but persuasive figure symbolizing the Devil, explore the role of free will in every aspect of life. Rakewell ultimately abandons his existing relationships and responsibilities, verging on insanity by the end of the opera. 

Audiences bear witness to the repercussions of his eagerness for power, without its prerequisite effort, as they are accompanied by undercurrents of a more ominous deal. 

“It is weird. It’s funny, you know. It’s bizarre, but it’s really just grounded in real human emotions and a really clear narrative through life, ” Ethan Burck MUS ’24 said, speaking about the opera’s Faustic cautionary tale. 

Burck, who fell in love with “The Rake’s Progress” in the final year of his undergraduate experience, is pursuing a master of musical arts degree in opera at the School of Music and will sing the role of Tom Rakewell during the Sunday performance. This production will be the second time that he has performed the role in five years, though he mentioned that his approach to understanding the character has changed. 

This grounding of what is profoundly human in fantastical composition is inherent to Stravinsky’s work, which notably includes the ballets “The Rite of Spring” and “The Firebird.” His instrumental and vocal compositions have received critical acclaim, and he is considered one of the most influential composers of the twentieth century and in modernist music. 

His works are highly celebrated, earning the Royal Philharmonic Society’s gold medal, Léonie Sonning Music Prize, Wihuri Sibelius Prize, five Grammy Awards, induction into the Grammy Hall of Fame and posthumous reception of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. 

Stravinsky’s neoclassical composition of “The Rake’s Progress” is rooted in traditional operatic convention, taking influence from Mozart. His compositions employ unconventional rhythmic elements and melodic dissonances to forge a characteristic style from the inspiration of his predecessors. 

The opera’s baroque backbone, combined with Stravinsky’s distinct experimentation, allows every reproduction to take on its own interpretation.  

Daniela Candillari, the opera’s conductor, agreed, citing Stravinsky’s dynamism as its attraction. 

“For me, it … has to do with the architecture of music. Conducting is so much about listening and guiding,” Candillari, who also made a debut at the Metropolitan Opera with Matthew Aucoin’s “Eurydice,” said. “I’m always curious as to what new elements I will hear and how that will influence the shape of the next phrase? Or the timing? Or what other colors can be influenced by that? It really depends what the players give, and what the vocalists give. And I think that’s the exciting part of performing, sort of being in that constant, invisible conversation and connecting those dots.”  

The decision-driven interpretations of “The Rake’s Progress” apply to other aspects of production as well.  

Director Danilo Gambini DRA ’20 worked with set designer Suzu Sakai DRA ’24 to visually communicate the opera’s ingenuity. 

According to Gambini, he gives himself the challenge of making opera accessible to all and ensuring that everyone who attends will experience “exciting,” “impactful” and “potent” elements.

Over the COVID-19 pandemic, however, opportunities to create and share these elements were halted, Gambini noted.

“If dance is the art of movement, if painting is the art of colors, if music is the art of sounds, theater, and by extension, opera, is the art of togetherness. There must be a very strong reason why we as artists are asking people to leave the comfort and safety of their homes and of their screens, to come and experience togetherness,” he said.

Tickets for “The Rake’s Progress” are available for purchase by website or at the box office of the Shubert Theatre. 

The Shubert Theatre is located at 247 College St.

The post Yale Opera fated to reclaim the Shubert stage with ‘The Rake’s Progress’ appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Lights fade in the theater and, from offstage, a Manhattan cacophony begins: police sirens, a ringing landline, and a jangling ring of keys. It is Bobbie’s birthday, and with balloons in each hand spelling the number “35,” she must celebrate by considering what it means to be happy in life and marriage, accompanied by the reminder of passing time.

The revival retains the musical and narrative integrity of the original composition, but rewrites the central character for a female performer, interweaving sentiments of independence and domestic choices into a gendered conversation.

“It is a story about life. She is trying to find her way, and we know she will,” Barbara and Louis said, beaming from their mezzanine seats.

Through a series of vignettes, the musical follows Bobbie — played by Britney Coleman — an unmarried and childless woman celebrating her 35th birthday in the company of close friends. Married, engaged, divorcing or parenting, each character presents a path that Bobbie’s life has not yet taken. This deviation from a traditional plot structure invites audiences to experience the well-meant, albeit unsolicited offers of advice, alongside Bobbie.

The show’s complexity and demand of audience members to reflect upon their own experiences, through the intersection of individual plotlines, is a trademark of Sondheim’s work.

Daniel Egan, the coordinator of the Shen Curriculum for Musical Theater at Yale and professor of American musical theater history, has focused on the works of Stephen Sondheim throughout his academic and professional careers. During his graduate studies at Yale, Egan developed the first seminar discussing Sondheim’s productions. 

“The attraction for me has always been the combination of psychological acuity and compositional finesse. Like many people, I find the emotional truth and resonance of Sondheim’s characters to be clear, arresting and human,” Egan said.

For Coleman, who celebrated her 35th birthday one week before arriving to perform in New Haven, this resonance and relatability are at the forefront of the production’s impact.

Specifically speaking to the revival’s play with gender dynamics, Coleman reflected on the relationship between her character and her personal life.

“The gender swap calls to mind a lot of the double standards that we have about men being expected to settle down versus women being expected to settle down, especially at the age of 35,  when there’s a biological factor in there,” Coleman said. “A woman who doesn’t have children turning 35 has some things going on in the back of her mind. Should I settle down?”

David Socolar, who plays Theo, one of Bobbie’s passing love interests, explained that the conversation sparked by the revival is not forced, however. He said that the show’s impact comes from its narrative’s existence, not a blatant effort to make a statement.

Whether the audience came as season ticket holders, Sondheim aficionados, holiday gifters or — for members Melanie and Bobby — to watch swing actor Elysia Jordan perform as Bobbie’s body double, each left feeling a connection to the characters.

This seemingly inherent trait of Sondheim compositions also brought COMPANY to Shubert’s stage. The process of selecting a season of productions is complex; board members at the Connecticut Association for the Performing Arts, or CAPA, must consider what shows are offered in a given period, when each show is visiting the region, whether competing venues have presented a show and if a show has been offered in the venue’s recent lineups.

CAPA, which both owns and manages the Shubert Theater, must also balance the preferences of current season ticket holders with opportunities to expand their subscriber base.

Anthony Lupinacci, the Director of Advertising and Community Relations of the Shubert Theater explains that COMPANY’s classic musical theater elements that lean into current social complexities navigate the space between veteran and prospective season ticket holders.

Professor Egan agreed, speaking to COMPANY’s timelessness.

“I might focus on the work’s risk-taking structure (for 1970, when it was written) and its continued resonance today. I would also emphasize that these works — like any good works of art — are porous and open to investigation and interpretation across eras,” Egan wrote to the News. “A traditional production of a Sondheim show can move and enlighten us, but so can a reimagined production of a so-called classic, like Company.”

The national tour of COMPANY will travel to five cities before returning to New England, performing in Boston’s Citizens Bank Opera House from April 2 to April 14, 2024. The Citizens Bank Opera House is located at 539 Washington St., Boston, MA.

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