About Us

The Yale Dramatic Association is the second oldest college theatre association in the country and the largest undergraduate theatre organization at Yale. Its membership includes over one hundred current students and thousands of alumni. The student membership annually elects an eleven-member Executive Board that is responsible for choosing the Dramat’s theatrical season, hiring professional directors and designers, and supervising the Dramat’s daily administration. The Dramat’s constitution can be found here.

The Dramat produces six shows a year: two productions, called Experimental Shows, staffed entirely by students (one in the fall, one in the spring); the First-Year Show, a show staffed, crewed, and performed entirely by first-year students; the Fall Mainstage and the Spring Mainstage, performed in the University Theater, directed and designed by a team of both professionals and both providing unparalleled opportunities for those involved; and the annual Commencement Musical, entirely student staffed, produced in the ten day period between the end of exams and Commencement Weekend.

From the day of its first meeting on February 2, 1900, the Yale Dramatic Association has been dedicated to producing high quality drama at Yale. The first Dramat show, a student adaptation of Chaucer’s A Pardoner’s Tale, presented with The Second Shepherd’s Play, opened at the Hyperion Theatre, which is now a parking lot. The present University Theatre at 222 York Street, the home of the Yale School of Drama and the Dramat, was built with the aid of the Dramat in 1925. The Dramat is the only undergraduate theatre organization at Yale with the privilege of using Yale School of Drama performance spaces and equipment.

The Dramat offers a unique opportunity for Yale students to work with professional directors, designers, and choreographers in the best-equipped theatre facilities on campus.