Graduate Repertory 2026
Where & When
THU-SAT, JAN 29-31
& FEB 05-07
8PM
NITERY THEATER
IN OLD UNION COMPLEX*
Admission
Free + Open to The Public
No RSVP Required
No Late Seating/Re-Seating
Important Info
For safety reasons, we cannot accommodate late admission OR re-seating while the performance is in progress. Please plan on arriving with ample time to find parking, locate the theater, use the restroom, etc.
*Planned construction in the Old Union courtyard may slow entry/access into the Nitery.
Both weekends utilize strobing light-effects that may affect photosensitive individuals.
Filming Advisory
Performances may be recorded for possible future private/public viewing. Cameras in the theater may incidentally capture audience images and audio in the background. Those in attendance should be aware of this possibility and not attend if there are concerns. Email tapsinformation [at] stanford.edu before attending with any questions.
Accessibility
Request disability accommodations and access info via Stanford’s online form. Requests should be made by January 26.
Electronic Assisted Listening Devices will be available for pickup at Will Call for all performances.
Sponsors
This production is supported by the Pigott Fund for Drama and the May Ellen Ritter Production Fund
About Graduate Repertory
This year’s Graduate Repertory consists of four works over two weekends, led by TAPS second-year PhD students Lucas Baisch, Kathy Fang, Caitlin Main, and Shailee Rajak.
Performance Schedule
THU-SAT, JAN 29-31 at 8PM
Hard to Say (still untitled) and
Waiting for Magnapinna
THU-SAT, FEB 05-07 at 8PM
The Algorithm of Happiness and
CLAW / BET / BOUNTY
About the Performances
CHOREOGRAPHER/DANCER KATHY FANG
WEEKEND ONE
DEVISORS/PERFORMERS
Dakota Gelman
Robert Igbokwe
Kendall Johnson
Jessica Li
with live music performed by Gary Huertas
MUSIC
The Making of Hard to Say (still untitled)
TAPS Graduate Student + TABLEWORK Host Marina Johnson interviews Hard to Say (still untitled) choreographer/dancer Kathy Fang.
DIRECTOR/PERFORMER CAITLIN MAIN
WEEKEND ONE
A laboratory. Two technicians are in search of an unlikely witness: the elusive magnapinna squid. Set in a future scarred by deep sea mining, Waiting for Magnapinna is a fathoming of information sourced from international law, scientific data, and online message boards. Sense and nonsense collide in this devised exploration of extractive capitalism’s contradictions, fantasies of the abyss, and the tangled encounters between ocean and land. In text, in video, and in live music this performance attends to the wet matters of our world.
PLEASE NOTE This production contains strobing light-effects that may affect photosensitive individuals.
PERFORMERS/CREATORS
Caitlin Main
Eito Murakami
POETRY
Quinn Monette
COLLABORATORS
Bren Kekoa Bartol (Scenic Designer)
Ezra Melosh (Costume Designer)
Anna Golubkova (Sound Designer)
Ryan Dukes (Lighting Designer)
The Making of Waiting for Magnapinna
TAPS Graduate Student + TABLEWORK Host Marina Johnson interviews Waiting for Magnapinna director/performer Caitlin Main.
PLAYWRIGHT/DIRECTOR SHAILEE RAJAK
WEEKEND TWO
“I can make you happy … just surrender sovereignty…”
In a post-Collapse world where grief is illegal and joy is currency, the Seeker—a scholar facing imminent Exile as her Mood Credit score falls—is forced to log on for state-mandated therapy. What answers is the Algorithm of Happiness, an unseen voice of perfect calm that promises optimized order in exchange for surrender. In a Faustian bargain updated for platform capitalism, the Seeker is lured through seductive simulations that offer peace without unrest and relief without resistance. As the contract tightens, the play moves through her inner terrain and asks what kinds of happiness technology can manufacture and what must be erased to sustain it. If pain is removed, does meaning remain? If memory is rewritten, does feeling disappear?
The Algorithm of Happiness is a speculative performance that stages the battle between human will and a system that promises salvation.
PLEASE NOTE
This production contains strobing light-effects that may affect photosensitive individuals. It contains themes of grief, surveillance, coercion, memory manipulation, and suicidal ideation.
CAST
Iman Sheraz Monnoo (SEEKER)
Joy He-Yueya (UNDERSTUDY-SEEKER)
Alice Obas (AI VOICE)
Eben Sebastian (PERFORMER)
DESIGN TEAM
Eito Murakami (Sound)
Trini Rogando (Light)
Bren Bartol (Set and Projection)
Madelyn Garfinkel (Costume and Props)
The Making of The Algorithm of Happiness
TAPS Graduate Student + TABLEWORK Host Marina Johnson interviews The Algorithm of Happiness playwright/director Shailee Rajak.
PLAYWRIGHT/DIRECTOR/PERFORMER LUCAS BAISCH
WEEKEND TWO
“And you’ll think, gosh, our meeting was this spectacular accident.
And each sputtering breath that came dressed in fear –
A fear that you will never know yourself…
It’ll all spill away.”
CLAW / BET / BOUNTY is a black comedy exploring the spectacle of chance. Three strange, scaled-down monuments replicate the sideshow furniture of a greater United States—a commercial claw machine, a casino’s blackjack table, and a hunting blind stationed as lookout for the latest rumored cryptid.
Some objects grow sentient. Some revise time. Thus, the sequence of each evening’s performance will be randomly decided by you, the audience. And together, through the peephole of this tiny perversion, we’ll ask: how do you hold risk? What passes for fate? Who’s deluded here? And can you shuffle?
PERFORMERS
Danielle Adair
Lucas Baisch
Daniel Jackson
Connor Lifson
Jorge Sibaja
CREATIVE TEAM
Anna Kristina Golubkova (Sound)
Daniel Jackson (Scenic)
Trini Rogando (Lighting)
Bailey Scieszka (Costumes)
Fiona Selmi (Dramaturgy)
The Making of CLAW / BET / BOUNTY
TAPS Graduate Student + TABLEWORK Host Marina Johnson interviews CLAW / BET / BOUNTY playwright/director/performer Lucas Baisch.