Courtesy of Sydney Lee

Yale alum Chayton Pabich Danyla ’21 began the world tour of his original play “Strings Attached” at the historic Dixon Place in Manhattan, New York. Where Danyla will perform next, he doesn’t know — maybe somewhere in New Orleans, Chattanooga, London or any stage that could hold his one-man show. 

“Strings Attached” is written and performed by Danyla. After a hookup, the protagonist Chay begins a stream of consciousness, one-sided conversation with the audience. He tells the story of his life, his loves, his fears and his hopes. The result is an intimate and humorous piece that addresses the complexities within queer relationships and the inevitability of change within the human experience. 

“I’m a small town kid from rural Georgia, and this was a New York York premiere,” Danyla told the News. “I had a moment where I just talked to the ghosts that were in there. I said, thank you for all the different stories that have been echoed across those theater walls over the years.”

Dixon Place is a renowned venue in New York and has won the Bessie and the Obie Award. The Obie — aka Off Broadway — Award is presented by the American Theater Wing to an individual or group for excellence in theater, and the Bessie goes to creative work by independent dance artists in New York. The theater is known for debuting alternative and experimental work, as well as debuting performers such as John Leguizamo, Deb Margolin and the Blue Man Group.

Danyla’s journey to the hallowed grounds of Dixon Place was marked by difficult decisions, inspiring mentors and artistic vulnerability. 

Danyla entered Yale as a prospective pre-med student. Although the young playwright did theater in high school, he didn’t plan on pursuing the arts in higher education. 

Everything changed when Danyla saw the productions of “DreamGirls” and “Macbeth” at Yale. At the end of both shows, as he rose from his seat in tears, he had realized how much he missed theater.  

He pivoted from ecology and evolutionary biology to theater, dance and performance studies in his first year. 

“I changed my major that night and never looked back,” he said.

The actor looked for every opportunity he could to perform at Yale. However, he found that the stories being told on stage didn’t reflect his experiences as a member of the LGBTQ+ and Latinx communities. 

After a series of casting rejections, the actor turned to playwriting and found a passion for the art form. 

“Strings Attached” mirrors the writer’s own experiences as a queer man going through a quarterlife crisis. In one scene, he anxiously reminisces about past flings which then transitions into an existential spiraling, as he peers up into the stars. 

Although names have been changed and events dramatized for effect, the writer and the character “Chay” are inextricably linked.

The process for writing this piece was done in a “brick and mortar” style, according to Danyla. He shuffled through old journal entries, found stories that sounded like monologues or soliloquies and arranged them all on a table. 

From there, the writer literally shuffled the material around and added dialogue where needed until the fragments resembled a coherent story.

It was at this point that Danyla called upon his fellow Yale alumni, Jason Salvant ’23.

Salvant — a writer himself who majored in English and film studies — served as an outside pair of eyes and editor of the piece. After helping finalize the script, Salvant  worked as the stage manager for Danyla’s its premiere at Lavender Fest in Atlanta, Georgia, earlier this year. 

For the stage, the pair aimed to create a “homey” ambience that was “as natural as possible,” Salvant said. Other technical aspects of the show — specifically lighting — were used as a “representation of the surreal,” he said. 

Being an actor is by no means an easy job; sometimes, it even means picking up part-time jobs here and there, said Danyla. But even when he’s not on stage, Danyla tries to integrate acting into every aspect of his life. 

He currently works as a standardized patient, or individuals who act as patients for medical students to practice on, at Emory School of Medicine. In one instance, the actor portrayed a suicidal teenager, in which he reflected a closed-off, despondent communication style to doctors. 

“Capitalism is still a specter that haunts all of us,” Danyla said jokingly.  “We can’t escape it.”

Over the course of his career, Danyla has been influenced by many artists, such as Antonin Artaud and Tim Miller. However, his greatest inspiration can be found right on Yale’s campus: Yale professor and playwright Deb Margolin. 

“[Deb Margolin is] the one who opened the door for me to find [my voice],” Danyla said. “She got me into writing and [helped me] find other stories to tell. Every word I write is from her and for her in some way.”

After his performance at Dixon Place, Danyla is looking to take “Strings Attached” across the US and across the pond to the UK. 

The story might change as it travels — Danyla even said that parts of the script changed before the opening night on Wednesday. But change is not only a key theme of the show, it is an inevitable force in the human experience, said Danyla. 

In 2005, Deb Margolin was awarded the Richard H. Brodhead Prize for Teaching Excellence at Yale.