Located at the edge of Yale's main downtown campus, it occupies the former Calvary Baptist Church.

As head of Yale Repertory Theatre ("the Rep") from 1966 to 1979, Robert Brustein brought professional actors to Yale each year to form a repertory company and nurtured notable new authors including Christopher Durang.

The dean of Yale School of Drama is the artistic director of the Yale Repertory Theatre, with Lloyd Richards (who most notably nurtured the career of August Wilson) serving in this capacity 1979–1991, Stan Wojewodski, Jr., 1991–2002, and James Bundy since 2002.

The book The Play's the Thing by James Magruder covers the history of the Rep's first fifty years.

[4] Calvary Baptist Church was erected in 1846 in the Gothic revival architectural style on a plot of land that was the original home of Richard Platt, one of the founders of New Haven.