Word: chapman
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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English 160, "Drama Since Ibsen," twice outgrew its assigned lecture halls, and finally lodged in Sanders Theatre, making Sanders to lecturers what the Palace was to Vaudeville. The reason for 160's sudden sprouting was Robert Chapman, Assistant Professor of English. His intense interest in things theatrical has drawn both dilletante and serious student with equal force...
Except for Sanders, Chapman has always been on most intimate terms with the theatre. President of Princeton's Triangle Club, he wrote their annual show in his senior year, and remembers it sketchily as being "no better or worse than most--just abysmal." As he acted in many college productions, his interest in the theatre grew, but, receiving no Broadway offers on graduation, he sequestered himself as an instructor at the Berkshire School until he joined Naval Intelligence...
...wrote the first draft of Billy Budd. Neither remembers who first suggested it since both had specialized in Melville as undergraduates. After the Experimental Theatre produced the play in '49, they rewrote it for an interested Broadway producer. "We did it in six days over a barrel of Martinis," Chapman remembers with a contented grin. "God, what a wonderful time...
...designer Antony L. Herrey '54 took Chapman's specifications and cut the requested time by more than two thirds. For the time required to shift between the two elaborately detailed and vastly different settings is only fifteen seconds...
...Chapman and Louis Coxe, co-authors of the play, used only two sets, but they are totally different, and there are six scene changes. When the curtain rises, the General's office is seen. The script says ". . . windowless, blank, austere walls. Sense of claustrophobia." Herrey achieved the desired effect by the use of a shallow stage and high ceiling...