Word: hdc
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...HDC has not always held these same views on what to produce. Indeed, its history has been one of shifting emphases and overturned policies to produce only original plays written at the University. Eleven years later, it changed its mind, deciding foreign drama was really more interesting. Then, after another five years, it came to the conclusion that any play, foreign or American, original or well-worn, should be produced if worthwhile and challenging...
Despite these changes, the HDC has always tried to find a place, sometimes large, sometimes small, for the original play. In this as in certain other respects, it has remained true to some of the basic principles of the founders of the Club...
Succeeding generations of HDC directors have thought original productions less important, but the desire to see original work on the stage has never left the group. Baker founded the 47 Workshop 1913, producing original plays for a small audience. This group catered to creative drama for seven years after the HDC had abandoned it, but then Baker accepted a position at Yale. After World War II, the HDC did form a Reading Theater which presented about six undergraduate plays a year in the large lecture room in Fogg. But this group did not prosper, and in 1953 the HDC made...
...purpose of which was to present one-act plays written by Harvard authors. A dearth or original creations sent its original purpose to an early grave, but the Workshop has since become a training ground for actors, producers, and directors. It is a sort of preparatory school for major HDC productions. At present, however, Robert H. Chapman, associate professor of English, is helping the organization to return to its original purpose. He has given the members five original plays written in his English Ya playwriting course which they will consider for production in the spring, and has been helping...
There are two other policies, adopted at the HDC's first meeting in 1908 which have been kept constant throughout the Club's history. One of these was the decision to have women play women's roles. This caused "distinct opposition at the outset and wavering in the fold," Baker remarked several years later, but the members have always stuck to the original decision. H. V. Kaltenborn '09, a charter member and the first treasurer of the Club, remembered that at the time "I was very happy they decided to be sensible" and adopt this policy. "There was a very...