Word: hdc
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...disbanding of Idler and the graduation of the HTG core in the spring of 1953 left the debt-ridden HDC all alone. Since the HDC had been able to squeak out only one major show in each of the previous two years, it looked as though 1953-54 might sink to a theatrical low. But a number of coincidences brought about quite a different result...
...Radcliffe students now turned to the HDC as the major dramatic organization. So did the 15 or 20 non-graduating members of the defunct HTG (there was no formal merger; for, head high to the end, the HTG just quietly disbanded). In addition, there was a large increase that fall in theatrical interest on the part of the general student body. Not only this, but the entering freshman class contained more theatrical talent than any other class in Harvard history--including, as it happened, a notable quartet of students who would soon be generally recognized as a Big Four: Stephen...
...When the HDC announced tryouts for its first fall production, no fewer than 150 hopefuls turned up; and the final cast did quite well in The Male Animal, which was soon followed by an even better production of Pirandello's Henry IV. And President Pusey chose this time to announce his approval of an unofficial drive for a Harvard Theatre (but more of this later in its own context...
Much encouraged, the HDC initiated a Harvard Acting Laboratory, which Professor Chapman consented to direct. The Lab was an extra-curricular course for Harvard and Radcliffe freshmen and sophomores in classical acting technique, ballet and fencing. About two dozen students survived the screening of over 100 applicants. The Lab, which took four hours a week, performed an invaluable service. When Professor Chapman was away on leave the following year, Mrs. Mark A. DeWolfe Howe (formerly with the famed Abbey Theatre in Dublin) assumed direction of the Lab; and in 1955-56 the Lab was taught by Harold Scott '57, Colgate...
...real start of the current "renaissance" of student theatre here can, I think, be rather exactly pinned down to the last week of February, 1954. It was then that the HDC, having ripped out the floor seats of Sanders Theatre, opened a semi-arena production of T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral. This was a show of tremendous power, and gave clear notice that, once again, Harvard students were capable of providing a superlative theatrical experience...