Word: hdc
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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...
...other policy which has generally been followed was the original decision to have professional direction of all HDC plays. This was first interpreted as hiring directors who had worked on Broadway, such as Wilfrid North, director of the first production. Later, recent graduates who had had either professional or amateur experience were hired, and in succeeding years, capable undergraduates directed the shows...
Baker hmself was highly pleased with The Promised Land and succeeding productions, two of which, The Scarecrow and Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater were performed on Broadway, the first by a professional company, the second by the HDC itself. The initial guiding light of the Club wrote in 1917 that the group's achievement was "remarkable." He asserted that the production of original plays had not hampered the organization, as some had first thought it would, but "from the beginning the Harvard Dramatic Club has shown clearly . . . that college undergraduates can give original plays to a mixed audience and with real...