Word: htg
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Starting off with a good production of Beaumarchais' Marriage of Figaro, which toured all seven Houses and the Union, the HTG reached its peak in April, 1951, with a compelling production of Kingsley's Darkness at Noon, which had a run in Sanders simultaneously with the play's Broadway run. Resourceful designer David A. Hays '52 coped with the inadequacy of Sanders by constructing his sets on two revolving stages. The show was rightly described as "undoubtedly the finest undergraduate drama presented at Harvard in more than two years...
Having concentrated mainly on modern plays, the HTG performed a noble parting gesture to the cause of new drama just before the founding members' graduation in 1953. As its swan song, the Group decided to give the premiere of The General, written by Robert H. Chapman, associate professor of English. Directed by the author, the performance was excellent. But the play was weak, and the production lost $3000 (though a New York manager picked up the tab). Nevertheless, all agreed that the HTG could take pride in its exit as well as its previous record...
...long as the VTW-HTW-HTG flourished, Harvard was the scene of a great deal of acrimony and bitterness among students. In December, 1946, the HDC even expelled some of its members for working with the VTW. The next fall, just before becoming the HTW, the VTW proposed a merger with the HDC, suggesting that "all resources, financial, technical and artistic, be pooled under a general production scheme." The HDC caustically refused. This proved to be a disastrous decision. Talk of a merger cropped up from time to time there-after; and, in the fall of 1951, the HDC made...
...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...