THE PLAY'S THE THING

While the original idea of a dramatic workshop came, like many another good thing, from Harvard University, our present facilities are incredibly poor. There is a striking need for the English Department again to provide itself with a real personality of the drama. When this bread is cast upon the waters, there will return such genuine love for the drama, that Harvard will build itself a college playhouse.

Such a figure, however, must approximate the dynamic personality of George Pierce Baker. Those students who supplied the first $800 for the 47 Workshop were Harvard and Radcliffe disciples of Professor Baker who had been thrilled by his magnificent courses in play writing. The Workshop prepared such well-known figures as Philip Barry, John Mason Brown, Edward P. Goodnow, Livingston Platt, and Robert Edmund Jones. Professor Baker was deeply rooted at Harvard, and he wanted to remain where he started his beloved Workshop, the first of its kind in the country. But Yale University, with a special theatre, lured him away. While nearly every college in America now has a Baker type playhouse, Harvard remains without one.

The Harvard Dramatic Club, which has set a new standard of excellence in student play writing, needs only a playhouse to prove its full worth. With adequate facilities, the Club would take a place of real prestige in American drama. The only road to this goal, however, is by a tremendous renaissance of Harvard interest in the drama. The English Department must heed this call or Harvard will have lost a priceless opportunity.