Theatre Groups Receive Scenery

Lying in the old maintenance building at 917 Memorial Drive is one of the strangest gifts the University has received: four truckloads of stage scenery donated by the New England Opera Company last summer.

Valued at $10,000, the flats, platform units, and special sets will be used by the Harvard Opera Guild, the Harvard Dramatic Club and the Gilbert and Sullivan Players.

The flats fulfill a longstanding need of university theatrical groups. Previously stage flats have been either rented or borrowed by the Opera Guild or built by the students, as in the case of the HDC. James E. Stinson, Jr. '59, president of the HDC, said that the flats are "very valuable because they are the basic unit for many sets." However, he considered that their value was "more a matter of convenience than of actual money," since the cost of flats is only a small part of a production's budget.

Although John C. Beck '60 of the Opera Guild said that the scenery is "valuable to all three groups equally," a member of the HDC commented, "They are all designed for large scale opera productions. For us they are more trouble than they are worth."