Cole Wins Playwright Contest After Alfred Breaks Deadlock

Despite the inability of two judges to reach a final decision, David S. Cole '63 has won the annual playwriting contest sponsored by the Harvard Dramatics Club and the Advocate. The joint contest committee announced the decision on Tuesday.

Members of the committee said that William Alfred, associate professor of English, had to be called in to pick a winner after the judges, Robert H. Chapman, director of the Loeb Drama Center, and Eric Bentley, Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry, found it impossible to reach an agreement.

Several students active in the HDC explained that Bentley and Chapman are seldom able to make joint decisions, and that "communications were particularly strained on this occasion."

The CRIMSON also learned that Bentley has sent a letter to Joel F. Henning '61, former President of the HDC, telling him that in the future he hoped "a contest of this nature would never have more than one judge."

Play to Be Published, Produced

The Advocate will publish Cole's winning play, entitled "En Croisade, A Comedy In Certain Quarters," in its next issue. The play will be produced at the Loeb Drama Center during the Spring Term, possibly with Cole as its director.

Cole said that the play, written last spring, was the first he has ever attempted. He has since written another play, which had the distinction of being the first student work produced at the Loeb.