Ahead of A.R.T.’s Final Loeb Season, OFA Prepares to Take Over Student Theater Support

Days before the American Repertory Theater begins its final season at the Loeb Drama Center, the Harvard Office for the Arts is preparing to take over two positions that support undergraduate theater as A.R.T. prepares to move to Allston.

A.R.T. will open its 2026-27 season Friday with “Rhinoceros” at the Loeb. Its final currently scheduled production at the Loeb, “Mexodus,” will run through Jan. 10, before the theater opens its first production at the new Goel Center for Creativity & Performance in May.

The staffing transition was outlined in a June letter from OFA Director Fiona Coffey to board members of the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club.

Jeremie Lozier and Evey Connerty-Marin, who have supported HRDC through A.R.T., will join an OFA theater team that also includes production technicians Jon King and Claire Morse and is led by Dana Knox.

Knox will replace Ryan McKittrick, A.R.T.’s director of artistic programs and dramaturg and the head of dramaturgy for the Theater, Dance, and Media concentration, as a co-advisor to the HRDC.

“This fall, the A.R.T. and OFA will work together to make sure that essential services like

marketing, patron services, scheduling, and tech support remain strong,” Coffey wrote.

In the spring, Coffey wrote, the OFA will take a more hands-on approach to planning the theater season, citing the need to assess “mainstage safety and staffing capacity” once the theater departs.

The OFA will also take on “the operational and mentoring roles” that A.R.T. currently provides for HRDC students. The OFA and the A.R.T. developed the transition plan over the past few months as the professional theater prepares for its move, according to the letter.

“​​Co-curricular theater is incredibly important to the OFA, the A.R.T., the College, and the University as a whole,” Coffey wrote.

Though A.R.T. is leaving the Loeb, it will remain part of Harvard. A University spokesperson said the theater remains under the Office of the Provost and is not severing financial ties with the University. The Goel Center, located at 175 North Harvard Street in Allston, is also a Harvard building.

The new center follows a $100 million donation from hedge fund manager David E. Goel ’93 and Stacey L. Goel announced in 2019 to support new research and performance space in Allston. Construction began in 2024.

A.R.T. has shared the Loeb Drama Center with the HRDC for more than four decades, producing several Tony Award-winning shows and providing space for student theater and students in the Theater, Dance, and Media Concentration.

But the future of the Loeb after A.R.T. remains uncertain, as a multi-year effort by HRDC students and the OFA to keep the performance space open in the absence of A.R.T. hangs in the balance. A.R.T. staff members have previously said that the buildings lack accessibility infrastructure, space, and technology.

The Loeb will remain open for HRDC productions through at least May 31, 2027, according to Coffey’s letter. A College spokesperson confirmed that conversations are still ongoing about the future of the space.

“The OFA will continue to advocate on students’ behalf, urging to keep the Loeb open until there is a clearer plan for its long-term future,” Coffey wrote.

HRDC students have also pushed Harvard to preserve the building. In February, HRDC President Benjamin L.C. Arthurs ’27 emailed affiliates seeking statements for a letter urging the administration to save the space, stressing that the building houses the organization’s headquarters and the majority of its productions.

After the letter was circulated, HRDC members met with Harvard administrators to discuss the future of the space, discussions that Arthurs said ultimately led to the OFA transition.

“If this building is closed down, we will lose our headquarters, as well as hundreds of opportunities for undergraduate technicians, musicians, actors, staff, and thousands of audience members,” Arthurs wrote in the February email.

—Staff writer Theresa F. Bartelme can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at theresabartelme.15. Follow her on X @theresabartelme.