'Poets' Theater' Will Stage Plays Written in Verse

For the first time since George Pierce Baker took his famed dramatic workshop to Yale in 1925, undergraduate poets will have an opportunity to produce their verse-plays in the Harvard community.

A newly-formed Poets' Theater will present the first of five dramas on February 26, on the basis of "no admission fee, modest production, and all invited." Time and place for the production have not yet been determined.

W. Lyon Phelps '45, spokesman for the group, announced last night that the first program would be made up of four one-act plays "Everyman," a masque by John Ashbery '50; "Interlude," by Richard Eberhart; "Try! Try!" by Francis O'Hara '50; and "A Play About Three Words," by Phelps. All of these poets have had poems published.

Working under the guidance of Professors Archibald MacLeish, Thornton Wilder, Harry T. Levin, and other faculty members, the group hopes to gain by practical experience a better working knowledge of the poet in terms of the theatre.

Future Possibilities

Phelps also pointed out that the work of all members of the community--undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty members--is welcomed by the organization.

"There is a possibility," Phelps said, "That this Poets' Theater could be the nucleus of a permanent adjunct to the American stage. We are starting on a small scale, and as we learn, the productions will become more polished, and they will also become more elaborate."