Faculty Body to Investigate Building of College Theatre

Construction of an auditorium-theatre that will have the double function of seating several thousand people at popular lectures, or smaller audiences for drama, music, radio, and television performances has been proposed to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Archibald MacLeish, Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory, has sponsored a resolution to investigate the "desirability of providing an adequate auditorium for Harvard." The resolution has received the unanimous approval of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

"This, the greatest university in the world, is without sufficient auditorium facilities. Drama productions, the Law School Forums, and popular lectures are given under severe handicaps," MacLeish said yesterday.

MacLeish cited examples of large audiences unable to obtain seats or enduring great discomfort at recent lectures given by Eleanor Roosevelt, Carl Sandburg, Bertrand Russell, and T. S. Eliot. "Certainly no university wishes to deprive its students of such experiences as these," MacLeish said.

Curriculum Expansion

Harry T. Levin '33, professor of English, said that a proposed auditorium-theatre would probably be of a modern design that would foster greater University encouragement of drama. Levin noted that only recently has the University made any move to reincorporate drama into the curriculum.

MacLeish said that should the project be realized, University fostered participation in drama and music, and in the future, radio and television, should be encouraged. "This participation should not be of a technical nature"; MacLeish said, "but neither can the University afford to be indifferent to these media of mass communication."

How highly the auditorium-theatre project rates on the Corporation's list of proposed building expansion is not known, but several undergraduate and graduate bodies are known to be supporting the move with great enthusiasm.