Lowell House Students Circulate Petition To Reschedule Opera, Hold Closed Dance

A group of Lowell House students, dissatisfied over a recent House Committee decision to have an opera instead of a dance on Saturday, April 30, will circulate a petition to reinstate the dance on that night, John Van Doren '56, spokesman for the petitioning group, said yesterday.

The petition would reschedule the opera for a matinee performance. But Frederic M. Kimball '55, president of the Lowell House Musical Society, objected last night that revised plans would force the Society to move its sets out of the dining hall just so that the dance would move in.

"We made our plans two months ago to run the opera for four nights, from Thursday to Sunday," Kimball said.

"Some people's appetites crave an All-College Congress of Joy," Kimball continued. "I am sympathetic, but unmoved. When they have lived with their urge longer, they may be able to predict its arrival earlier, and not tend to conflict with more orderly procedures, like operas. Enthusiasm must be curbed" he said.

Last week the House Committee voted strongly to hold the annual opera April 30 when other Houses plan closed dances and to have a quadrangle dance later in the spring.

"Our petition," Van Doren said, "will test sentiment for a dance. The idea is not to exclude the opera," he said, "but if possible to have both." Last night the petition had been placed in every entry to be signed.