Loeb Introduces 'Repertory' Group, Starts Major Production Experiment

The Loeb Drama Center will experiment with a major change of production procedure this spring to give students a literary as well as a technical education in the theater.

Daniel Seltzer, acting director of the Loeb, announced yesterday the formation of a "repertory company" of 130 to 140 students which will combine lectures and discussions with normal rehearsals. The company's program, which will begin carly this December, will culminate in full-length productions of Shakespeare's King Lear and Julius Caesar, and concert reading of Marlowe's Tamburlaine, the Jew of Malta, Edward II, and Dr. Faustus.

This project will replace the Harvard Dramatic Club's normal procedure of casting and rehearsing each play with a separate cast and crew.

Lectures Are Main Innovation

The greatest innovation of the new project will be lectures given by Seltzer and other members of the Faculty Committee on Drama. Stage managers, set designers, and lighting experts, as well as actors, will participate in discussions on acting problems in Elizabethan drama and on the technical and conceptual problems of all types of theater. These workshops will continue through rehearsals, Seltzer commented, increasing the "educational note" of productions.

Seltzer said he hopes that the lectures and discussions will"bring the technical and acting portions f the Loeb closer to each other. In the past, the technical personnel have been separated from the actual dramatic work."

He noted that William Alfred, associate professor of English; Reuben A. Brower, professor of English; Alfred B. Harbage, Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot, professor of English; and Harry T. Levin, Irving Babbitt professor of Comparative Literature, may give some of the lectures. With Seltzer, they form the Faculty Committee on Drama.

The 130 to 140 students will constitute "sort of a reportory company," Seltzer said, in which one actor may have a major role in Lear but only a minor one in Julius Caesar. He said that plans for casting were not definite yet, but that all actors would probably have to audition to be admitted to the project. Casting for parts would take place after the program had begun.

Marlowe's plays will be performed as concert readings, similar to the production of Alfred's Agamemnon last month.