Moore: Treading the Boards

For the first time in more than a year, Christopher L. Moore '86 isn't involved in a theater production. "It's a weird feeling," he says. "I'm doing nothing but schoolwork."

Moore has acted in more than 15 plays at Harvard, as well as being a member of the improvisational theater group On Thin Ice. He has employed his talents in a variety of ways, from performing on the Loeb Mainstage, to directing student productions, to entertaining members of the stage mental institution.

Earlier this fall, Moore recalls rehearsing 12 hours a day for The King Siog and Maral/Sode. Last year, he would practice one play during the day while performing another in the evening with the Harvard Summer Theatre. This spring Moore participated in the CIVIL WarS. at the Loeb, capping off his electic ventures.

This hectic schedule is typical of Moore's prolific acting career, which began at St. John's Prep school in Danvers, Mass. There, Moore participated in the Massachusetts High School Drama Festival each year; his junior year, he played the lead role in Sty Fox the competition's winning play. As a freshman at Harvard. Moore was in three Mainstage productions, and last year he acted in multiple plays at the Experimental Theater and the Agassiz.

This fall, the Fine Arts concentrator worked with director Bill Rausch in the Kronauer Group, and played the roles of Medea. Lady Macbeth and Cinderella. Moore describes that experience as the most challenging of his acting career, saying. "I found out what acting was really about."

Most Harvard students who have seen Moore in On Thin lee will agree: the slight, yet highly expressive actor combines wit and dynamism to make such subjects as rice paddies and marshmallow factories funny.

Though Moore is adept at slapstick humor, his longterm aspirations are in a more serious vein. In the future, Moore hopes to work for a theater that is both popular and able to convey a message. "I don't like meaningless Broadway entertainment, but I also don't like to go and set there and feel stupid, trying to figure out the director's meaning." Moore thinks that avant-garde theater is becoming too elitist and inaccessible, and terms it "pretentious."

The Lowell House resident has also directed several shows, including The Miser when he was in high school and James and the Giant Peach, a children's production, last summer. Starting a children's theater group in an eventual goal for Moore, who laments that students often don't have a chance to participate in theater. "It's so sad that kids aren't exposed to it, and grow up thinking they hate it. I want to have them see it, and have a good time."

Moore says he hopes to continue acting after college, but is unsure whether or not be will apply to a drama school or if he will jump directly into the theatrical world. At some point, he says, he would like to work for a small theater company, because of the amount of input he would be able to have on the final product.

Right now, however. Moore welcomes the opportunity to relax, and to pursue what is for him a rare past-time 'I want to go see all my friends act. I've never had time to see other plays."