Poet's Theater Gets New Home

The Poets' Theater has completed its revival--after remaining dormant for almost 20 years--by establishing an office at the Center for Literary Studies.

The center's Kirkland St. office, which the group obtained in November, gives the Poets' Theater greater access to the literary community and provides the organization with a central location to rebuild the group, which lost its theater in a 1968 fire.

The dramatic group, which animates literary work for the stage, was founded in 1950 in a small 50-seat theater located on Palmer St. where the Coop Annex now stands. But when it burned down, the theater temporarily took with it an organization that listed Thornton Wilder and William Carlos Williams as board members. With no place to meet, the theatrical group disbanded.

The organization was revived in October 1986 when members of the former group sponsored a two-evening performance in memory of the defunct group in Agassiz Theater. The event was so successful that old and new members of the group decided to make the Poets' Theater active again, said Andreas Teuber '69, the theater's artistic director. Teuber is also a visiting scholar for the year at the center and a philosophy professor at Brandeis University.

Since 1986 the group has performed locally, including an appearance at the Hasty Pudding. One of its most recent performances was at the T.S. Eliot Centennial at Sanders Theater last December in honor of the 100th anniversary of the poet's birth.

The theater group shares its office with the literary magazine, Copyright. The Poets' Theater uses center publicity facilities, including the mailing list that reaches about 2200 people. In addition, the center provides the group with telephone service, filing cabinets, a mailbox and meeting space.

Although the space is small, Teuber said he is "delighted" to have the office.

"The Poets' Theater connects Harvard with the poetic and dramatic side of the world," said Lucy H. Boling, center administrator. She added that Marjorie Garber, the center's director, was responsible for the Poets' Theater's connection with the center.

"Garber and I thought it would be a splendid idea if the Poets' Theater had an affiliation with the center," Teuber said. He added that no collaborations are planned between the two groups.