New Drama Club President To Revamp Director Program

Nearly 100 members of the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club (HRDC) packed the Loeb Drama Center’s dance studio last night to elect Ben D. Margo ’03-’04 as the group’s president for the upcoming year.

Only four of the HRDC’s nine board positions—president, Loeb Experimental Theater (Ex) coordinator, campus liaison and treasurer—were contested. Along with Margo, Jeremy R. Funke ’04, Jojo Karlin ’05 and Sarah E. Downer ’04 were elected to those positions, respectively.

As president, Margo said he plans to work seriously on the Visiting Director Program, which has faced organizational problems in the past semester.

The HRDC board was unable to bring in a visiting professional director for this spring’s slot.

“Students in this community want the opportunity to work with professional directors, and the HRDC is going to meet that need,” said Margo, adding that he will begin looking to choose and contact theater professionals “as soon as possible.”

Margo said he will work to further the relationship between the theater and dance communities. This collaboration has been weak in the past but became a priority this semester.

To that end, Margo said he plans to work with student dancers to develop a supplement to the application for Loeb Ex shows specifically geared toward choreography-based productions.

The extra information will help the HRDC board evaluate choreography and consequently bring more dance to the Ex, he said.

The other four positions are publicity coordinator, communications coordinator, technical liaison and the newly-added post of historian. Mike M. Donahue ’05, Robert A. Hodgson ’05, E. Peyton Sherwood ’04 and Peter A. Dodd ’06 will fill those roles.

Before the elections, outgoing HRDC President Daniel A. Cozzens ’03 described the group’s accomplishments over the past year, including increased collaboration with American Repertory Theatre professionals through classes, “observerships” and workshops.