Drama Over New Concentration

As Harvard administrators set the stage for a major curricular review, there is whispering in the wings about the potential for a dramatic arts concentration to be added to the college’s 41 other degree options. While the structure of the program is still being scripted, students, faculty members and participants in the dramatic community are wondering what role they will play in the future of Harvard theater.

Talented student actors, directors, designers and technicians face a constant struggle throughout their scholastic career in balancing academics and theater. Many enter university with hopes of eliminating this problem, having already experienced an environment in secondary school in which theater work did not count for course credit.

Leading liberal arts universities around the country—including Yale, Princeton, Georgetown and Stanford—have renowned drama programs, in which students can receive a Bachelor of Arts in Drama or Theater. Without providing students a definite program in performance arts, how many Jodie Fosters (Yale ’85) or David E. Kelleys (Princeton ’87) is Harvard losing to other schools with a theater concentration?

With a course catalogue amply filled of drama-related courses, as well as a Committee on Dramatic Arts, it seems as if the implementation of a degree program at Harvard would be relatively easy. Yet, debate over the academic nature of performance or dramatic arts, lack of faculty members and limited venues all cast a shadow over the debut of the theater concentration.

THE PRODUCERS

Loker Professor of English and American Literature and Chair of the Committee on Dramatics Robert J. Kiely confirms that curricular review in the dramatic arts is certainly underway. He declares that the English department is undertaking a search for a senior professor in dramatic arts and that VES might do a similar search for a faculty member in the field of practice of performance or stage design.

“The very soonest would be next year,” says Kiely. “I would think that if it goes well, it could possibly be next year or the year after.”

The former master of Adams House and an active supporter of dramatics at Harvard, Kiely offers his own opinion on the dramatic arts concentration: “Harvard has had for years the resources: the A.R.T.; junior and senior professors in different departments who have an interest in dramatic history; people in the English department who teach playwriting and screen writing; some very nice small theaters in the Houses; and the Agassiz and the Ex. What exists now is not put together by any particular group. There are a lot of courses in theater but they’re all over the place. A certain number of students would like a little academic guidance for what they’re doing in the theater.”

Kiely says his role as Chair of the Committee on Dramatic Arts is to keep faculty involved in the dramatic environment at Harvard and keep the conversation going in the most positive direction. The ideal program outline would be to create the position of head tutor, amass a couple of tenured professors, develop tutorials and make the theater curriculum more formalized. The goal of the review is to coordinate existing classes into one departmental listing and to expand the dramatic offerings of Harvard College.

APPLAUSE

In shaping the dramatic arts concentration, the opinions of current Harvard drama students are of extreme importance. The fact that these young talents came to Harvard despite knowing there is no drama department both proves the ambition of Harvard students and highlights the resources the college has for students to formulate their own special concentrations.

Currently, any student looking to concentrate in the performing arts must go through the special concentrations option. According to the Dean of Special Concentrations office, approximately 13% of the current 40 special concentrators (an estimated three students) are pursuing a degree in dramatic arts. Opera director Peter Sellers ’80 was one special concentrator whose interest in theater took him to professional success.

Head tutor Deborah Foster meets with students to discuss why the already-established channels of Harvard do not provide a way to pursue his or her academic goals. Special concentrators generally apply to be admitted to the program in the middle of their sophomore year; many need to apply multiple times before having their course of study accepted.

Susan C. Merenda ’07 is one such student petitioning for a special concentration in dramatic arts. She is obviously passionate about studying theater, as dedicated as an MBB concentrator might be on exploring the brain. “When I look through the course booklet, I have no interest in classes that aren’t related to theater,” she says. “I currently am an English concentrator, and when I go down the department list, every single one where I go ‘oh that looks cool,’ I realized is a theater course.”

As to why she opted for the Ivy League over the Great White Way or pre-professional conservatory work, Melenda says “I came here on the understanding that I would pursue a special concentration. In the theater world today, it is becoming increasingly more important that you have a liberal arts education. I have other things I’m good at that would make me more wanted in the theater world. You have other talents to bring to the table and Harvard helps develop those.”

A Bachelor of Arts degree in dramatic arts traditionally focuses on the academic exploration of theater, in comparison to a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree, which is more performance and conservatory-based. Merenda has heard that “the new concentration in drama would be very academic-based, which I think is completely normal. I hope it makes people realize how silly it was not to have a concentration anyways.”

In the current drama program taught by professionals from the American Repertory Theatre (A.R.T.)—one of the foremost repertory theaters in America—the experiential learning process dominates much of the acting curriculum, making personal interaction and hands-on experience tantamount to success. The downside to this type of class structure is that enrollment caps limit the number of students who can pursue training and the experienced actors teaching are not necessarily scholastically trained. The lack of definite structure leaves many interested in creating a theater degree feeling frantic and uncertain of whether they will be able to fulfill requirements.

Sophie B. Kargman ’08 parallels Merenda’s ambition to study theater at Harvard, but adds an additional academic facet that she believes only Harvard can provide. Her major goal in coming to Cambridge rather than a conservatory is to craft a complex special concentration.

Comprehensively-minded Kargman cites Anna Deveare-Smith, author of one-woman show Twilight: Los Angeles, as one of her major inspirations. Deveare-Smith successfully gets into the head of every character involved in the Rodney King beatings of 1992 through the study of sociology and psychology. “Harvard has an opportunity to bring in classes from literature, history, sociology and psychology, all of which will give me a much better grasp on being able to play truthfully the characters I imagine,” Kargman says.

While uncertain if she would pursue a dramatics arts concentration if it were offered, Kargman says the establishment of a degree-granting department would certainly help her accomplish her ambitious goals.

LES MISERABLES

Not all dramatists at Harvard are enthused by the possibility of a theater concentration. One major conflict that has arisen in the discussion of a dramatic theater concentration is the constraints that might be placed on extracurricular theater groups, such as the Harvard Radcliffe Drama Club (HRDC), whose seasons are already packed without having to compete with the performed theses of concentrators.

“Certainly, there’s a lot of excitement about anything that might expand the range of courses available that focus on theater or performance,” says outgoing HRDC President Bobby A. Hodgson ’05. “Our current Dramatic Arts course offerings are fantastic and obviously, the idea of adding even more courses appeals to a lot of people. At the same time, the current system seems great to many in the HRDC. Would anything be lost or altered from what is currently available?”

Jason M. Lazarcheck ’08, who is actively involved in HRDC, entered Harvard with no plans to concentrate in theater. In an e-mail, he describes the troubles of a friend at another university who “is disgusted by the hoops he must jump through to do theater at that university because so much preference is given to theater majors.”

“Harvard’s theater is dynamic and wonderful, and adding academics into the mix would only limit our creativity,” Lazarcheck says.

In a Nov. 30 Crimson op-ed, HRDC member Susan E. McGregor ’05 argues “one can hardly imagine that a highly invested thesis advisor won’t at some point insist that a particular student’s thesis be given space. What could the student theater community do? And in a season with less than ten slots total, even the handful of students in the concentration would significantly alter the character of student theater at this school.”

Hodgson says that the group will continue to have open meetings and attempt to maintain contact with faculty and administrators as the concentration is planned. The group has a very flexible attitude, but wants to assert that multifarious student opinions are incorporated into the most ideal situation.

Rumors have also been circulating on the issue of whether A.R.T. lecturers would be replaced in the dramatic arts committee by tenured faculty. Kiely denies such rumors, saying “there’s no motivation for having them excluded.” In fact, he says that the vision of A.R.T. professionals will likely be included in the ultimate design of the theater concentration.

HOW TO SUCCEED… (BY TRYING)

The technical glitches that may plague a theater concentration can be fixed with some practice and ingenuity, believe the proponents of the program.

Of the potential scheduling conflicts, Merenda suggests reduction of the number of plays. She puts forth the model of other performing arts colleges, in which during the first two years students would not be allowed perform, but would instead focus on training and learning about skills. The last two years would be the time to put on performances. In this manner, not only would students be given an intensive exploration of technique, but the competition for performance space would be diminished.

Kiely invokes the success of the music program as an exemplary balance of academic and student performance interests. “Extracurricular music clubs absolutely flourish on this campus and the number of music majors on the campus is very small,” he says. “I don’t see why that wouldn’t be the same in theater. If you’re a good actress or good director, you would find plenty of things to do.”

According to Assistant to the Chair of the Music Department Mary Gerbi there are approximately 45 music concentrators. As to why no conflict exists between student groups and academics, “the activities of the music department and those extracurricular groups are quite different,” she says.

Additionally, a performance concentration is not offered and theses are generally focused on one of four academic areas: composition, musical theory, ethnomusicology and historic musicology. Those composition theses that will be performed are scheduled far in advance at Paine Hall, a space reserved for the music department.

Some skeptics may doubt the legitimacy of a theater program at Harvard or wonder how a rigorous academic structure can be applied to a creative process. According to Kiely, the integrity of artistic degree programs was also questioned during the development of the visual and environmental studies concentration. In terms of scholastic intensity and liberal arts approach, one can look again to the music department, in which joint concentration gives students an opportunity to research a broad range of topics. Recent joint theses have included such diverse fields as mathematics, social anthropology, romance languages and psychology (theses in the latter two won Hoopes Prizes in 2003 and 2004).

Dramatic arts concentrators certainly will be able to articulate ideas, comprehend thematic structures and cultivate kinesthetic intelligence. Furthermore, an interdisciplinary and studious approach to acting is second nature to the typical over-achieving Harvard student looking to be a great dramatist.

Kargman says that her class with the A.R.T.’s Marcus Stern—“Dramatic Arts 18r. Advanced Acting: 20th-Century Texts” —is so much work that she decided to hold off acting in one of HRDC’s plays until the spring. With the actor’s expectation that his students come to class with only their best work, Kargman and her peers (whom she says are mostly seniors) have a considerable amount of studying to do.

Outside of reading the script and learning a text completely, a great actor will do an enormous amount of research for his or her character. In performing a piece from Tom Griffin’s A Boy Next Door, Kargman extensively researched the daily life of autistics, the emotional structure of autism and the scientific rationale of the disease.

Some vocational discussion does come up in the dramatic arts classes, including instructional talk on auditioning and how to get into the difficult businesses of theater, film, or entertainment. Harvard seems to avoid pre-professional programs in every discipline, considering the lack of pre-business, pre-law or pre-medicine tracks, as well as the absence of traditional journalism or communications classes from the course catalogue.

The question arises as to why it is that students with a more definite plan for their future cannot explore vocational possibilities through a Harvard liberal arts curriculum. As Merenda exasperatedly exclaims, “MIT has a theater major for heaven sake!”

A major theme in the curricular review, in both the humanities and sciences, is the augmentation and/or overhaul of the academic advising system. While first-year pre-meds-to-be endured a seven hour day of science advising in their first week, humanities and social science students must be considerably more proactive to craft their curricular program and plan life after college.

If administrators are willing to facilitate discussion with Harvard drama students and members of the extracurricular dramatic community, student input may have a profound effect on the construction of a theater concentration. It should be after all for the benefit of Harvard students that new concentrations are created and with their best interests in mind.

Interdepartmental work with the English, VES and music departments—preexisting fields in which creative students are given more license to combine academics with arts—will help formulate a truly interesting dramatic arts concentration. In the interdisciplinary collaboration, Harvard will also be given the chance to examine what emphasis the academic community places on the arts and how it can better serve its visually, kinesthetically and creatively intelligent students in forming plans for their futures.

There may be some grumbling from the rafters as changes are made to the existing drama community, but from many current and prospective drama students, the idea of a new theater concentration receives a standing ovation.