Beloved Theatre Director Dies at 59

Alan P. Symonds ’69, the technical director of Harvard College Theatre Programs and a mainstay of the Harvard dramatic community for decades, died Tuesday, June 21 of a heart attack while working late at the Agassiz Theatre. He was 59.

Symonds, who first ran the light board for a show in his freshman year at Harvard, had been technical director since 1993. In addition to his work on shows at the Agassiz Theatre, he advised many other productions on campus, including all house productions. He oversaw thirty to forty shows a year, according to Jack Megan, director of the Office for the Arts at Harvard.

“For literally thousands of Harvard students over decades, Alan was the heart and soul of college theatre,” Megan wrote in an e-mail. “He was extremely bright, affable and enthusiastic, and when it came to all aspects of technical theatre—from set, sound and lighting design to implementation—he was truly expert.”

Blase E. Ur ’07, president of the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Company, also remembered Symonds fondly.

“You haven’t seen a play on the Harvard campus in decades that happened without either Alan’s direct help or the involvement of people who learned most of what they know from Alan,” he said. “Everyone involved in technical theatre very much looked up to Alan and learned an incredible amount from him.”

Harvard-Radcliffe Gilbert and Sullivan Players (HRG&SP) President Casey M. Lurtz ’07 said it is “impossible to imagine” the Agassiz Theatre without Symonds’ presence.

“Many of us are still struggling to believe that he won’t be there in the fall,” she said. “The Agassiz Theatre was Alan’s home, despite its quirks and difficulties, and he always wanted the best for it and for those groups performing in it.”

Symonds had been dedicated to HRG&SP since an undergraduate himself, Lurtz said, light-designing many of the shows they put on during his years at Harvard and becoming their adviser when he returned as a staff member after his graduation.

Jane M. Morse, who met Symonds when she worked at Harvard in the 1970s and was married to him for five years, described him as “delightful,” “witty,” and devoted to the Harvard theatre.

“His first love was always the Agassiz Theatre,” she said. “His job was perfect for him; he absolutely loved it and was blissfully happy in it.”

Symonds also founded and ran the Freshman Arts Program (FAP), one of the week-long courses for incoming freshmen held at the start of each school year. It was work that he “truly loved,” according to Megan.

“The program was enormously successful under his leadership, and it will continue to thrive because he developed such a good model,” Megan said.

Students remembered his devotion to their well-being—his time-honoured fire safety speech, delivered to every cast that performed on the Agassiz stage, became a tradition in the theatre community.

“Alan would take the stage to raucous applause,” said Lurtz. “His experience with fire safety was legendary and his concern for the safety of all students and audiences in the space was phenomenal.”

He even worked with Mather residents to ensure the proper fire safety precautions were taken for the Mather Lather party.

Symonds played a major role in the planning of the technical installations for the Harvard Dance Center that opened this year in the Quad and the New College Theatre (NCT) that is currently being built in the place of the old Hasty Pudding Theatre on Garden Street.

Megan said the New College Theatre will be Symonds’ “most lasting legacy.”

“Alan worked on the project for years, providing the planning team with essential technical advice and a very informed point of view on how students do theatre at Harvard and the ways in which the design could best serve these students,” he said. “The NCT will be an incredible new state-of-the-art theatre that will transform undergraduate drama at Harvard; in very large part, we have Alan to thank for that.”

Symonds was born in Rhode Island in 1946. He received his A.B. from Harvard College and went on to work extensively in the world of professional lighting. His expertise was put to use for varied venues such as the original Woodstock festival, Boston Ballet productions, and the New England Aquarium, where he designed lights to encourage penguins to mate.

Symonds was also a senior research scientist at a research corporation for ten years, and patented an original theatre lighting system with a friend.

He is survived by his brother, Robin Symonds.

—Staff writer Alexandra C. Bell can be reached at acbell@fas.harvard.edu.