ART Will Offer Acting Series This Semester

Beginning next week, the American Repertory Theater (ART) will offer Harvard students a series of five non-credit dramatic workshops, four of which will be taught by professional actors with the company.

Robert S. Brustein, artistic director of the Loeb, said yesterday the extracurricular seminars, which will be offered consecutively, are designed to give students "a real impression of all ranges of introductory dramatic training." Although space in the classes is limited, Brustein said the ART will try to expand the courses to include all interested students.

"This is the kind of smattering of courses we intend to do more of in the future," Brustein said, adding "we hope it will be done for credit as well as for non-credit."

In the first seminar in the series students will use masks which suggest a character to develop improvisations and scenarios. Jeremy Geidt, a senior member of the ART who will lead the workshop, conducted a similar course for 13 years at the Yale Drama School.

Phillip Cates, another member of the company, will teach a course on sense memory, sight reading and audition techniques.

This seminar will be followed by a workshop on mime, conducted by Mark Linn-Baker, a recent graduate of the Yale School of Drama.

Carmen de Lavallade, a well-known dancer and actress who will appear in the ART's production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," is leading the fourth workshop on "movement."

In the fifth workshop, "Images," Joann Green, administrative director of the Loeb's Experimental Theater will concentrate on "the central gestures" of dramatic scenes, using voice, expressions and total body movement.

The ART, headed by Brustein, came to Harvard from Yale this year. The company was warily received because of fears it might not provide enough opportunities for undergraduates interested in drama, but Brustein pledged to make the stage accessible to the entire University community.

The Committee on Undergraduate Education recently approved several drama courses that may be offered next year.