THE MICHIGAN DAILY TUEs

Speech Department Offers Play

By KATHLEEN MOORE
An annual tradition on campus
is, the speech department's presen-
tation of a playbill.
Traditionally consisting of four
plays and an opera, the latter pro-
duced jointly with the music
school the playbill is planned by
the speech department's Theatre
Committee to include as wide a
variety of styles as possible, mix-
ing comedy, farce and drama,
realistic and theatrical techniques
of production and selections from
the golden age of Greece, Eliza-
bethan drama and modern real-
istic pieces in each year's pro-
grams.
The productions are directed by
members of the speech depart-
ment faculty with music school
faculty joining them for the opera.
Casts are selected on a tryout
basis in which any University stu-
dent is eligible to participate, al-
though principle roles usually go
to those concentrating in some
area offered by the speech depart-
ment.
Education Primary
The purpose of the program, as
expressed last fall by Prof. G. ER
Densmore, then department chair-
man, is to present "its plays as
productions of a university theatre
wherein the educational develop-
ment of the student is our pri-
mary concern."

Such a theatre, he continued,
"should serve as a laboratory for
classes in dramatics wherein stu-
dent-written plays, experimental
plays and plays representing all
periods in the history of the
drama may be produced."
The "complete cycle of theatre
history" is represented by play
selections, he said, so that stu-
dents, in their four years of resi-
dence, may acquaint themselves
with it.
Schedule Not Out
This year's schedule of four
plays and an opera has not yet
been announced, Prof. William M.
Sattler, speech department acting
chairman, said. The theatre staff
of directors will include profes-
sors Claribel Baird, Jack E. Ben-
der, William P. Halstead and Hugh
Z. Norton.
Scene designer for the year will
be Ralph Duckwall, of the speech
department with Elizabeth Bir-
bar, also of the department, act-
ing as costume designer. Business
manager for the productions will
be Richard Lutz, Grad.
Increased interest and demand
for tickets for the productions has
resulted in the addition of an
extra performance for each of the
year's plays, Lutz said. The pern-
formances will be calendared for
Wednesday through Saturday
nights, he added, rather than the



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PINEAPPLE OF PERFECTION -- Prof. Claribel Baird of the
speech department gave a memorably amusing portrayal of
Richard Brinsley Sheridan's Mrs. Malaprop In "The Rivals"
during the 1955 Summer Playbill.
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