Image courtesy of Vanderbilt University Special Collections & University Archives
by Kara Furlong
research by Lyle Lankford, university historian
Student theater debuted at Vanderbilt on April 19, 1910, when the all-female Thalian Dramatic Club performed Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer. The Cap and Bells Club formed in 1928 and performed annually an all-male musical revue. In 1941, theater became part of the curriculum with the arrival of drama and public speaking professor Jonathan Curvin, who organized the Gargoyle Club for student dramatics.
But theater’s evolution on campus reached a new level with the appointment of Joseph E. Wright as associate professor of drama in 1946. He overhauled the Gargoyle Club, changed its name to Vanderbilt University Theater, and set a near-professional standard for productions. With mature acting and improved sets, under Wright’s direction the theater took on such challenging works as Hedda Gabler and Othello, even renting the costumes used in the original Broadway production for the latter.
The only thing holding the theater back was its venue. Productions were staged in the Old Gym, where lack of space limited them to a single set, and performers had to loll around backstage on exercise mats. In 1947, Vanderbilt secured funding for the Federal Works Agency to construct a combination assembly-intramural-dramatics building on the south side of Garland Avenue (now Medical Center Drive). Opened in 1948, the new University Theater boasted all the amenities of a modern theater, not the least of which was its enormous stage.
Productions thrived in this environment, including the 1952 world premier of Brainard Cheney’s Strangers in This World, with music composed by Peabody professor Charles F. Bryan. This haunting musical about a snake-handling sect featured a live bullsnake named Beelzebub and garnered national reviews. The University Theater building was razed in 1975 to make way for Light Hall. Neely Auditorium was converted to a theater in 1976 and serves as home to Vanderbilt University Theatre today.
Posted 11/01/09
