Hopkins Center Marks Its 10th Anniversary

The Hopkins Center is celebrating its tenth birthday this month and proudly proclaiming "Business as Usual."

And "Business as Usual" at the Hopkins Center, as area residents and Hanover visitors have come to learn over the past decade, is a rich smorgasbord of theater and music, art exhibits and ballet, films and lectures.

When the Center opened its doors November 8, 1962 with a fanfare from the front balcony and throughout the 11-day inaugural festival culminating in a stellar three-day Convocation of the Arts, the promise the new complex seemed to hold for the Dartmouth community was as glittering as the audiences which attended the dedicatory events. In the years since the promise has been kept with consistently superior offerings in every facet of the creative and performing arts.

The 1972-73 season will be no exception, with perhaps a little extra added to mark the anniversary year.

Within and beyond the three concert series—the Dartmouth, the Milton Gill, and the Encounter—music lovers can find satisfying fare for every conceivable taste in classical and experimental, from the Munich Bach Choir and Orchestra to the Moog Synthesizer, from symphony orchestras to Sour Cream. Duke Ellington brought his special brand of American jazz to the Center last month. In the spring, Spaulding Auditorium will be the site for the Cleveland Orchestra's first appearance away from its own concert hall under a new musical director.

The Dartmouth Players open their season this fall with Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology and Genet's TheBlacks. Scheduled for winter and spring terms are Sheridan's The Duenna, Lyle Kessler's The Watering Place, N. Richard Nash's Echoes, Ben Jonson's Epicoene, and Choreographic Collections V, a presentation of original dance creations by students and faculty.

A Broadway touring company brought the Pulitzer Prize winner, The Effectof Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-MoonMarigolds starring Teresa Wright, to the Center Theater in October, and another company will present the super-hit God-spell in January. The National Theater of the Deaf last month repeated its triumph of three years ago. The French Troupe presents Le Barbier de Seville in early December, and the Boston Ballet makes its annual visit at New Year's.

Student and faculty artists will be presenting recitals, plays, exhibits, and other happenings throughout the year. The Freshman Shakespeare Seminar will do Twelfth Night; the Frost Play Contest will provide a spring showcase for undergraduate talent; 12:30 Rep and concerts offer lunch-time audiences a variety of one-act plays and musical performances.

The Dartmouth Film Society this fall is concentrating on Cinema Noir, which culminated in the '40s and '50s with such classics as The Maltese Falcon, Ladyfrom Shanghai, and Gaslight.

A continuing series of exhibitions of the work of students, faculty members, visiting artists, artists-in-residence, and others noted or newly discovered will occupy the Center galleries through the spring. The visitors, in addition to teaching and talking informally with students, will present public lectures on their media.

"Business as Usual" at the Hopkins Center in its tenth anniversary season will be busy indeed.