1952

In our time Dartmouth's drama group, the Players, was a small elite of very dedicated theater people. The Players required so much effort and skill that it was hard to consider it an extracurricular activity. We thought wed call up a few of the '52 Players and get their hindsight. We started with Buck Henry, who has, of course, had an awesome career in the dramatic arts. Among multiple other accomplishments, he wrote the screenplays and also played major acting parts in Catc 22 and The Graduate. About the Players, Buck says; "I have no idea when I studied. Maybe I didn't. When I think about those four years in Hanover what I remember more vividly than anything else is rehearsing and performing. I think I was always in a play—at least four or five a year. The Players became a part of my life as no other organization has, before or since. I had great times working on The Daily D and putting together the Dartmouth Lit and writing stuff for the Jack-O-Lantem, but the Players was for me the soul of my college years.

"I came from a theater-loving family. I went to my first Broadway show on my fourth birthday and was immediately hooked. I thought that my passion for the stage was more or less unique—until I met the two men who virtually invented Dartmouth's 20th-century theater: professors Warner Bentley and Henry B. Williams. Through them I was able to make friends, so to speak, with fellows such as Shakespeare, Shaw, Moliere, Sheridan and Racine. And those were only the really old dead guys. There were others— 20th-century fellows such as Kauffman and Hart, William Saroyan and Christopher Frye. And there were student plays and fraternity plays and the first plays of seriously talented undergrads such as Frank Gilroy'so, who would go on to win a Pulitzer Prize for his family drama TheSubject Was Roses.

"Warner and Henry were totally unalike in personality—threatening and cajoling in equal parts—like a good cop, bad cop routine. They had style, humor and boundless energy. And they had great compassion for the plays and for the players. It's the way the theater should be everywhere."

Another '52 Player, Duke Mac Arthur, abandoned a business career to go into the theater. He got an entry-level job on the strength of Warner Bentley's recommendation. It's been onward and very upward for Duke. Mostly directing, he's held progressively important theater center positions. He still directs two plays a year. Duke says, "The Players lighted my life."

Technical director for the Players was Howie Van Valzah. He and his crew built the sets. In the Players, Howie says, "I developed an interest and skill in building things," and he took them into a business career of building and operating manufacturing facilities. In retirement he has a very large home wood shop that he loves to work in. It's a legacy from building sets in Robinson Hall.

Not everything we learned at Dartmouth was learned in a classroom.

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