DramaTech

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For the Indian Institutes of Technology group of the same name, see DramaTech (India Institutes of Technology).

DramaTech is Georgia Tech's student run theater. They are also home to Let's Try This! (the campus improv troupe) and VarietyTech (a song and dance troupe).

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Early history

Georgia Tech first had a dramatic organization as early as 1913, when a student troupe later known as the Marionettes was formed. This group disbanded during World War II and in February 1947, a group of drama enthusiasts on campus met with Glenn James and formed the Georgia Tech Dramatic Club.[1][2] Their first production, The Drunkard, directed by Jack Pompan, IM '48, was so successful that the English department accredited the fledgling organization enabling it to obtain financial aid from the university system. Members received academic credit from the English department for their involvement. With this impetus, Zenas Sears, a local Atlanta radio personality, became the first professional director of DramaTech and presented a series of one-act plays in the Tech YMCA auditorium in the spring of 1947.

For the next several years, DramaTech was a vagabond organization, presenting its plays in a variety of venues, including the YMCA and the Fowler Street School Auditorium. In 1952, with the assistance of architecture classes, DramaTech moved into a new home in the Crenshaw Field House, where it adopted a unique theatre-in-the-round.

Unfortunately, this home proved to be impermanent and DramaTech was forced to move several additional times during the ensuing years, occupying temporary stages in the Community Playhouse, an old church building located at Hemphill and Ferst, and later in the Georgia Tech Center for the Performing Arts

[edit] Recent history

Prior to coeducation and continuing until 1987, Agnes Scott College students and members of the community played women's roles and those which could not logically be portrayed by Georgia Tech students. Just as the Marionettes had in previous years, DramaTech produced critically acclaimed plays that were popular with the community, particularly during the long leadership of Atlanta actress Mary Nell Ivey Santacroce. Santacroce (1918-1999) directed nearly all of DramaTech's productions from 1949 until 1966. Other directors have included Sylvia Zsuffa (1947-1948), Zenas Sears (1948-1949), Gerard Appy (1952-1953), Charles J. Pecor (1967-1971), Dr. Fergus Currie (1971-1973), Dana Ivey (1974-1977), Becky Dettra (1977-1980),David Califf (1980-1983), Scott Rousseau (1983-1984) and Greg Abbott (1984-2006).

In 1992, DramaTech finally acquired a permanent home with the dedication of the Dean James Dull Theatre at the back of the Robert Ferst Center for the Arts. Dean Emeritus Dull and his wife Gay, long-time supporters of DramaTech, established the Gay K. Dull Scholarship awarded to seniors who have been involved with the organization.

Gregory Abbott, long-time artistic director of DramaTech died in December, 2006.[3][4][5]

DramaTech Alumnus Tony Vila created a database with the list of all past shows and the cast and crew list.[6]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Tech Timeline: 1940s. Retrieved on 2007-06-25.
  2. ^ McMath, Robert C.; Ronald H. Bayor, James E. Brittain, Lawrence Foster, August W. Giebelhaus, and Germaine M. Reed. Engineering the New South: Georgia Tech 1885-1985. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. 
  3. ^ The Hays Daily News, 4 Dec 2006, p. A6 (PDF). Retrieved on 2007-06-25.
  4. ^ Banana Stew, In Tribute: Greg Abbott. Retrieved on 2007-06-25.
  5. ^ Friends of DramaTech memorial page. Retrieved on 2007-06-25.
  6. ^ IMDT - DramaTech Theatre Cast and Crew Database.

[edit] External links

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