Theatre Design & Technology - Oct 1967 - 35

four major fields of the movement-"underground films;"
discotheques and their "mind-expanding" projections; happenings; and church theatre groups.
What can our designers and directors learn from this new
movement' How can they keep abreast of these new directions which are pertinent to but outside of the established
theatre?
To marshall answers to these questions, I present the moderator of the panel, Dr. Ned A. Bowman, of the Department
of Speech and Theatre, University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Bowman.
MODERATOR BOWMAN: Our discussion is to be directed
towards answering a double question. We are going to concern ourselves, generally speaking, first with the question,
"Are the technical innovations in this extra-theatre (sub,
alongside, super or some combination thereof) valid for the
more traditionally conceived theatre?"
Second, if so, why are these innovations so slow in being
adopted in the theatre? Or, if they should not be integrated,
then what can we do about stomping them out as swiftly
as possible so that we can get on with the business of
play production along more traditional lines? I certainly don't
want to make this sound like a loaded introduction; it is not
meant so.
As corollaries, we might want to decide just what the "new
technology" is to begin with. Academicians, at least, have a
way of being concerned with definitions. What are the limitations of the new technology, if indeed it exists, and if it
is worthy of consideration? Mr. Unruh already has a lengthy
piece on the subject entitled "When Does Technology Become a Hindrance?"
I would like to ask each of the panelists, as soon as I have
introduced him, to tell us about something that he has done
recently which he feels might be representative of his recent work. Then, from that point, we will see what we can
do about defining the new technology, about finding what its
limitations are, and then see whether or not it has any immediate prospect for us as theatre people.
The first panelist is Billy Kluver, currently with Bell Laboratories. His name is perhaps best known among this group
for his work this past fall with the "Nine Evenings of Theatre and Engineering." Mr. Kluver, could you tell us what
else you have been doing recently that might be of some
interest to this group?
KLUVER: As a result of the outcome of the Nine Evenings,
we have established a foundation called Experiments in Art
and Technology. The idea is to bring together artists and engineers. It is not to give technical help to artists, but rather
to make artists and engineers interact directly with each
other on a one-to-one-basis. We are interested in a third
thing that happens when they meet. EAT will seek industries,
sponsorship. If an artist has a project in mind, it will be
worked out in technical language and presented to industry.
We have at the latest count, 372 applications for artists
who have technical projects in mind.
We have received very encouraging reaction from industry.
The results cannot be evaluated yet, but prospects look very
good. We have to recruit a couple of thousand engineers as
members in order to take care of the artists. Experiments
in Art and Technology (EAT for short) has headquarters at
9 East 16th Street, N.Y.C. 10003.
BOWMAN: Our next panelist is William Glenesk, the Pastor
of the Spencer Memorial Church in Brooklyn. He has brought
many of the arts and its performers into his church, integrating them into his services.

OCTGBER, 1967

GLENESK: I should explain that the Spencer Memorial
Church during the last ten years has been a kind of out-oftown house for a lot of people who are working up to something in the brighter lights of Manhattan. And we welcome
more directors, choreographers, and actors.
We are lumped together with Judson Memorial Church and
St. Marks-in-the-Bouwerie Churches, and I guess we are not
too far apart. Our mission is to erase some of that line, or
wall, between the sacred and the secular--or the secular
and the profane--or God and the devil--or whatever you
would call it. Therefore, we have experimented with the format of the dull liturgy on Sunday morning.
For instance in a happening, one of our neighbors, Larry
Loonan, who had performed in happenings around New York,
tried out several pieces on a Sunday morning where performers moved about and came out of the congregation. We
often worked out themes on stools around the communion
table as a sermon. Then, at other times but not in the context of an actual ritual, we have tried to include a kaleidoscope of dance and gallery hangings, paintings, and theatre
as well. So our sermon, our service took on the form of
theatre.
I suppose the group which is most closely identified with us
in trying out and experimenting is Peter Schumann's Bread
and Butter Theatre. He now has a theatre of his own in
New York in Papp's establishment.
I don't think that we are even close to erasing that line between sacred and profane, but I don't think either that there
is any such thing as religious theatre or religious drama. I
think it is a phony phrase, and I do not find any radical difference between what happens in the context in which I
work and in the regular theatre, except that we do not have
unions and we do not have to be afraid of the police. We
can serve as a ground-breaking place where other theatres
might find this difficult.
BOWMAN: The next panelist is W. Oren Parker, designer
and teacher, stage designer at Carnegie Institute of Technology and also co-author of the standard text, Scene Design and Stage Lighting.
PARKER: My work outside of the more conventional theatre
would be rather limited, unless you want to consider my
working with student designers. I am more interested in
listening today, or being educated a little about what is happening on the outside. So I suppose one could say I am
here today to be shown.
BOWMAN: Our next panelist is Ming Cho Lee, one of
America's foremost young stage designers. He designed the
new home of the New York Shakespeare Festival which we
visited yesterday, as well as the Electra set that graced the
rear cover of the first issue of Theatre Design and Technology.
What are you doing now, Ming?
LEE: I have nothing to say right now. At present I am designing one show. I just finished an opera; and if anybody
wants to offer me a job, I just finished working with Joe
Papp. The lot of the designer is a rough one, if he is freelance and working strictly in the theatre.
BOWMAN: The next panelist, Will Steven Armstrong, is, as
many of you know, the designer for the set for Deer Park
by Norman Mailer, a current success.
ARMSTRONG: That "current success" just closed. That is
the plight of all the great successes we read about here. I
have been involved over the last couple of years in creating

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