Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 1985 - 8

by Donald H. Swinney
Twenty-five years! A moment in
time, yet when one considers what has
happened during that span with an organization known as USITT, a popular
slogan seems an apt exclamation:
"You've come a long way, baby."
Most action, at least of a planned
organizational nature, results from a
felt need for an association or representation which either does not exist or is
tangential to the perceived need. This is
clearly exemplified in the origin of the
United States Institute for Theatre
Technology; an organization which
came into being as a direct result of the
growth of theatre as an art and craft
quite apart from, and with particular
interests and specialties different from,
its progenitors.
Henry W. Wells, the esteemed curator of the Theatre Collection at Columbia University and the first editor of the
USITT Newsletter, wrote in May 1961:
6

Theatre Design & Technology/USITT/Spring 1985

States Institute for Thegy (USITT) is established
e circulation of useful ind ideas between the varif technicians serving the
i6iilaiis as well as between these
3(QUPS and t e playwrights, actors and
directors who achieve the final results
upon the st ge. The Institute's members are con inced that no other society
exists precisely for this purpose."
Dr. Joel Rubin, the second president of the I stitute, wrote the following: "[There was] the need for a collective of U.S. theatre experts to deal
with the particular problems engendered by what was obviously to be an
era of extensive theatre building."
In one sense, the USITT was
spawned by the educational system and
is a direct outgrowth of the Humanities
which, at one time, was the primary
focus of education. We must look back,
however, to the early years of the present century to trace the evolution which
began with specialization. Focus of interest in particular areas of studies led
to the break-up of general Humanities
into a number of individual disciplines.
One of the early divisions was the development of departments of English.
Within a very short time, special interest areas within English began to
emerge. One of the earliest of these,
dating to the second decade of the present century, was Speech. In the early
1920s an association to serve this discipline (the area had been recognized
by that time as a legitimate one) was
established - the Speech Association 0 f
America. As is to be expected, there
soon emerged specialized areas of interest within this field, one of which
was Theatre. Within a few years, another organization, The American Educational Theatre Association, was
formed with the express purpose of addressing the interests and needs of theatre. This led to a split of the Association from its parent organization to follow its own destiny. During the 1950s,
there were many who questioned that
the field of theatre was being, or ever
could be, fully represented by an Association that was primarily an educational organization. Theatre was an
ever-broadening art form that depended on a wide range of talents to
bring it to successful fruition. There
were a host of theatre practitioners who
seemed to be isolated from their com-

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 1985