JOSEF SVOBODA'S AMERICAN UNIVERSITY TOUR 1972 JARKA M. BURIAN, STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT ALBANY Fig. 1 Svoboda at San Francisco State, elaborating on his use of low-voltage units and counter-lighting techniques. From November 3rd to November 23rd, 1972, Josef Svoboda was a guest in the United States. It was not his first visit here. In 1965 and on several other occasions he had travelled to these shores in relation to production assignments, the most recent being the design of sets and lighting for the Metropolitan's new staging of Carmen in September 1972. But the subsequent November visit was the longest, and it involved no production work. Instead, its purpose was primarily educational. It was to provide Svoboda with an impression of university theatre in America and to expose selected students of design and others to the principles and methods of an internationally acclaimed scenographer by means of classes and lectures. Complex international negotiations largely managed ~ THEATRE DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY by the USITT and the QISTT (with Joel Rubin and Ned Bowman handling most details) led to an arrangement with the Czech Ministry of Culture and other agencies whereby eight university theatre centers scheduled a two or three day program centering in a master class to be conducted by Svoboda with 10-15 advanced design students from schools in the region of each university; in addition a public lecture and one or more receptions were usually scheduled at each center. The itinerary is appended. It was a very tight schedule, but Svoboda is a man of enviable stamina and managed to sustain a remarkable degree of energy and concentration. He was accompanied on most of the trip by the present writer, who translated for Svoboda and was also asked to prepare a brief MAY. 1973 7