When the Loeb went into operation, nearly all of its doors were kept locked.

And keys were hard to come by...

In the Fall of 1955, Daniel Seltzer came to Harvard as a graduate student in English. Before long, he became involved in Harvard theatre, and both directed and starred in an Adams House production of Othello. Seltzer got his Ph.D. in Fall '59, and was made an instructor in English the same term. He was one of the seven founding members of the faculty student Loeb advisory committee, and after he became an assistant professor in '61 he was named to the all-powerful Faculty Committee on Drama.

Seltzer opposed the Loeb's emphasis on professionalism, but not from the same standpoint as most undergraduates. He saw little use in a drama center which made no attempt to educate the students who worked in it. He wanted to dilute the "laissez-faire amateurism" so opposed by Chapman with credit courses and seminars, rather than simply turn over leading roles to more experienced people.

It was Seltzer's misfortune to arrive in a climate of widespread hostility toward most of the ideas he advanced. Faculty sentiment was divided between support for Chapman's professionalism, and for the amateurism which had been the mark of Harvard theatre before the Loeb. Most students were committed to the latter, and they were just as hostile to credit courses as to outside people, graduate students and faculty members.

Seltzer's views played no tangible part in Loeb politics until the Fall of '63. The age-old issue of faculty control continued to obsess the HDC; disorganized amateurism remained the Loeb administration's target. Incredibly little headway was made on either side from the Loeb's inauguration through its first three years.

The Shakespeare Festival

When Chapman went on sabbatical in the Fall of '63, he was replaced not by George Hamlin, assistant director of the Loeb, but by Seltzer. Seltzer was on the faculty, which probably explains why he got the temporary post and Hamlin didn't. Seltzer's ideas about integrating the Loeb into the educational process -- with credit and non-credit courses for undergraduates -- had slowly gained strong support from several influential Faculty Committee members. Seltzer made it immediately clear that as director of the Loeb he would see some of his plans put into execution, at least in miniature. He said he hoped to speed the Loeb's development into a "truly educational instrument in the study of dramatic literature."

To many, Seltzer's vision smacked of drama schoolery, which nearly everyone was against. On the Faculty, William Alfred was perhaps the most outspoken opponent of drama courses at the Loeb. Alfred also frowned on professionalism--"the aim of the University is to make students responsible for big plants," he said; "the theatre will get that way, but it will take time."

It happened that Seltzer's second term as director of the Loeb marked the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's (and Marlowe's) birth. That called for a celebration -- and everyone wanted to take part. The Shakespeare Festival, generally plotted by Chapman, Hamlin, and Seltzer the preceding Spring, was expected to be one of the most exciting events not only in the history of the Loeb, but of Harvard theatre.

There were to be two Shakespeare productions, and four Marlowe readings. The whole thing would continue over the summer. Related seminars would be conducted by Faculty Shakespeare and Marlowe scholars, so festival participants could learn as well as perform. It sounded just dandy.

A phenomenal number of people signed up to be interviewed for the festival -- so many that casting had to be done with mimeographed form letters sent to each applicant, telling him whether he had been accepted, and what parts he had been given. With these letters the roof fell on most personal visions for the festival. The old Loeb hands -- graduate students, outside people, and a small clique of upperclassmen -- found themselves, almost without exception, cast in minor roles.

A large percentage of the 250 people chosen to participate in the festival were inexperienced, younger undergraduates, many of whom wrested juicy parts away from their elders. Seltzer was bringing a totally new generation into the Loeb. And yet, as his detractors were quick to note, Seltzer had given himself the juiciest parts of all. He was to direct Julius Caesar, starring Hamlin, and to star in King Lear, directed by Hamlin. Many excluded from major roles in the festival saw a Seltzer conspiracy to build an organization geared toward Seltzer's goal of putting the Loeb in the course catalogue. More ominously, they foresaw a drama department with Seltzer in charge.

The Shakespeare Festival was not the smashing success Seltzer hoped it would be. His Julius Caesar was poorly received, as was King Lear, which followed. The Marlowe readings, somewhat more successful, were no triumph either. Some of the actors consigned to small roles in the Shakespeare plays, or to larger ones onlyin the readings, had declined their parts to become temporary Loeb exiles. They were hardly overcome with grief over the Festival's failings.

It also had undeniable merits. Seltzer had succeeded in opening the Loeb to students who might never have gotten involved. He had, regardless of his apparent or real motives, introduced academic structure to production work, and reversed the positions of the in-group and the out-group. Now the only exiles were disgruntled elders.