“Bob [Brustein] built a reputation doing classics and having great directors,” Woodruff says. “That will continue and maybe expand...out of the Western canon into Asia, Latin America, the rest of the world.”

Orchard says the change in leadership to Woodruff, who was a teenager when Brustein founded the ART, naturally brings a new slant to the company.

“Robert Woodruff is teamed with Gideon Lester, who represents yet another generation,” Orchard says. “So we’re talking about a passing on of leadership to two younger generations and all of the impulses and associations that they come with.”

“[Woodruff] wants to bring more music into the work of the ART, and he wants to reach out to a wider range of cultural influences,” Orchard says.

After the change on Aug. 1, Brustein plans to take a one-year leave, during which time he will write a history of the ART, in part through a fellowship at Columbia University.

Brustein will officially remain at the ART as a creative consultant.

Space Crunch

One of Woodruff’s first challenges on the job will be to deal with what Orchard calls a “dire emergency” for the ART—a severe lack of performance space on campus.

“It’s not about dividing up one small stage into 19 pieces,” Woodruff says. “There’s a space problem; everybody’s cramped.”

The ART generally uses the Hasty Pudding theater space during the spring when the HRDC uses the Mainstage of the Loeb Drama Center—but the Pudding, purchased by Harvard in 2000, will be permanently off-limits to the ART once renovations begin on the building next year.

Harvard is renovating the building to make room for student theater space.

The HRDC currently mounts two productions per semester on the Loeb Mainstage and is allowed year-round access to the Loeb Experimental Theater space, but it is unclear how the ART’s ejection from the Pudding theater will affect future distribution of Loeb production space.

HRDC President Daniel A. Cozzens ’03 says he is not worried that renegotiations will lead to the HRDC losing any slots.

“There will definitely be no steps backwards,” Cozzens says.

Some, including members of Harvard’s dance community, have suggested that a third Mainstage slot be added each semester.