Fine Arts Discussions & Recollections

See also the general discussion. The subjects seem to intertwine.

Arnold Wasserman: Carnegie Tech made me a theatre addict for life. I remember the Masters performances in The Little Theatre of the Fine Arts building.Especially a Shakespeare's Tempest where Bill Ball as Calaban slithered across the stage and twined himself around trees like a serpent.

And then there was a performance of Stravinsky's "L'Histoire du Soldat" with Ball as the devil and George Peppard as the soldier, and William Steinberg conducting an ensemble from the Pittsburgh symphony.

How incredibly fortunate we were to be able to stumble down the worn marble stairs in our paint-mottled jeans, flop down in a seat in The Little Theatre and let extraordinary performances flow over us.

Tom Pincu: This whole thing has triggered memories of Tech. From Henry Boettcher stalking the drama halls and looking madly Faustian to Mary Morris exhorting dramats to be "believable". I remember her grabbing me in a freshman acting class and trying to teach me how to really embrace a fellow actress. I wanted to embrace the fellow actress in more than one way, but buried in Mary's giant cleavage only increased my desire to escape her badly perfumed body.

I bet you don't remember "Drop Storage" in the drama department. Many a rainy Saturday was spent there among the soft velours drinking wine, munching on cheese and bread, and other gastronomic carryings on with young coeds.

Young women in Balcomb Greene's art history class swooning over his angular, sweat blotched nylon sport shirt as he attempted to impart the development of Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian columns in architecture. After one of his classes God couldn't talk to a coed. When Jack Palance and the cast of a touring show in Pittsburgh visited Tech, Donna Krochmal (now gone to her maker) got so weak kneed over his visage we had to hold her up. She was unapproachable for weeks. (I really didn't understand hormones or love in those days.)

Oh my! I don't know if my heart can take all this.