The Justice

Media Credit: Paula Hoekstra/the Justice Costume designer Deirdre McCabe (GRAD) plans a costume for a Brandeis Theater Company production.

Brandeis' theater community was left reeling this week after the Brandeis 2020 Committee proposed drastic cuts to the design program.

The committee recommended immediate suspension of all admissions to the graduate Master of Fine Arts design program, which is responsible for costume, lighting and set design for Brandeis Theater Company productions, and the phasing out of this program after all current students have graduated. Other proposed changes include a reduction of the overall theater budget and further integration of undergraduates into the department.

While the report awaits approval by Provost Marty Krauss, members of the theater community have sprung into action. Over 2,000 alumni, professors, undergraduate and graduate students and other concerned individuals have joined a Facebook group titled "Save Theater at Brandeis." Many have posted letters to the administration protesting the decision.

Prof. Debra Booth (THA), director of the design program, created the group after learning of the committee's proposals through an e-mail from Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe. In an interview with justArts, she explained that Brandeis was one of the first to offer a Master of Fine Arts in Theater Design and that the program was paralleled only by those at Yale and New York University. "It's really kind of amazing to me that Brandeis would be willing to give up something that is one of the best design programs in the country," she said.

Booth feels that the committee's proposal resulted from insufficient awareness of the design program's role on campus. "One of the weaknesses of [the Curriculum and Academic Restructuring Steering Committee] is that you have people who are from vastly different fields. If you asked me to go in and tweak with chemistry I wouldn't know what to do. … They don't have the experience or the expertise to really be able to do that."

Booth explained that the design budget is allotted based on a complex calculation of the needs of the acting program, so the funding actually supports both programs. "There's always an educational process that I need to go through for people to understand how interconnected and how that balance sheet all works out," she said. "We don't function separately in that regard-those productions are a part of the whole. I don't know how you expect an actor to perform without sets, lights or costumes."

Continued...

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