Play Draws on Isenberg Fund

A play about a victim of a German concentration camp, which opened last night at the Experimental Theater, marked the first use of a fund established in honor of a recent Harvard alumna, an aspiring actress, murdered last December in her New York City apartment house.

The parents of Caroline R. Isenberg '84 established the fund to benefit the Harvard-Radcliffe Drama Club (HRDC) after their daughter was stabbed last December.

Her murder became national news and shocked the Harvard theater community, where Isenberg was well known and respected.

The fund has already raised over $6000 in 145 gifts, according to Schuyler Hollingsworth, recording secretary of Harvard University, who is in charge of receiving the gifts.

The play, "Charlotte: Life of Theater," which is one of the two Ex plays this year directed by a professional, is a biographical play about Charlotte Solomon, a young German woman who spent two years documenting her life in 769 paintings until the Nazis sent her to Auschwitz and her death.

Experimental Theater Coordiantor Stephen W. Gutwilling '86 said that both the play and fund commemorate "a young girl, a young artist and her development and her personal expression through the creative arts."

"There could be no more appropriate project for the first memorial project" than this play, said Gutwilling. "Both in subject matter and spirit, it really embodies what Caroline was all about."

"Charlotte" is an appropriate use of the fund, said Susan E. Rosen'87, executive board member of the HRDC, because "the whole group developed the project, "She added, "The people involved have been excited because they were part of the creation of the piece."

Rosen and Gutwillig declined to say how much fund money went to underwrite the production.

The HRDC is still undecided on the future of the fund, Drama Club officials said. Rosen said the money will either go towards funding drama projects which would not be possible with of the money, or towards creating a scholarship for HRDC members who plan to continue education in the arts.

We feel very strongly that the fund should be sued to benefit the entire community and especially with work in the creative arts, since that was what Caroline was committed to," said Gutwillig