Museum Unlikely To House Theater

A new art museum on the Charles River might be in Harvard's distant future, but support for a theater within the museum seems to have dried up--adding another complication to the College's performance space crunch.

University officials confirmed last October that they were discussing placing a much-needed theater on a swath of Harvard-owned land past Peabody Terrace.

James B. Cuno, Cabot director of the Harvard University Art Museums and the driving force behind the proposal to build a new museum, told The Crimson then that the talks about a theater within the museum "were dreamy conversations."

But even as Cuno moves forward with plans for the museum by sending a preliminary sketch of the building to area residents, Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 says he remains strongly opposed to creating an undergraduate theater space on the site--in part because of its great distance from the Yard.

"I still believe that [the location] is an unsuitable site for any undergraduate activity, be it curricular or extracurricular, and especially at night," Lewis writes in an e-mail message. "If the initiative for a theatre in the museum will have to come from the College administration, there will be no initiative for a theatre there."

And according to Cuno, officials at the American Repertory Theater Company (ART) have been silent about the possibility of moving to the new site--despite some murmurs that they had discussed it last fall.

Cuno emphasizes that he doesn't yet have the money to build such a museum, but says he has gotten "encouraging signs" from the Harvard Corporation--the governing body that would have to approve such a large undertaking.

"We still have to present them with a convincing scheme to raise the money," Cuno said. "President [Neil L. Rudenstine] will present the plans to the Corporation."

Still, Cuno has commissioned renowned museum architect Renzo Piano to compose the sketch of the building.

"Piano is thinking of a low facility set within a canopy of trees," Cuno's letter to area residents reads.