OFA Prizes Young Artists: Zoe M. Savitsky '07

Zoe M. Savitsky ’07 has the habit of saying “lovely”: Thursday morning is “lovely,” as well as Jack Megan, the director of the Office for the Arts at Harvard (OFA). So is poet and Professor of English and American Literature and Languages Peter Sacks, who briefly interrupts our interview. Such a gentle staple phrase might be thought of as at odds with a young woman who has played such a forceful role in dramatic arts on campus.

Savitsky has been involved in 16 productions, is the historian of the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club, and serves as the executive producer for “The Playboy of the Western World,” going up this semester on the Loeb Mainstage. Recently, she was selected by the Faculty Committee on the Arts to be the recipient of the Louise Donovan Award.

According to the website of the Office for the Arts, the Louise Donovan Award exists to recognize an “unsung hero.”

“[The award’s] purpose is to recognize a student with a tremendous amount of talent who is not necessarily outright directing a show, but making it happen nonetheless,” says Megan.

Still, Savitsky says, “I don’t feel unsung. [Theater] is a very rewarding thing to do, otherwise I wouldn’t do it.”

Savitsky first acted in high school, and pursued it at Harvard until she fell into costuming, assistant directing, and ultimately producing. She learned the ropes of each job informally. Savitsky says she has done everything from visiting a bleak but beautiful island off the coast of Ireland that greatly influenced the playwright of “The Playboy of the Western World” to spending eight hours burning prom dresses for the costumes of prisoners in another play, so that they might look as though they had been “dragged out of the furnace.”

“There’s a lot of in the moment training. You...sort of learn on the go,” says Savitsky.

During her childhood in San Francisco, Savitsky and her best friend joined the Pickle Family Circus, where she spent seven years as a contortionist.

She says her role in the 2004 play “Venus”—in which she played a circus freak—is her “only real instance” of “doing any contortion work at Harvard.”

Some might disagree. In addition to her work in theater, Savitsky works two research jobs, contributes a column for The Harvard Crimson Arts section, is a peer counselor, does yoga, and says she even manages to go to class.

Following graduation, Savitsky plans to go to law school and hopes to work in the “intersection of law and psychology,” although she knows she will continue to be involved in the arts.

“A professor of mine last semester framed it for me in a useful way, saying that the best [law] case is a production— a piece of theater,” says Savitsky. “It’s about producing a story as convincing as possible. I suppose I will be entering into a new sort of theater.”