4p, one sided pages, mimeograph on matte off white paper. Staple in top left corner, 8 horizontal folds. Mentions that the college held a rally last Tuesday for the preparation for Ted Dreier's fundraising trip to NY . Visitors last week include Dorothy and Raymond Trayer, Lieutenant Leray Love, John Shinn a photographer and an editor of Life Magazine.
BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE COMMUNITY BULLETIN College Year 12 Monday, November 20, 1944 Bulletin 9
CALENDAR: The Students will meet this evening at 7:30 o'clock in the Lobby of South Lodge.
Mr. William Morse Cole will meet with the Board of Fellows tomorrow afternoon at 3:00 o'clock in Bob Wunsch's study. Tomorrow evening at 6:55 o'clock in the Lobby of North Lodge Bill Laughlin and Herbert Miller will review the world news of last week. Dr. Miller will continue his presentation of the background of present-day Poland.
The Community Chorus will meet for rehearsal at 7:30 o'clock tomorrow evening in the Dining Hall.
The Faculty and the Student Officers will meet in the Faculty Room on Wednesday afternoon, November 22, at 4:45 o'clock.
On Wednesday evening at 6;15 o'clock Herbert Miller will address the College on "China: Its Present and Its Future."
There will be no classes on Thursday. The College will celebrate the day with a Thanksgiving Dinner and an evening of stunts and dancing.
The concert on Saturday evening, November 25, will include music by Mozart, Schubert, and Beethoven. Trudi Straus, Gretel Dorothy Carr, and Anna Schauffler will play Mozart's String Quartet in A Major; and Trudi Straus and Heinrich Jalowetz will play Schubert's Sonatina for Violin and Piano in A Minor. The • last number on the program will be Beethoven's String Trio Opus 9 in C Minor, played by Trudi Straus, Gretel Lowinsky, and. Anna Schauffler.
Alfred Kazin's review of Boston Adventure by Jean Stafford ap-eared in the October 23 of The New Republic.
RECENT NEWSPAPER ARTICLES ON THE COLLEGE: At a recent meeting of the cast and the technical staff of Plautus' "The Braggart Warrior" with Josef Albers, the head of the Art Department, the miniature set designed by Curtis Cowan a first-year student from California, was selected to serve as a model for the scenery for the Black Mountain College production of the play on Saturday evening, December 9. The costumes and the make-up plates of Ati Gropius, a second-year student, were chosen to serve as patterns for the clothing and the preparation of the bodies of the actors.
The set designed by Mr. Cowan is very simple: two Roman doorway: , one doorway suggesting the home of the braggart warrior, the other the more pretentious dwelling of a wealthy old man. The two doorways, painted marble-white, will stand in front of a black cyclorama curtain. Two white steps will lead downwards from the second door.
The costumes for the play will be Roman togas and tunics of the time of the author of the farce. According to Miss Gropius, "the basic pattern will be an oval, and the material, for the most part, will be soft white cotton. A three-dimensional effect will be achieved by draperies, not seams. The sandals and the typical border on the women's garments will be suggested by paint rather than by thread and loather. This device will keep the economy and charm of illusion."
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Ati Gropius has suggested that the uncovered parts of the body of tile actors be artificially colored. "This will obviously create an unrealistic effect, but it will help to heighten the comedy spirit of the play," she explains. The three women in the play will be tinted cerise, each in a different tone. The slaves will be colored with mustard shades. The freeborn citizens will be painted with various shades of brown. According to Miss Gropius, costumes in the theatre should serve two functions: "to cooperate with the written play as much and to maintain their own level of possibilities and of action in a sphere completely their own. Costuming that is nothing but a lackey to the script and has no independent value is poor costuming."
The music has been selected for the children's play, "An Almost Lonely Christmas" by Betty Kelley. It was written, under the direction of Dr. Edward Lowinsky, by the members of the Wythm and Melody Class. It consists of several Christmas carols, a number of dances, and bits of novelty music.
The Christmas carols, music to words written by the author of the fantasy, were composed by Nancy smith, Samuel Brown, and Suzanne Toasdale. Mr. Brown composed also "The Dance of the Toys". Other dances were composed by Egbert Swackhamer, creator of "The Snoopiels Dance"; Dorothy Carr, composer of "The Disenchantment Dance"; and Lucy Swift, who wrote the "Dance of Celebration". Nancy Smith composed the music for the dramatic movements on the stage of Wuf, the Calico Dog. While the play has been in rehearsal now for two weeks, the dances and songs have not yet been introduced into the rehearsals. Work on this part of the production will begin on Monday. Robert Wunsch is directing the play. Miss Kelley is creating and directing the dances. "An Almost Lonely Christmas" will be presented on the stage of the Plaza Theatre, under the sponsorship of the Asheville Children's Theatre, on Saturday morning, December 2.
*** Two editors from Life magazine visited the campus of Black Mountain College on Saturday afternoon. They talked with students and teachers, then made a number of photographs. They explained that photographs showing scenes from the life at Black Mountain College will be used at an early date in an article on "North Carolina' : the South's Most Progressive State."
WITH FORMER STUDENTS AND FACULTY: new addresses:
Shirley Allen 50 Washington Square South New York 12, New York
Howard Dearstyne Cranbrook Academy of Arts Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
in the mail:
Mrs. Jose de Croeft (Lorrie Goulct) 218 Green Street Now York, York Mrs. Bruno Piscitello (Aurora Cassotta) 3065 Sodgwick Avenue Bronx 63, New York
Shirley Allen writes from New York City: "I have been working for some time as the Secretary of the Work Room of the American Friends Service Committee in Now York, where volunteers make clothing for children and collect used clothing for all ages of children and adults to be sent abroad. It is a wonderful place and I feel that it's a great privilege to have a job here. I enjoy the Bulletins very much. My only suggestion is that the
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Bulletins tell me more about the Black Mountaineers, both past and present. The excerpts from letters from alumni do this to a certain extent, but I would like to know more about these people and also more about the present students and teachers..." Mrs. Lorrie Goulet De Creeft writes from New York City on November 15: "Jose de Creeft and I were married last Sunday here in his studio...."
First Lieutenant Don Page writes from India on November 1: "After a very long and sometimes tiresome trip, vie arrived in India. It's a strange and beautiful land. I'm fascinated by it. We are in a beautiful section, quite remote, but nice.. Not much time to expound on India right now... we may have thought we were busy before, but the past is nothing compared to what is before us..."
Aurora Piscitello writes from New York City: "Bruno has been shipped overseas, and I'm on the prowl for a job, which isn't hard to find in New York.... Although I expect to be working soon, I intend to take a few art classes in night school at Cooper Union as soon as the new term begins. I would also like to do some work at the Red Cross.... I am staying with Pruno's mother and father..."
VISITORS: Among the visitors at Lake Eden were: Dorothy and Raymond Trayer, who, after a ten days visit, left on Saturday for flies, Iowa, where they are working at Iowa State College. Lieutenant Leray Love, of Asheville, now stationed at Tuskegee institute where he is training Negro pilots. John Shinn, instructor of English at Auburn College in Alabama.
COLLEGE YEWS AND VIEWS: edited by Bill McLaughlin The College Community held a meeting in the Lobby of North Lodge on Tuesday evening. It was a pep rally in preparation for Ted Dreier's money-raising trip to New York and New England. Several students and teachers expressed what seemed to them to be the most valuable contributions Black Mountain College has to offer specifically to its students and generally to liberal education. Bob Wunsch, who acted as chairman of the meeting, told of unique financial campaigns staged during previous Christmas vacations and outlined plans for raising money during the approaching Christmas season.
A carload of College students and teachers, including Nancy Albee, Fritz Hansgirg, Alfred Kazin, Max Paul, Trudi Straus, and Bob Wunsch, went to Asheville on Wednesday evening to hear the Jan Pierce concert at the Civic Auditorium. Dr. Herbert Miller and four students, Henrietta Barth, Jagna Braunthal , Janet Rees, and Eleanor Smith, represented Black Mountain College at the "Design for Living Today" Conference held in Greensboro, North Carolina last week-end. They made the trip in Dr. Miller's car and returned to Lake Eden on Sunday. Life magazine paid a short visit to Black Mountain College on Saturday afternoon, when one of its editors and one of its photographers drove up in a car, talked for half an hour with the Rector, then took two dozen or more photographs of the College buildings and students and teachers. No time was given for special hair-dos or clothes changes or make-ups, so the "shots" were "frank". Some of the photographs taken will be used as part of a spread on North Carolina.
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There was no Saturday evening program at the College, so nearly all of the students and teachers sought amusement in Asheville and Black Mountain. They were transported to the fronts of picture show theatres in the few cars now at the College.
The first sleet and snow of the season hit the College on Sunday. It was heavy enough only to slop up the roads and the campus.
Dance rehearsals for the children's play began on Sunday morning in the Dining Hall. As part of the economy program now in effect at the College, the student work program will take over the cleaning duties in the Studies Building, the Business Offices, and the Library this week, and thus enable the College to dispense with professional help in this field. In addition to our normal work program activities, the students now are in full charge of dishwashing, furnace firing, Dining Hall work, and the College cleaning.
