EDITORIAL If one accepts the premise that a college or university is a market-place for ideas where the student has not only the right, but the obligation to examine every possible concept of the human condition, then the living theatre becomes an indispensible element of the institution. Since the foggy dawn of man's recorded history, it has been the lot of the theatre to question the conventional, doubt the established and disturb the traditional. Only in those times when it has bowed to the demand for clap-trap entertainment and that demand, it seems, is always with us has the theatre ceased to be a vital force in man's process of self-examination and self-evaluation. When the theatre joined forces with the educational institution, its obligation to question and agitate rather than merely to entertain became more serious. Weber State Theatre has developed as a part of a dynamic educational institution. Its staff, therefore, feels obligated to provide students of that institution with a variety of experiences which will stimulate their thinking, challenge their values, and call to question their basic concepts. The staff members have accepted as a fact of life that, if its theatre is effective, it will be controversial; but they cannot be content until the controversy centers on the ideas examined in the forum of the theatre rather than on finances or personalities. A theatre season on the Weber State campus must, for the sheer sake of financial survival, contain a few plays which exist almost solely for the sake of entertainment; unfortunately, this type of production still draws the most substantial student audience. It must also, to preserve the integrity of its staff, offer a few plays which expose the naked and quivvering nerves and sinews of mankind either to be laughed at or wept over; and often the actors are left to laugh or weep with a handful of students intellectually alive enough to stand the pain of examining the human condition as seen by another human. Hopefully, as our intellectual climate improves, more students will come to know the value of the campus theatre as a part of their total educational experience. DR. T. LEONARD ROWLEY 46 THEATRE If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a play is worth a language. Before a show is born it is first conceived in the mind of a director. He crystallizes it into a set with entrances and exits for a future cast. Costumes are designed for each of the characters long before the director has any idea who will play the part. Months before tryouts the director arranges the play into a rehearsal order and decides what to have the actors do on each line. The Theatre department has it's own breed of people. They are different than any people in the world. Although they are different from each other, they have one thing that separates them distinctly from non-actors they love to perform, on stage and off. It is not unusual for a group of them to get together and entertain in public places. After four years and several plays accompanied by sixty hours of classroom instruction, a theatre graduate is a super-saturated product. Each of the plays adds to his repertoire of characters, and changes the actor's personality a little. After a few plays a person is never the same. He literally has understanding from several points of view, because he has been several different people. 47