BY Leslie Overman
Georgia Tech may be an unlikely destination for aspiring actors but the Institute's engineers and scientists have been exploring their creative sides through DramaTech for nearly 60 years.
In 1947 a handful of young men formed the Georgia Tech Dramatic Club. That April the troupe performed three one-act plays in the auditorium of the North Avenue YMCA (now the Alumni/Faculty House) and changed the club's name to DramaTech.
"The theater has been operating continuously since then," said Greg Abbott, artistic director of DramaTech and faculty member in the School of Literature, Communication and Culture since 1984.
Hailed as Atlanta's oldest continuously operating theater group, DramaTech is celebrating its 60th year by revisiting plays with which it has captivated audiences over the past six decades. "We're doing one show from each of the first six decades of the theater," Abbott said.
The curtain rises on the anniversary season with "The Lion in Winter," which the troupe first performed in 1974. The play runs Nov. 3-4, 8-11 and 15-18 at 8 p.m.
Stephen Sondheim's controversial musical "Assassins," performed by DramaTech in 1993, returns to Tech in February and March. Henrik Ibsen's "An Enemy of the People," which first ran at Tech in 1965, will be performed in April.
Next summer audiences will be treated to two one-act plays as DramaTech performs "The Valiant," the first play performed by the group in 1947, and Samuel Beckett's "Act Without Words II," originally performed in 1981.
"We've done 'The Valiant' several times over the years, because on our list it's always the play that's listed first and it happens to be a really great one-act," Abbott said. "But we've got a whole new crop of people here now."
Originally performed by DramaTech in 1998, "Rumors" will run in June and July. The season will close in fall 2007 with "Macbeth," which the group performed in 1995.
For more information on DramaTech's anniversary season please visit www.dramatech.org/shows.
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