The San Francisco call., 1905-04-04
F ANGUS ACTOR
AS PROFESSOR

BERKELEY, April 3.-An announce
ment that aroused extraordinary inter-
est at the University of California was
made to-day, when information of
PLANS to secure the celebrated actor
and litterateur, Ben Greet, as professor
of dramatics at the State University
was given to the public.
President Benjamin Ide Wheeler has
given the project his sanction and full
approval, warmly seconding the efforts
of the university faculty committee on
music and dramatics in it's plan to ar
range for Ben Greet's entrance into
the faculty of the institution. President
Wheeler is an enthusiastic admirer of
the great Englishman's abilities and is
appreciative of the benefits that both
Greet and the university will receive
when the plan now under consideration
shall have been carried out and the
English actor and man of letters in
stalled as head of the new department
of dramatics.
Not until to-day did the plans of the
faculty. committee become known.
Greet scored great hit when he came
to the coast and produced for the first
time on these shores a dramatic spec
tacle which it was feared by some
could not be made to appeal to the pub
lic-his production of the morality play,
Everyman. The success of Every
man" was instantaneous and complete
at the university, and it's tour of the
large cities then followed. Greet cher
ished the kindliest feelings for the uni
yersity and was very grateful for the
support and cooperation he had here.
He credited much of his success to the
start "Everyman' received at the uni
versity, and later returned with elab-
crate productions of Twelfth Night
and Hamlet" in the ancient Eliza
bethan manner.
sity was in an oDen-air production of
AS You Like It" under the historic
oaks on the campus. In this, as in all
other Of his efforts here, he was emf
Dently successful
Greet staged Professor Charles Mills
Gayley's miracle play, ''The Star of
Bethlehem" last winter at the univer-
sity, this being the first production in
the West of the play. He became an in
innate friend of prominent faculty
members through these projects, joint
ly undertaken, and they are now deter
mined that if he will consent and the
way can be opened he shall become
their joint laborer in university affairs.
Inese productions, as President
Wheeler explains, would have the same
relation to his lectures on the drama
that laboratory work has to lectures
by savants now at the university. The
chair of dramatics, when all the plans
for It's founding are complete, will be
similar in its standing to the chair of
music, which latter now is particularly
engaging the attention of President
Wheeler, it being the presidents task
to secure suitable person to fill the
chair President Wheeler said to-day:
1t is desired to have person of ability SINH
lar TO that OF Professor Albert A. Stanley OF
Michigan. who was of our summer school fac
uity last year. 1t is difficult to secure such a
man, however, as the appropriation for ths
chalr s. Is Tor period of two years only, and
it is not easy to persuade a ffrst-class man n
relinquish position for q tenure so short a
that which can be offered here No one has as
yet been chosen for the place