Mask and Bauble Dramatic Society
The Nation's Oldest Continuously-Running Collegiate Theatre Troupe.
The Hoya, March 21st, 1975
A Look at Our History from 1852 to the Present:
Mask and Bauble was founded in 1852 as The Dramatic Association of Georgetown College. Then headed by the College's Jesuit President, the group first performed on February 27, 1853, and has since had an exciting and prestigious history. After a brief period of dormancy during World War I the club reorganized under the name of the Mask and Bauble Dramatic Society, reflecting its new emphasis on comedies and dramas. Soon after, in 1934, the Society cast women for the first time. During the Roosevelt administration, the club frequently performed at the White House and provided much of the technical staff for press conferences. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was a great patron and supporter of the group during that time.
During the period from 1956 to 1976, former Georgetown professor Donn B. Murphy headed the club and carried it to its current stature. Using student-written musicals called Calliopes, Dr. Murphy shifted the emphasis of the Society to student involvement and creativity. Soon after, Louis Scheeter, a former student and Broadway producer, followed suit by founding Midnight Theater, a forum for experimental theatrical performance. The Society recently revived this tradition in the spring of 1996.
Unsatisfied with the lack of theater space on campus, in 1975 Mask and Bauble members stayed during Spring Break and secretly built a black box theater in a Poulton Hall classroom without University permission, naming it Stage II. The University immediately forced the students to take it apart, but, in 1976, the Administration built the group Stage III, another small, 100-seat black box theater in Poulton Hall, but in exchange for the club's costume, make-up and rehearsal spaces. The original performance space, Stage I, has since been converted into a scene shop, costume shop, and dressing room in an attempt to replace those lost spaces. To this day, Stage III remains Mask and Bauble's primary performance space on the Georgetown campus. The Society claims as alumni such Georgetown graduates as John Guare, author of Six Degrees of Separation, Don Ameche, John Barrymore, William Peter Blatty, Eileen Brennan, Tony Award winning director Jack Hofsiss, former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and most infamously, John Wilkes Booth (though Mr. Booth was arguably our most dramatic member, he never attended or graduated from Georgetown University).
Mask and Bauble was founded in 1852 as The Dramatic Association of Georgetown College. Then headed by the College's Jesuit President, the group first performed on February 27, 1853, and has since had an exciting and prestigious history. After a brief period of dormancy during World War I the club reorganized under the name of the Mask and Bauble Dramatic Society, reflecting its new emphasis on comedies and dramas. Soon after, in 1934, the Society cast women for the first time. During the Roosevelt administration, the club frequently performed at the White House and provided much of the technical staff for press conferences. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was a great patron and supporter of the group during that time.
During the period from 1956 to 1976, former Georgetown professor Donn B. Murphy headed the club and carried it to its current stature. Using student-written musicals called Calliopes, Dr. Murphy shifted the emphasis of the Society to student involvement and creativity. Soon after, Louis Scheeter, a former student and Broadway producer, followed suit by founding Midnight Theater, a forum for experimental theatrical performance. The Society recently revived this tradition in the spring of 1996.
Unsatisfied with the lack of theater space on campus, in 1975 Mask and Bauble members stayed during Spring Break and secretly built a black box theater in a Poulton Hall classroom without University permission, naming it Stage II. The University immediately forced the students to take it apart, but, in 1976, the Administration built the group Stage III, another small, 100-seat black box theater in Poulton Hall, but in exchange for the club's costume, make-up and rehearsal spaces. The original performance space, Stage I, has since been converted into a scene shop, costume shop, and dressing room in an attempt to replace those lost spaces. To this day, Stage III remains Mask and Bauble's primary performance space on the Georgetown campus. The Society claims as alumni such Georgetown graduates as John Guare, author of Six Degrees of Separation, Don Ameche, John Barrymore, William Peter Blatty, Eileen Brennan, Tony Award winning director Jack Hofsiss, former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and most infamously, John Wilkes Booth (though Mr. Booth was arguably our most dramatic member, he never attended or graduated from Georgetown University).
What are we TODAY?
Today, Mask and Bauble continues to present quality college theater while providing an outlet through which students can learn about and participate in the performing arts. Students are responsible for all facets of theatrical production. As actors on stage, as carpenters in the scene shop, as members of the executive board, the students of Georgetown University rely on Mask and Bauble to teach and promote theater in the Washington area and on their campus.