DramaTech
DramaTech Theatre
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| Address | 349 Ferst Drive NW Atlanta, Georgia |
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| Coordinates | 33°46′31″N 84°23′57″W / 33.775326°N 84.399103°W |
| Capacity | ~150 |
| Opened | April 1947 |
| Years active | 1947-Present |
| Website | |
| dramatech.org | |
DramaTech Theatre is Georgia Tech's student-run theater. They are also home to Let's Try This! (the campus improv troupe).
Georgia Tech first had a dramatic organization as early as 1913, when a student troupe later known as the Marionettes formed. This group disbanded during World War II and in February 1947, a group of drama enthusiasts on campus met with Glenn James and formed the Georgia Tech Dramatic Club. Their first production, The Drunkard, directed by Jack Pompan, IM '48, was so successful that the English department accredited the fledgling organization enabling it to obtain financial aid from the university system. Members received academic credit from the English department for their involvement. With this impetus, Zenas Sears, a local Atlanta radio personality, became the first professional director of DramaTech and presented a series of one-act plays in the Tech YMCA auditorium in the spring of 1947.
For the next several years, DramaTech was a vagabond organization, presenting its plays in a variety of venues, including the YMCA and the Fowler Street School Auditorium. In 1952, with the assistance of architecture classes, DramaTech moved into a new home in the Crenshaw Field House, where it adopted a unique theatre in the round.
Unfortunately, this home was impermanent, and DramaTech was forced to move several times in the ensuing years. It occupied temporary stages in the Community Playhouse, an old church at Hemphill and Ferst, and later adjoined to the Robert Ferst Center for the Arts thanks to the work of Dean of Students Emeritus James Dull.
In the years before Georgia Tech became coeducational in 1952 and continuing until 1987, Agnes Scott College students and members of the community played women's roles and other roles that Georgia Tech students could not convincingly portray. Just as the Marionettes had in previous years, DramaTech produced critically acclaimed plays that were popular with the community, particularly during the long leadership of Atlanta actress Mary Nell Ivey Santacroce. Santacroce (1918-1999) directed nearly all of DramaTech's productions from 1949 until 1966. Other directors have included Sylvia Zsuffa (1947-1948), Zenas Sears (1948-1949), Gerard Appy (1952-1953), Charles J. Pecor (1967-1971), Dr. Fergus G. "Tad" Currie (1971-1973), Dana Ivey (1974-1977), Becky Dettra (1977-1980), David Califf (1980-1983), Scott Rousseau (1983-1984), and Greg Abbott (1984-2006).
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