Harvard Institute for Learning in Retirement

To Stage Engstrom Play Nov. 3

By Susie Davidson

CORRESPONDENT

A living representation of why learning need never cease will be on display Sunday as the Harvard Institute for Learning in Retirement Playreaders stages a reading of Elmer Engstrom’s one-act play The Committee Meeting.

The 3 p.m. reading, at McIntyre & Moore Booksellers in Davis Square, will be directed by member Nancy Wolcott and introduced by Harvard Square's Pangloss Bookshop founder Herb Hillman.

It will be the group’s first publicly staged reading outside of its usual venue, the community room by its office at the Harvard Continuing Education building at 51 Brattle St.

The Institute, which was established in 1977 and is celebrating its fourth year of staged readings of contemporary plays, is comprised of members averaging 74 years of age. The Committee Meeting’s cast will include Mark Aronson, Bernice Broyde, Iclal Hartman, Louise Sullivan and Donald Yeaple.

Director and Playreaders member Wolcott, who trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Art, has acted on and off Broadway and toured the Pacific in a USO play.

Playreaders co-founder Hillman, a North Cambridge resident, holds a degree in biology from Swarthmore and did graduate work at Cornell in comparative physiology. He won the first exchange fellowship from Cornell to the University of Glasgow in 1948, where he continued to study physiology, then founded Pangloss in Greenwich Village, New York, which he moved to Harvard Square in 1957. He retired in 1993 after running Pangloss for 35 of its 43 years; the shop moved to Charles Street in Boston and then on to Maine, where it now also sells antique furniture. “We used to service the academic community,” he said. “It’s completely different now from when I was in it.”

He takes great pride in his HILR involvement. “We read plays together,” he explained, “and out of that comes the desire to put them on.” The group meets every other week, about a half dozen times each semester. They stage at least one public reading per year; the players meet and rehearse more frequently at the 51 Brattle St. Common Room, which they use for lectures and poetry readings as well.

As for this production, he promises a charmer. “The most important thing,” he said, “is to look at the title of the play. Any adult who has gotten onto a committee will relate to it. It’s a rather amusing tale.”

Engstrom, who holds an MA in English and Dramatic Arts from Columbia University, translated Moliere’s The Doctor in Spite of Himself, which featured Zero Mostel in the title role and was the final staged production at the Brattle Theatre before it was converted to a film venue. He began writing plays again following retirement from management consulting, and has penned a full-length as well as several one-act efforts including The Committee Meeting, which has won several community theater awards throughout New England.

As membership to the Institute is capped at 500, new admissions are carefully reviewed, though there are no requirements based on age, education, or career background. (For an application and deadline information, call 617-495-4072, or email sheehan@hudce.harvard.edu.) Once members are accepted, they are expected to attend the program’s courses immediately, and to contribute actively to discussions and committees. Social activities are included within the academic curricula, and it’s ultimately highly fulfilling.

“It’s a heck of a lot of fun,” said Hillman, “and yet we take it seriously enough to put on these occasional public readings.”

Admission for the Nov. 3 event is free and open to all; light refreshments will be served. For information, call McIntyre & Moore Booksellers, 255 Elm St. in Davis Square, Somerville, at 617-629-4840.