Pulitzer Prize-winner and Professor of Literary Arts Paula Vogel has remained noncommittal about her plans to return to Brown for the 2009-2010 academic year, echoing the stance she took when the University granted her a one-year leave of absence.
Vogel, who announced last January that she would take a leave to chair the playwriting department at Yale, has left Brown's program without its most esteemed lecturer and its corps of second-year graduate students, all of whom followed her to Yale.
In an e-mail to The Herald, Vogel wrote, "I am currently the Eugene O'Neill (Adjunct) Professor of Playwriting at Yale School of Drama, and Chair of the Playwriting Program. And that's really, all I can say. I don't wish to speak about leaving Brown."
"She is on leave this academic year," said Gale Nelson, assistant director of the literary arts program. "We have not heard back from her at this point about her plans."
But Vogel added in her
e-mail that she was "happy to report" that she is continuing her work on "A Civil War Christmas" at Yale's Long Wharf Theatre. She is also working on a new play in conjunction with Yale Repertory Theatre, where she is playwright-in-residence, and Long Wharf Theatre, where she is the artistic associate, for the 2010 season.
Ken Prestininzi, lecturer and associate chair of playwriting at Yale, declined to comment on whether he thought Vogel intended to return to Brown next year.
Vogel's departure has left a hole in the University's literary arts graduate program. The program usually has six graduate students - three first-year students and three second-year students - but all three of Vogel's second-years decided to attend the Yale School of Drama when Vogel announced she was leaving Brown. Without a second-year class, the department has had to hire a number of visiting artists to serve in one-year positions in order to replace Vogel and her graduate lecturers, Nelson said.
He said the department also accepted four first-year continuing students in playwriting this year to fill the void. Next year, though, the department plans to return to accepting three students.
Before taking her leave of absence, Vogel, who won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for "How I Learned to Drive," spent 24 years in the University's Department of Literary Arts. In her absence, the department has temporarily replaced her with Gregory Moss, Samuel Marks and Dan LeFranc, all visiting lecturers in literary arts.
But it is unclear how the department will be affected if Vogel's absence becomes permanent.
Nelson, who said he took a course from Vogel as a graduate student at Brown, acknowledged that the department is under strain in Vogel's absence.
"I think I can say from my own personal experience that she is an exceptional teacher," he said. "How her leaving will affect the program will certainly depend on who comes in to teach these programs."
