Though the museum itself is tentative, and the theater within the museum even more so, the Harvard theater world is already debating about who would occupy that space.

A faculty-administration committee considered including an undergraduate theater on the proposed site, but determined that the site was too removed for daily student use, according to one Harvard official.

In a recent e-mail message, Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 called the Mahoney land "neither a convenient nor especially safe commute from the center of undergraduate life."

"I don't buy into that argument," Orchard responded.

He argued that undergraduates, not the ART, should move, and that Loeb is "too daunting" a space for undergraduate productions.

Director of the Loeb Drama Center Robert S. Brustein, said he wouldn't oppose a relocation of the ART as long as its new theater was large enough to accommodate the company's needs.

"Theoretically, if we could find a space to work for 52 weeks a year, it would make it much easier to survive," said Brustein, who is also a professor of English. "If there were a sufficient number of seats, and the new theater was still in the area, I would not have any objections."