A test run for plays in rural N.Y.

"Even though you're living in a dorm with a bathroom down the hall, in a physical world that's fairly Spartan, the artistic world one inhabits there is very rich," she says.

Irving says with a laugh, "I fixed my dorm [room] up really nice." Her education included such prestigious schools as the American Conservatory Theater and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. "It's been a while since I've lived like this," she says.

There are several noted actors set to join Irving over this anniversary summer include Lucy Liu, Bill Pullman, Mia Farrow, Marcia Gay Harden, Rob Morrow, and Mark Linn-Baker, one of Powerhouse's founders.

Leslie Urdang, Mr. Linn-Baker's founding partner, recalls the genesis of Powerhouse well. The two had been looking for a place to develop new plays outside the spotlight of New York City where a professional company could live and work together without distractions.

"We drove around upstate and looked at everything from barns to college campuses," she says. "Then a friend who was a Vassar alumna, and who was teaching in the drama department, said, 'We've been hoping to start an apprentice program. Why don't you come here?' "

The program has since gained fame and played host to many celebrity actors. But it has stayed true to its mission, says Beth Fargis-Lancaster, Powerhouse's executive director.

"Maybe the big difference is that the students who apprentice with us have changed in what they want. They're now looking to make contacts, to network."

"I did Williamstown, and also Santa Fe, much earlier in my career," Irving recalls, mentioning two of the theatrical community's other well-known summer meccas. But she notes that the Vassar campus, and the college's history, lent Powerhouse something extra.

Perhaps, Jay-Alexander says, it was the fact that the drama department had first flourished in the 1930s under the leadership of Hallie Flanagan Davis, who went on to head Franklin Roosevelt's Federal Theater Project. Or maybe it was the creative energy that brought Bishop together with her schoolmates, Mary McCarthy and Muriel Rukeyser, to start their own underground literary journal, Con Spirito, after being rejected by the Vassar Review.

"You know, I brought my son here last year when he was looking at colleges," Irving says, stretching out on a bench like the coed she never quite had the chance to be. "He ended up in California but I wish he were here."

She pauses and shuts her eyes, taking in the quiet rustle of centuries-old trees.

"I can feel Elizabeth Bishop," she says. "I feel I've gotten to know her by being here. Just to have gotten this production here, to this point, has been an end in itself. This is grand."

The Powerhouse season presents fully realized productions on the mainstage; workshops with partially produced works; and developmental readings. Rounding out the season are classic plays in repertory with Broadway-caliber actors leading an apprentice company from around the country.

Visit http://powerhouse.vassar.edu or phone: (845) 437-7235.

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