After the Hasty Pudding Theatricals had produced a particularly "informal" play entitled "Builders of Babylon," in 1909, a group of horrified alumni gathered in consultation. To uplift the theatrical standards, they hired the director of the Princeton Triangle shows to coach the Pudding's next effort. After only a few rehearsals, the new director, bewildered at the haphazardness of the show, resigned himself to fate. "I give up!" he exclaimed. "At Princeton we put these plays on for money, while it seems that Harvard boys only put them on for fun!"

This off-hand remark by the harried director typifies the attitude with which Pudding members have produced all 107 of their shows. They seldom attempted to produce great theater, for when they have tried, the results usually have been disastrous. The aim of the Pudding is enjoyment--for the cast, and if possible, for the audience.

This year, the Pudding, the oldest continuous theatrical organization in America, will produce its 108th show, "Love Rides The Rails." As has been the custom for practically all Pudding plays, "Love Rides the Rails" has experienced crises, renewed traditions, and made innovations. Still, the show will go on, with the usual complement of hairy legs, bad jokes, and rollicking music. It may never reach the Shubert, but it will be another link in one of Harvard's most enduring institutions.

It all started in a Hollis Hall room on Dec. 13, 1844, when several members of the Hasty Pudding Club put on a "tragiccomic burlesque opera" entitled "Bombastes Furioso". Up until this time, Pudding personnel had limited their dramatic productions to mock trials such as "Dido vs. Aeneas: For Breach of Promise."

"Bombastes Furioso" was eminently successful. Lemuel Hayward, one of the originators of the show, wrote, "The play went off splendidly. Distaffina wore a low neck and short sleeves, and on introducing a fancy dance, the applause almost shook old Hollis down." The success of Distaffina's "dance" was primarily responsible for the birth of the "hairy legs" tradition. Ever since then, the chorus line has been built around 200-pound football guards, dressed and padded on the lines of Mae West.

Broadway Burlesques

After "Bombastes Furioso", the Pudding went gaily on, producing an average of three shows a year. These early plays were mostly poor burlesques of Broadway productions and take-offs on famous operas such as "Slasher and Crasher," and "Did you ever send your Wife to Brighton?" "Tom Thumb," produced in 1855, marked the first musical and the first production shown to a public audience.

The play that first gave the Pudding a national reputation was "Dido and Aeneas" presented in 1882. It was shown in the usual tradition, complete with exploding altars and discourses on chastity, but it did have an excellent book, garnished with music described by Samuel Eliot Morison '08 as "a potpourri of Offenbach, Suppe, Bizet, Meyerbeer, and Wagner."

"Dido and Aeneas" was good enough to start another Pudding tradition, which in many ways has proved to be a cul de sac throughout the years. The play was sent on tour for the first time and played to audiences in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.

Sherwood and Sears

By the opening of the 20th Century, the Pudding was firmly entrenched as a college institution. The shows from 1900 to the present have been on more or less the same line and have met with varying degrees of success. However each play is never the prototype of its predecessor; on the countrary, each one has its own character and its own traits. They have been miserable failures and they have been outstanding successes. They have ended in the black and, more often, in the red.

Perhaps the best show ever put on by the Pudding was "Barnum Was Right", produced in 1920. Robert E. Sherwood '17 and Samuel P. Sears '17 wrote the music and lyrics. It was a success largely because of its straight musical comedy format instead of the usual burlesquish offering. The play was actually "good theatre" and played to enthusiastic audiences in New York and Philadelphia.

The late Robert Benchley '12 helped to produce three of the best Pudding shows: "Diane's Debut" in 1910, "The Crystal Gazer" in 1911, and "Below Zero" in 1912. "Diana's Debut", the most popular of the three, was a heavy-handed satire on Boston Society. The big song in the play had a famous line, "At Somerset, things were rather wet."

In 1925, the Pudding and the Institute of 1770 joined forces. The merger opened casting to all in the college and brought some measures of new talent into the club.

In the same year the Hasty Pudding Dramatic Association was formed, so that the producers could squeeze out enough capital for another road trip. This inno vation was described by Roger S. Hewlett '33 as "really only a character on paper to legitimize the theatricals and to avoid the government taxes." "1776", the next year's show, evidently profited from the merger as it embarked on one of the most ambitious Pudding tours ever. It played to audiences in Boston, Northampton, Cleveland, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and Detroit.