An alluring female android approaches me wearing nothing but a shiny metallic suit. It brushes its aluminum locks away from its face, revealing a coy smile. It looks at me, and says "Hi."
"This is the first time we've gotten our costumes," Hasty Pudding Theatricals President Andrew A. Burlinson '97 says from inside his strange garb.
Burlinson walks up on stage and begins practicing dance moves.
I am sitting in the Hasty Pudding theater, watching the first dress rehearsal for the theatricals' production of "Me and My Galaxy." I am a little frightened at the scene.
A strange assortment of characters mill into the theater and onto the stage. A few men in short, tight skirts and high heels casually talk with a rastafarian and two star-trek lookalikes, while on the other side of the stage a giant egg rehearses footwork.
These are the final stages in the production of Pudding Show 149.
The Pudding is the third oldest running theater organization in the world, and the most storied artistic tradition at Harvard, with alums including Jack Lemmon '47 and Massachusetts Governor William F. Weld '66.
But watching the ridiculous scene before me in the theater, I can't help but wonder what leads countless Harvard students to engage in what often resembles a Burlesque show. What motivates a male actor to sing and dance in an egg suit or a skimpy little outfit before hundreds of people every evening for two months?
Ladies Night
"The best part of the show is definitely the breasts," Aaron D. Rosenberg '99 says immediately after I ask him to describe the highlights of being a cast member.
Rosenberg, who portrays the aptly named Duchess Tisimmense, admits that he is pretty happy with his role, which requires a voluptuously shaped costume and flashing lights in all the right places.
For Rosenberg and a number of the cast members, dressing in drag and dancing in high heels are rewards in themselves.
"I've played a woman all four years," Burlinson says with pride. "It's an honor."
Paul D. Siemens '98 admits that he regrets not being cast as a woman in this year's production, but he's gunning for a female role next year.
"There's a very sick and strange honor to being a woman," Siemens says with a hint of jealousy, watching the dancers on Pete T. Wilson '99, perhaps the most scantily clad performer in the show, proudly displays the nuances of his costume. "My nails match my heels, which I'm very proud of," he says. "And my shoes are very comfortable," he adds. But being a woman isn't all it's cracked up to be, says Matt B. Bakal '97. "It's harder to be a girl than I thought," he says. Sitting in the audience and sweating in his costume, Bakal seems to be a little tired out from his role. "Big breasts are hot," he complains. Three-Inch Heels Playing a woman can be pretty grueling. At the end of every Pudding show the entire cast performs a ten-minute long, fully choreographed kick line in high heels. "We're up on our toes, which makes wearing heels even less appealing," says Charlie B. Grandy '97. "It hurts," he adds. "That's when you question whether or not you've made the right decision in doing the show." Performing full-ensemble dance numbers is especially difficult for a groups of guys who admittedly aren't very coordinated. "I mean, we're not good dancers," Grandy says matter-of-factly. Most of the cast have had little or no formal dance training, which makes the job of Dance Choreographer Karen Pasani Pastore all the more difficult. After choreographing the pudding show for fourteen years, Pastore says, her most important job is to give the male cast moves that "look natural on their bodies." "She definitely realizes the limitations of a bunch of goofy guys," Grandy says. One week before the show starts, I watch one of the group dance numbers begin to come together. Pastore and the director, Tony Parise, are teaching a group of guys in jeans and t-shirts--only one of them, surprisingly, is wearing heels--the routine of one of the hardest pieces in the show. Pastore and Parise seem to face the difficult task of trying to mold a group of awkward men--who do not have the luxury of costumes at this point--into an exotic group of provocative females. "You've got to be Bette Midler!" Parise emphatically tells Rosenberg, who has the lead in this number. Other diva references abound. "You have to do it tougher," Pastore tells the group. "It's Tina Turner, not the Supremes." The seven or so actors lumber around the stage, jutting their hips, thrusting their pelvises and pushing up non-existent breasts as they sing the chorus: "Stick out your chest, pucker your lips, throw out your tush and shake your hips!" Crunch Time Long hours, repeated rehearsals, and grueling dance numbers are part of a show that is put together in only three weeks. While the business staff begins work in September in selecting a show, almost all other aspects of the production begin the day after first semester exams are over, co-producer Jason M. Sobol '97 says. "It's pure crunch time," he says. As producer, Sobel works somewhere between 80 to 100 hours a week during intersession and anywhere between 40 to 60 hours a week after that. The rest of the cast rehearses up to ten hours a day during intersession and four or more hours a night during the weeks prior to the show. "It's masochistic," Siemens says. "It's pretty crazy to put up a song and dance show in three weeks," Bakal says. As the cast gives 40 sold-out performances in Cambridge, New York, and Bermuda, it's no wonder that many consider their time at The Pudding to be a hectic two months. "This is a full-time job in itself," says Bakal. Broadway Meets Holyoke Street But hard work is necessary for the most professionally run undergraduate production in the country. "It's the closest thing to Broadway you can do during college," Sobol says. Students have the benefit of working with a professional set artist, costume designer, band conductor and lighting manager (who is rumored, Grandy says, to have managed lights for both Prince and Bryan Adams concerts), not to mention a director and choreographer who danced together on Broadway in "A Chorus Line" in 1979. "It's the best theatrical experience on campus," Siemens says. "It's the only [show] in which you get to work with professionals." A "sizable" budget, as Sobol describes it, also allows for the most elaborate (and some of the weirdest) costumes you will see in Harvard theater. "It's nice having a lot of money spent on us," says Wilson. "Having a costume designed for you is pretty cool." The Perks As an added benefit, members get the chance to meet--and maybe even do a couple of shots with--world famous movie stars during the Man and Woman of the year festivities. This year, The Pudding will also host a charity event for the Pediatric AIDS Foundation featuring Jack Lemmon. And cast members are frequently asked to showcase their talents on television. Two weeks ago, for instance, four of the cast members were featured on a news segment of Channel 4 doing a three minute number from last year. "We did a song and dance," says Siemens, who got his wish this time and dressed as a woman for the segment. "I was by far the sexiest--I was told by males that I was hot." And just to make sure they have something to look forward to, each year the cast heads down to Bermuda for five performances over spring break. "Bermuda is about having a good time," Grandy admits. In Bermuda, cast members say, anything goes. One actor describes the experience of riding through the streets of Hamilton on mopeds, in costume, during intermission; others talk in hushed tones about a famed "package night" in which some members of the band disrobe for part of the show. An ambassador who saw the show last year, Burlinson says, had a clear view of the band. "He actually wrote a letter saying how much he enjoyed the show," he says. Exhibitionism At times, many cast members say, it is easy to forget that they are still students trying to squeeze heavy workloads and other extracurriculars around three weeks of intense rehearsals and over a month of 40 performances. "We're still undergrads having to ask our professor's opinions to miss classes to go roast Julia Roberts," cast vice-president Danton S. Char '97 says. Even those who have been doing The Pudding show for some time now don't know quite what to make of it. "It's pretty surreal," Siemens says of the whole experience. "It's pure exhibitionism," says Char, sitting next to me in a tight pink leather bodysuit and boots. "There's really nothing quite like it," he adds. Perhaps the real lasting appeal to the cast--the reason why the show has gone on for over 150 years--is that in many ways, despite long, grueling hours, it's the best time they'll have at Harvard. As Grandy says, "there's something fun to just hanging around with a bunch of guys and being stupid." "Me and My Galaxy," written by Aaron Kesselheim '96 and Jared A. Kesselheim '99, featuring music by Amy Brown '97 and Rashida Jones '97, runs February 18 to March 18 at The Pudding Theater.
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