‘People will vote with their feet,” Illingworth says. “I’ve told [the Theatricals] that if the tenor of the times changes and no one comes, you’ll have to change, or die.”

Michael S. Roiff ’01, former Theatricals vice president, says he agrees. The 40-night run in Cambridge and the annual, all-expenses-paid tour in Bermuda speak for themselves, he says.

“If there was no longer any desire to see the show, then maybe we would consider revamping it, or going about it a different way,” Roiff says.

Illingworth compares the Pudding to single-sex athletic teams or acapella groups.

But unlike these groups, which have female counterparts, there is no female equivalent to the Theatricals, where student actors are granteda generous budget for costumes, lighting and sets and the opportunity to train with professional choreographers.

But it’s not for a lack of trying.

Julia C. Reischel ’04 is one of the co-founders of the Athena Theater Company, a women’s theater group organized early this year. Unlike Pudding Theatricals, Reischel says, the Athena Theater Company does not explicitly bar men from the cast.

Reischel says she considers single-sex theater a valid art form. The problem is not with the Pudding, she says, but with the lack of a comparable opportunity for women.

“We think the Pudding is awesome. The tradition is important,” she says. “It would be so great to create something like that [for women].”

When asked whether she knows any women who have wanted to join the Theatricals as a member of the cast, Reischel laughs.

“They go to Bermuda. They have this amazing tour, they sell out, their costumes are amazingly elaborate. They have a choreographer. I’d love to be involved in a play like that,” Reischell says. “It would just be nice to have an equivalent.”

—Staff writer Daniela J. Lamas can be reached at lamas@fas.harvard.edu.