THC: What are the particular challenges of performing in a Hasty Pudding show?

EH: It’s definitely a throwback style. It’s very vaudevillian…. Our director, Tony Parise, who’s been working with us for 25 years or so, describes it as a combination of vaudeville and Shakespeare….It is a very performative, very physical style of acting…. We’re not doing method work here, where we’re sitting in a room looking into each other’s eyes…. It’s all about standing up straight and directing your focus to the characters that are speaking, and making sure you’re essentially being a puppet master to your costume, which is enormous and elaborate and heavy and cumbersome and beautiful…. It’s much more antique than a lot of theater that goes on at Harvard because it’s such a…show.

THC: What makes this year’s show unique?

EH: I think the production values this year are really superb. I think they’re basically on par with a lot of professional productions. Across the board: the set design, the scenery. The costumes are stellar and gorgeous. The use of the stage…it’s definitely been a step up this year. As a purely visual spectacle, it’s really very spectacular to see.

THC: How did you balance honoring the traditional style of the Hasty Pudding with incorporating your own style?

BM: Usually the people who write the show were involved with the company at some point…so we sort of had our own unique perspective on what to put into the show. I feel like we haven’t had as many puns this year.

DM: For me it’s been a learning process, learning to write in the style of the Pudding. But…it’s hard to articulate why it’s different.