Isabel “Izzy” V. S. Wilson ’26 wants to “make it big.” Even before she pursues a professional career full-time, she is making history at Harvard as the first woman set to perform in four Hasty Pudding Theatricals (HPT) productions. She will play Anna Fivesix-Fivesixseveneight in her fourth production, “Salooney Tunes,” this spring.
The theater company, founded in 1844, first included women onstage in its 171st show in 2019. Though women were involved behind the scenes, the HPT student-written and directed comedy musicals had traditionally featured male cast members in drag. According to Wilson, these “very campy” productions have not lost their “huge and insane” spirit since the addition of women to the casts.
At college, a friend who Wilson met during orientation week encouraged her to audition for HPT. While she hadn’t heard of it before then, it has become the largest part of her college life. The company performs 40 shows across February and March after whirlwind rehearsals over winter break — which last 12 hours a day for two weeks. During spring break, they go on tour in New York City and Bermuda.
“It’s the only theater process with a Broadway schedule at most colleges,” Wilson said. “It does challenge you to be adaptable to your everyday environment and roll with the punches.”
Wilson has embodied this adaptability as one of the pioneering women on the HPT stage, as the organization is still transforming. There are times, according to Wilson, that she attends alumni events where old cast members will be shocked that a woman can “uphold the comedy” and meet the HPT standard. But mostly, the company has been very supportive and encouraging in making HPT a more inclusive space.
“You can feel the ways in which it’s changing with me. I’m so proud and so excited to be a part of a community now of uprising women who are leading Hasty Pudding Theatricals,” Wilson said.
Though she has been making an impact on the company since she performed in her first show, Wilson said her favorite part of this year’s production is her opportunity to be a leader as cast Vice President.
“I feel like I have nine babies to mold into characters, and to help grow and see the really weird traditions,” she said.
As a freshman, some of these storied HPT traditions were overwhelming for Wilson. Now as a senior, she plans to go to every single HPT event and “buy in” to all of the memorable, however odd, experiences the company has to offer.
“All of the weirdness I’m soaking in, because I know it’s the last time to do it. It’s great because no one has shame. And that’s the best part of being a theater kid, and it’s the best part of Hasty Pudding,” Wilson said.
She said the show’s humor has shifted away from being so “on the nose,” referring to surface level jokes about “a man in a dress,” which pushes the writers to be more clever to get laughs. This year, Wilson helped choose the script for the upcoming production for the first time, “Salooney Tunes.” Getting this behind-the-scenes perspective, Wilson said, was a rewarding experience.
“The actual structure of a Pudding show is sometimes very uniform and sometimes something that you can really play with. Figuring out how to put your own spin onto the mold and tradition that is the archetype of Hasty Pudding is really fun and exciting,” Wilson said.
“Salooney Tunes” is a small-town, Wild West, “cops and robbers” story. Her role as Anna Fivesix-Fivesixseveneight will be the first time she’s actually playing a woman in an HPT production. In the past, she’s become good at playing “strange men”: Dr. Noah Credited PhD as a freshman, Mischa Nimpossible as a sophomore, and Noah Vale as a junior. This year, she is excited to “not wear a bald cap.”
Wilson has loved theater since her childhood in New York City, and she was very involved in local theater productions while in high school. She said she has known since then that she wanted to spend her life in the theater scene, and the joy she has found during her four years with Harvard theater has only further motivated her.
“You don’t realize how insane of a process, and insanely positive a process, it will be, until you actually enter it. So I got kind of thrown into it, and just tried my hand at it, and then got accepted. And now four years later, here I am,” Wilson said.
Wilson is double concentrating in Theater, Dance, and Media and History of Science, and she hopes to spend the rest of her life under the lights. Her ideal career trajectory is to be a singer-songwriter-turned-popstar who then transitions to Broadway and Hollywood and never stops performing.
“I have faith, for some reason, that it will work out. I’m a creative soul. My heart is with music and singing and dancing and acting,” Wilson said.
