Varsity Show
The Varsity Show, founded in 1894, is one of the university's oldest traditions, and certainly its oldest performing arts tradition. Every year, the Varsity Show produces a unique full-length show that skews and satirizes many aspects of life at Columbia. And every year students line up way before the show in order to get good seats.
Ironically, many of the administrators being parodied and lambasted are often sitting in the front rows of the audience. No study has been conducted to determine whether these administrators realize there's a reason they're being ridiculed on stage. The Varsity Show coined the term "PrezBo".
Past directors and writers include such distinguished names as Oscar Hammerstein, Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers, I.A.L. Diamond, and Herman Wouk.
Contents
Show preparations
The Varsity Show begins, however, long before the crowds begin to form outside the doors to Roone. In early October, the previous year's creative team interviews and auditions candidates to succeed them, and chooses a creative team of eight or nine students. The newly minted creative team runs cast and chorus auditions in the middle of November. The Varsity Show is notoriously the most selective casting process in Columbia theater, and the results are always the result of much gossip and debate: Though the numbers vary from year to year, around 150 people audition for the show, singing a one minute song selection, performing a scene with a random partner, and sometimes being asked to do improv comedy. From this group, around 20 people are asked to attend cast callbacks, and the invite is also automatically extended to performers from past Varsity shows. Callbacks are typically held on a Saturday from 8am until 3pm. Those who have been called back perform a monologue, do improv in a character, and learn an original song and dance. From the 25 or so that participate in callbacks, the creative team casts about eight. The debates over casting notoriously span hours, and the new cast is welcomed into the Varsity family through a special ritual that's stuff of rumors and legend. If you want to find out what it is, why don't you put on your jester's cap and give auditions a go?
The 113th Annual Varsity Show
The 113th Annual Varsity Show will play in Roone Arledge Auditorium April 27-29, 2007. Though the subject of the Varsity Show is always a closely guarded secret, rumor has it that this year's show is a mystery.
Creative team
- Director: Mark Junek
- Producers: Olivia Gorvy
- Geo Karapetyan
- Writers: Tom Keenan, Peter Mende-Siedlecki, Rob Trump
- Composer: Henry Pedersen
- Choreographer: Erin Debold
- Art Director: Brigid Abraham
Cast
- Becky Abrams
- Caitlin Harrity
- Caitlin Shure
- Jordy Lievers
- Josh Breslow
- Mark Rosenthal
- Mike Molina
- Thomas Anawalt
