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Harvard club still bans women from playing women in performances

The Crimson reports 12 Harvard women tried out for Hasty Pudding Theatricals's cast for its annual celebrity roasts but that none received callbacks. The Crimson notes Hasty Pudding prefers men to play women because it "challenges traditional perceptions of masculinity."

Separately, the Crimson reports one of those male-only "finals" clubs has hired Harvey Silverglate in its bid to remain the preserve of he-men.

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Comments

Could they not just let the women play the male roles then so that they can challenge traditional perceptions of femininity? As a human child, I played a sheep in the Christmas play for eight years in a row, and that was really pushing the boundaries of modern theater at the time, but I think some stuff has changed since then.

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Did your school let a sheep play a human?

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Yes. Once. Sheepster McWoolerson was a method actor and even sheered himself for the role. He played the forester in our Arbor Day play. His performance was raw and brutal, yet beautiful, like a volcano dancing ballet, and I felt that watching a sheep express his interpretation of the human condition helped me to understand my own soul and the connections that tie us all together just behind the perceivable fringes of reality. Unfortunately, Sheepster never made it to his next Arbor Day play. He was crushed by a falling tree prop when they were taking down the set.

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I used to work over at another Cambridge theatre that sometimes used Hasty Pudding's pre-renovation fire trap of a theatre.

These 18 to 22 year olds are the theatre kids from your high school who are now taking revenge on the world for being placed lower on the social pecking order in HS but are now in a place that accepts academics over athletics and the like.

The acting is bad, their plays are filled with horrible puns and they make summer stock at some barn in the Squam Lake area look like the Kevin Spacey doing Eugene O'Neil.

They put on a few shows for the Bushwood Country Club set and then its off to Bermuda to entertain the locals there for a week. They sit around, shoot pool, and then decide who they want to meet that year and award them their Man Of The Year and Woman Of The Year and all the press fawns over them.

Stop covering them and they will mean less and less and just be a February fill in story every year for local news.

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I like the "February fill in story" line- I'm just glad that the Bull & Finch "Eddie LeBec Award" from the early 90's went away as one of those types of stories- The coverage the Hasty Pudding Awards gets makes this area look like "Flim Springfield"-type backwater

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Than I would have, had I not followed your advice to ignore them.

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These 18 to 22 year olds are the theatre kids from your high school who are now taking revenge on the world for being placed lower on the social pecking order in HS but are now in a place that accepts academics over athletics and the like.

The kids are actually working in the theater industry, whether in NYC, Hollywood, or other local acting troupes (ART in Cambridge or at the Calderwood, etc).

And perhaps the Hasty Pudding kiddos are actually the ones who were rejected by the HS tryouts and relegated to the chorus. Now's their chance to really 'shine'!

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I am not dissing the theatre crowd. My wife did it and my daughter is in full swing in it now. I regret not doing it.

The Hasty Pudding is only part of Harvard's theatre options.

There is a regular drama department at Harvard, filled with many theatre types that run productions at the ART building, though they are not the ART.

The ART has its own Master Program in Theatre (The Institute For Advanced Theatre Training) that has produced Jay Nadu (Office Space),Kerry O'Malley (Brotherhood and Shameless) and many others.

The ART has its own players, who are not affiliated with Harvard. That is a professional theatre. Bill Camp, Will LeBow, Tom Derrah were all great actors when I was there and Julie Taymor cut her chops before making millions with the Lion King.

Some of the houses also have their own in house theatre programs, including Adams House, which is considered to be the artsy house.

However, the Hasty Pudding is not some training ground. It is where the Gin and Tonic, Rep Tie, St. Grottlesex Crowd get gussied up and think they are Gilbert and Sullivan.

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Suggesting that social resentment causes theatre kids to join the Hasty Pudding club sure sounds like a diss.

These 18 to 22 year olds are the theatre kids from your high school who are now taking revenge on the world for being placed lower on the social pecking order in HS but are now in a place that accepts academics over athletics and the like.

This is the part I take issue with. Hasty Pudding is more about ultra-prep backslapping and BS than theatre, isn't it?

Honest to God theatre kids have plenty of real outlets at Harvard. I would think that if you were there to do theatre, doing silly skits would be pretty unfulfilling, even if you did get to meet a movie star.

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My old university had a theatre troop that Took Itself Too Seriously. None of them were theatre majors or even pursuing theatre careers, save for a few techs. The general consensus on campus was that they were a cult disguised as a theatre troop.

They were obnoxious and insufferable, and it had nothing to do with acting, and everything to do with the kind of people attracted to that environment.

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There isn't really a drama department. There's a major in Theater, Dance and Media which was created only a year ago, and is administered by a committee of professors from other departments.

The vast majority of theater at Harvard is done by student groups. And much of it is really good.

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That was kind of my point.

I took umbrage at your knocking the HS theater geeks as populating Hasty Pudding.

I wish I had done more theater in HS, but I focused my energies into dance and teaching dance (tap, ballet, jazz). The university I went to has an amazing drama/musical theater department where there was little to no opportunity to take classes. Well, there might have been, but I was buried in the requirements for my chosen field.

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intolerance is duly noted. You will be banned from next summers "Death of a Salesman" starring that guy from that 70's TV show.

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Yeah....I guess I can see him as Biff.

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