'Speak for Yourself,' First Pudding Show in Five Years, Opens Tonight

Weeks of steady rehearsals at the Hasty Pudding's clubhouse come to a climax tonight, with the long-awaited opening of "Speak for Yourself," first Pudding show in five years. Last night saw the traditional graduates' night performance.

Before the war, the show was traditionally a hairy-leg, rah-rah college revue. This year's production is the first attempt at a straight musical-comedy production, with words, music, and lyrics written entirely by undergraduates.

The book, by Craig Gilbert '47, is an implausible version of the Pilgrim settlement in New England. Starting with a scene aboard ship, the story winds its way through the landing and establishment of camp; the plot thickens as Myles Standish goes in search of food and his sailors in quest of Indian squaws. All this causes the Mayflower women to go on a love strike, the men countering by importing a large shipment of Indian girls of every shape and size. The necessities of history force author Gilbert to reconcile the colonizers eventually, but not before he firmly establishes the true origin of the Boston Baked Bean.

Lyrics by Scudder

Woven into the plot are 17 songs by Courtney Crandall '46 and John Knowles '47, with all lyrics contributed by student director William Scudder '48. The Pudding chorus is under the direction of former ETO theater director Charles Conkling. Morthner Marshall, another service show veteran, directs the script and Donald Finlayson and Miss Pat Havens are in charge of scenery and costuming, respectively.