Pudding Honors Parker

The Hasty Pudding Theatricals feted Sarah Jessica Parker as its Woman of the Year yesterday with a rowdy parade and the traditional “pudding pot” award.

The festivities began with a colorful parade down Mass. Ave., with Parker riding on the back of a red Corvette convertible surrounded by the fourteen members of the Theatricals dressed in flamboyant drag—from a green dress with oversize sequins to a red-plumed headdress.

The diminutive star of “Sex and the City”—dressed modestly in jeans and a camel-colored coat—waved and giggled as the ’Vette crawled through the crowds of students and Cambridge residents who turned out to get a glimpse of the actress.

Jugglers, a man on stilts, cows and llamas rounded out the menagerie preceding the made-up Pudding cast down the street.

Parker, who displayed a large, pink kiss mark on her cheek, pretended to brush her teeth in response to the cheering of University Health Services dental hygienists who looked down on the parade from their window onto Holyoke Street.

As the parade came to a stop in front of the Pudding building, Parker signed fans’ copies of Vogue featuring her face on the cover and clutched a stuffed pig given to her by an admirer.

Inside, Theatricals President Greg C. Padgett ’02 and Vice President Krishnan Unnikrishnan ’02 proceeded to roast a nervous Parker on the Pudding stage in front of a packed house. Before they would present her with the brass “pudding pot” award, Padgett and Unnikrishnan challenged Parker to a dance-off to the title songs of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and “Footloose,” two of Parker’s early movies.

After Parker nervously hopped around to these ’80s classics, Padgett made her reenact more scenes from her past works, like the Broadway hit “Once Upon a Mattress” and the “It’s a Hard-Knock Life” number from “Annie,” Parker’s break-through role as a child actress.

The two tuxedo-clad Pudding hosts also persuaded Parker to “slay the heart” of a cast member dressed up as a dragon, just as Anthony Hopkins had to slay a dragon last year when he was roasted as Man of the Year.

“You have lovely scales and green is the hardest color to wear...but you look dashing,” Parker said, sweet-talking the fake beast.

Though Parker successful seduced the dragon, Padgett and Unnikrishnan only deemed her worthy of the “pudding pot” after she sang “Tomorrow” from “Annie.”

“I want you to know that I haven’t done this since 1980, but since this is the closest I’ll come to a college degree,” Parker said before she sang the solo in a high, soft voice.

With her hands finally holding the brass pot, Parker was finally able to relax and enjoy her award.

“This is the highest honor in the land,”Parker said. “This is what I’ll tell my phantom children about.”

Throughout her efforts to win the pudding pot, Parker snapped pictures with a disposable camera.

“I’m just documenting my experience at Harvard because it’s the last time I’ll ever be here,” Parker quipped.

After the roast, Parker sat back and enjoyed a preview of the Theatricals’ new musical “Snow Place Like Home.”

While Parker was generous in her praise of the Pudding cast, she was critical of her own performance.

“I didn’t get an A,” she said. “I was a pretty average student out there.”

At the end of the day’s ceremonies, Parker spoke to reporters who assembled in the Pudding building. But Harvard Director of News and Public Affairs Joe Wrinn prohibited media from asking questions about the charges lodged last week against two of the Pudding’s former executives for allegedly stealing money from the Pudding.

Randy J. Gomes ’02 and Suzanne M. Pomey ’02 were charged with grand larceny stemming from a scheme in which prosecutors allege they transferred nearly $100,000 from the Pudding’s funds to their own accounts.

Pudding officials have repeatedly declined to comment on the case.

—Staff writer Anne K. Kofol can be reached at kofol@fas.harvard.edu.