No. 13: Making Life Fun, One Poltergasm at a Time

Social life at Harvard can at times seem bland. When undergrads grow tired of the sweaty, freshman-filled parties in Lowell Bell Tower or the monotonous common room Beirut nights, they often have nowhere to turn. But some of the residents of Leverett F-Tower have begun to offer up silly, song-filled alternatives, like last fall’s “Poltergeist: The Legacy: The Musical.”

Their adaptation of the horrifically bad 1996 sci-fi TV-movie featured everything from a gender-confused priest, Philip, played by Laura D. Hallett ’06, to a memorable “poltergasm” scene. Fellow performer Sara F. DiMaggio ’06 describes the scene as “an orgasm where you suddenly turn into a poltergeist.”

What force could possibly have spawned this performance? “My friends who were visiting really loved the movie,” says Hallett. “I wanted them to feel welcome.”

However atypical the hospitality, the show went over well, all things considered. The 10-person cast, after all, had not received their scripts until minutes before the sparsely attended Leverett G-spot premiere. “They just read right through the stage directions,” Turhan F. Sarwar ’06 says. All involved acknowledge the confusing dialogue and amateurish script.

But the acting bug had bitten these atrocious-film lovers. After a few months, their thespian forces gathered yet again, this time for a rendition of the ’80s classic “Dirty Dancing.” But because they had publicized to Leverett’s e-mail open list and were performing in the more-frequented JCR, something funny happened: other people showed up. “A frightening amount of people came,” says DiMaggio.

The increase in audience members didn’t necessarily correspond to an increase in professionalism. The actors giggled through their parts, especially when they switched in a female actor for the male lead halfway through. “We just had fun. We don’t have rehearsals,” Hallett says. “This is just entertaining for us.”

The 60-person-strong audience enjoyed it, too. “Random people have come up to me and said that ‘I loved you in ‘Dirty Dancing,’” Hallett says.

Somehow, this gang of seniors accomplished something that many HoCos have trouble doing: fostering community through a dry event. By the end of “Dirty Dancing,” all the viewers were nostalgically shaking it as “I’ve Had the Time of My Life” blared on the speakers. Maybe, as performer Pragati Tandon ’06 hypothesizes, they really were dancing “because they all had the times of their lives.”

The other possibility? “Because they were all sufficiently disturbed,” DiMaggio says.

Whatever the provocation, getting 50 Harvard undergrads to dance without the help of alcohol remains a supernatural event.