Spicing up the Pudding

The word “routine” is a red flag in any long-term commitment. It comes with connotations of habit, boredom, and monotony. So over their 38-show run for this year’s musical “Acropolis Now,” members of Hasty Pudding Theatricals were challenged to keep up the energy night after night. It takes creativity, but when you’re into drag, role-play, and four-inch-heel knee-high pink pleather boots, you definitely have an edge.

Every member of the cast and crew plays a part in spicing things up, from the tech crew chilling in the sound booth and the band in the depths of the pit to the bawdy and salacious cast onstage. The spontaneous and covert are preferred when keeping everyone on point.

“The cast is very secret about it,” says co-writer Alexandra A. Petri ’10, regarding the ways in which the cast changes things up each night.

“We’ll throw jokes in,” says Pudding President David J. Andersson ’09, known onstage as the bodacious and sequined Afro Dite. “We’ll change the joke to fit that audience.”

And thanks to these strategies, Thomas R. Compton ’09, the cast vice president and Hades Pantsaretight, the promiscuous yet possibly impotent lord of the underworld, claims that despite the long run, the show never loses its edge.

“Even if we do a normal show it doesn’t get boring,” he says.

ONSTAGE ANTICS  

The cast maintains interest when they improvise, particularly on special theme nights, change their characters’ subtexts, and play games on stage.

Familiar theme nights include Freshman Night, Ladies Night, B-School Night, and Senior Night. During these performance the cast will change lines and add jokes to include groups or individuals in the audience. But this is only the public face of the Pudding’s secret recipe for keeping the show hot.

A more subtle show played out when one night the cast was given a new subtext for each of their characters. For example, Juno’s subtext was that her doctor had just informed her baby was actually a stillborn.

“My character was moodier, and whenever anyone mentioned my baby, I got defensive,” says Barry A. Shafrin ’09, aka Juno. “It forces you to look at your lines in a new way. I really like it.”

In one scene, Kyle J. Dancewicz ’11, who plays the shapely-legged Kim Bustible the Phoenix, has to resuscitate Hugh Bris with the restorative power of her tears. Unfortunately, the subtext was that Kim Bustible was actually a parrot masquerading as a phoenix.

“I acted like I was crying and kicked him instead,” he says. It worked anyway.

“The amount of focus actually goes up on those nights,” says Compton. “The number one rule is that you can’t change the show. So when these little things change you have to figure out how to get it back.”

Another diversion is the “Ring Game,” which is similar to “Hot Potato.” Basically, someone starts off holding a small iron ring on stage at the beginning of the show. The ring then gets passed around from one character to the next without letting the audiences see. Whoever finishes the act with the ring loses, and the penalties for losing are acted out during the next show.

“We’ve played the game twice. You don’t want to end up with it,” says Ryan P. Halprin ’12, or Madge Madeinheaven, who after losing the game one night, had to do as many cartwheels as he had lines in the show. He did thirty-five cartwheels.

“It was a lot of fun in this costume,” he adds, rolling his eyes towards his costume, a voluminous purple dress, which covers a full-bodied undergarment replete with thick, heavy padding in certain areas to simulate the body of a corpulent and voluptuous woman.

Shafrin’s penalty was to replace his Sunny Delight prop with the real deal and then drink the entire gallon on stage. W. Brian C. Polk ’09, who plays frat boy Brometheus, had to eat a full pizza and a large bag of Funyuns on stage. Thankfully, all the singing and dancing burned off the extra calories.

BEHIND THE SCENES SHENANIGANS

While the cast is the public face of the Hasty Pudding, the crew and the band are just as important—and mischievous. The tech crew, for example, has its own special nights, one of which is called “Pants-less Booth Night.”

“We just don’t wear pants,” says Michael A. Barron ’11, the spotlight operator.

Drinking is also a common denominator for those who work offstage.

Twenty minutes before one show was set to start, Lucy W. Baird ’10, who is in charge of tour sales, entered the dressing room and announced, “The band is drunk.” Nobody was surprised.

“Sometimes it improves the quality,” explains Talisa B. Friedman ’10, the press manager.

While all acknowledge that the band can get a little out of hand, it is generally accepted as the norm.

“They can be kind of crazy some nights,” Compton says. “They are so talented you can’t always tell. They’ll be louder and laugh more.”

So at the end of the day, the members of the Hasting Pudding Theatricals still commit themselves to putting on a quality show. The moral of the story: you can still have fun while getting down to business—show business, that is.