Harvard's Vaudeville: Groups Hit High Note

When Bentley J. Tolk '87-'90, a member of the Harvard Krokodiloes, stepped forward to sing a line from "Johnny O'Connor" during the group's Valentine's Day concert, neither the audience nor his fellow songsters were expecting anything unusual.

But just before the Adams House resident belted out the lines "Marry Me," he lept off the stage and presented his fiance with flowers and a ring. The Sanders audience burst into applause. His fiance, Currier House resident Jennifer W. Durham '90 accepted his offer.

Such is the tradition of a capella singing at Harvard--a vaudevillian combination of song, dance, burlesque humor, and occasionally, something a little more serious.

Until 13 years ago the Kroks were the only formal a capella singing group on campus. Today there are more than six formally established singing groups, with new clubs being founded almost every year. Together, the groups give hundreds of annual concerts everywhere from Cambridge to Moscow.

Why such explosive growth? "For starters, you don't have to carry an instrument around," says Katherine A. Kennedy '88, a member of the Radcliffe Pitches, the only all-female a capella singing group at Harvard. "But basically people like it because its just plain fun-fun to listen to, and fun to perform, especially in front of the larger audiences."

"I attribute the popularity of a capella to its interesting sound. There's no accompaniment. We do with our voices what instruments would do," says Craig V. Hickman '90, founder of Harvard's newest co-ed a capella group, the Callbacks.

A capella also "allows a singer to use a lot of different performing qualities," says Maureen N. McLane '89, a member of the co-ed Opportunes and director of an informal singing troupe known as the Currier House Singing Rats. "It takes a lot of different talents. There are opportunities for backup singing, soloing, dramatics and acting, and choreographed moves. It's an entirely different dynamic."

At War With the 'Poofs

At Harvard these a capella traditions date back only as far as the late 1940s, when Harvard became the second University to have its own singing group. The first was Yale whose Whiffenpoofs date back to the turn of the century.

During World War II a Harvard student and member of the Hasty Pudding Club named David Binger served in the army with several members of the Whiffenpoofs. When he returned home in 1946, says Krokodilo Daniel J. Cloherty '88, Binger carried with him one of their songbooks and a great new idea.

"Informal singing was a nineteenth century tradition already very popular among members of male social clubs at Harvard, like the Pudding Club. Binger simply had to formalize what already existed," Cloherty says.

As a result, the first all-male a capella group was formed in the spring of 1946, named after the reptillian mascot of the Pudding Club-The Harvard Krokodiloes.

The Kroks started off quietly, but "eventually, once the group got going in the late '40s and early '50s, our present style began to develop," Cloherty says.

One of the more unique and entertaining aspects of the a capella style adapted by the Kroks involves the comedic introductions that precede each musical routine. "The Kroks would often formally present each song with a spoken introduction. These naturally developed into little jokes," Cloherty says. The comedic introduction soon became an entertainment standard for the Kroks and for every a capella group that was to follow, he says.

"The intros are important because they let the audience get to know the different personalities of the group," says the Pitches' Kennedy. "Anyone who likes to be a ham will love a capella. The intros have become almost a necessary part of every show, and the audiences sometimes expect us to be funny."

Carol B. Emert '88, also of the Pitches, says that it is a challenge to get a real laugh, especially for all-female groups. Emert says audiences expect female groups to be more tasteful. "A basic question always is. "What can we, as women, get away with?'"

And when straight comedy fails, there are always "gimmicks." Take, for example, the last Veritones concert when Nobel Prize winner Baird Professor of Science Dudley R. Herschbach served as master of ceremonies.

"Professor Herschbach has always been known for his off-the-wall humor. We had him do a couple of chemistry experiments. I think it went off really well," says Lee L. Eichen '89, a member of the Veritones.

The Din and Tonics, an all-male a capella group founded in 1979, took an even more unconventional tack with its "Free Stuff Giveaway" at their latest concert last weekend.

"We gave away motor oil, chicken soup, tuna, t-shirts, records--anything we could think of," says Din member Lawrence I. Witdorchic '88.

"We really pushed the bounds of tackiness with that stunt, but it got the audience involved and was a lot of fun," says Din President Alexander F. Beckett '88.

Auditions

The singing groups says that when the applause dies down, their audiences sometimes come back for more--at membership auditions.

Every a capella group at Harvard "consistently attracts large numbers of interested students to auditions every year," says Mischa A. Frusztajer '89, musical director of the 1988 Krokodiloes. "Anybody who sees a concert enjoys it. They see that we're having a good time and want to get involved."

The Kroks attracted more than 60 students to their spring auditions, the Pitches 75, and the Callbacks about 40, members say.

Part of the allure of the groups are their frequent singing tours. Group members say that their organizations are self-supporting and raise money from their concerts to pay for trips abroad during spring break and over summer vacation. "You might call it, 'travelling for a song,'" Frusztajer says.

This year the Kroks will be going on a summer tour of Europe and Asia, with an unprecedented stop in Moscow to sing behind the Iron Curtain. The Pitches traveled to Bermuda over spring break, and the Din and Tonics will be making a trek to East Asia.

Din Director Beckett says that "a typical tour involves making deals with various hotels. We perform in exchange for room and board. It's a great bargain."

All of which can make for stiff competition at audition time. Brian D. Bumby '91, one of the 60 undergraduates who auditioned this year and earned one of the seven available spots in the Kroks, says that he had wanted to join the group since he first saw them perform his freshman year of high school.

"It was really an intimidating process," Bumby says of his audition. "We had to perform solos, and there were several callbacks, and a lot of mixing and matching." At one point the Kroks "even put their ears right up to our mouths to check for tone," he says. "It's going to be a great challenge to sing at their caliber."

The competition for the few available spots every year among established a capella groups grew so rigorous in the past that it spawned several new organizations, including the appropriately named Callbacks.

"Last October a friend and I were looking at the billboards and noticed the huge number of callbacks and people that weren't making it into the groups," says Callbacks founder Hickman. "We decided to found our own singing club. We started out with 15 or 20 people singing informally on Thursday and Sunday nights, but by second semester we became more serious, expanded our repertoire, and eventually opened for the Veritones spring concert."

The Veritones, now in their third year, started off as a group of freshmen who had attended freshman-week auditions "that were so crowded we couldn't even leave our names," says co-founder Eichen. "We put together our own group of 16 freshmen just to see what we could do and have been together ever since," he says.

Similarly, the Din and Tonics were founded nine years ago because "a few former Kroks felt that there weren't enough a capella singing groups at Harvard," Beckett says.

Low Key

While competition among the groups for singers isn't intense, some of the new groups are eager to distinguish themselves from their older peers. Several, including McLane's Singing Rats who started out as a band of Christmas carollers, bill themselves as low-key.

"We are much more relaxed and informal than other a capella groups. You need practically no singing experience to join the Rats, and we really have a lot of fun," she says. The Singing Rats, whose name comes from the "mouse hole," a stage entrance in the Currier House fishbowl, say they do not require the ability to read sheet music.

For other groups, the differences are more a matter of style. "There has always been a friendly rivalry between the Dins and the Kroks," says the Dins' Witdorchic. "The Kroks typically sing traditional songs or '50s numbers. The Dins sing jazzier, more innovative arrangements. We also put on more of a stage show, using lights and special effects."

Says Pitches member Emert, "Groups like the Opportunes might have current or pop hits in their repertoire. We do more jazz and swing. Also other groups might rely on soloists more if they have one really talented singer. People like Fiona Anderson [88], who are making it big on their own now, were the dominant soloists in a capella groups a few years back." Anderson, who was formerly with the Opportunes and presently sings with a Jazz group called the Upside, plans to cut a solo gospel album after graduation.

Songsters says that the gender of the group also makes a difference in its style.

For the Pitches, single-sex sounds are limited. "We obviously don't have the same range as a co-ed group, but I personally prefer a single-sex sound to mixed. Even though we may not be able to sing in the lower octaves, we can still manage to perform many similar numbers," Emert say.

Because of these group-to-group variations, "there is not too much potential for overlap," Krok Director Frusztajer says tongue-in-cheek. "You'd probably never catch the Kroks singing a Din and Tonics song like "Walk Like an Egyptian."