'Snow Place' Like the Pudding for 154th Show

A surfing British royal, an Australian crocodile hunter, a punk rocker and a Hollywood starlet will take to the storied Hasty Pudding stage this February in the company’s 154th production, “Snow Place Like Home,” Hasty Pudding Theatricals announced yesterday.

David S. Kennedy ’99, Michael J. Kennedy ’97-’99, Kevin E. Meyers ’02 and Michael S. Roiff ’01 wrote the spoof of a 1980s murder mystery.

The drag burlesque extravaganza will mark the final show to go up in the historic, if dilapidated, 125-year-old building before the College begins multi-million dollar renovations this spring, a full year later than originally planned.

The College assumed ownership of the building more than a year ago and had hoped to begin renovations to turn the space into a state-of-the-art theater last June.

But drawing plans and getting bids on the building project from construction firms took longer than expected, said Associate Dean of the College David P. Illingworth ’71 last spring.

Instead, smaller, largely “cosmetic” renovations will keep the building functioning until the construction begins, said Theatricals President Gregory C. Padgett ’02.

If renovaions had gone with the original timetable, the 154th show would have been displaced to rehearse and perform in a rented space.

“I’m ecstatic that we’re in that building,” Meyers said. “It just embodies the Hasty Pudding.”

For the four playwrights, the project was a long time coming.

“We were trying to do something that hadn’t been done in recent memory,” Roiff said. “This seems fun. All 14 parts seem like really good roles.”

Roiff and the Kennedy brothers initially submitted a script, entitled “Dial R for Room Service,” but it was rejected for the 152nd production two years ago.

One night at Pizzeria Uno’s last spring, the three writers began to work with Meyers, a two-time Pudding cast member, to overhaul the old script and brainstorm rewrites for the show.

As they worked together to write the script and imagined possible costumes, Meyers said, it was often easy to forget the Pudding’s cast is completely male.

“We kept saying, ‘She’s going to be really hot.’ Then we’d realize it’s going to be a dude,” Meyers said, laughing. “It’s sort of jarring.”

The playwriting process spanned from May to mid-September, when the four writers submitted their masterpiece.

“It was clearly the best choice,” Padgett said. “It’s very complete and refined. The plot makes a whole lot of sense.”

“Snow Place Like Home” stars a hotel owner, Bill Igerant, who decides to hold a beauty pageant at his Catskills ski resort—where tabloid reporter Diane Comebacktolife is promptly murdered.

The spoof features Abe Ominable, a sympathetic abominable snowperson and Meyers’ favorite character.

“He’s kind of a gentle giant, in the tradition of Shelley’s Frankenstein. He’s a monster who only wants to be loved,” said Meyers, who is also a Crimson editor.

The script’s writers said they viewed working on the spoof as a sort of healing process after the horrific terrorist attacks two weeks ago.

The script for the drag production was due just days after the tragedy.

“There’s a real question about what role humor has now,” Roiff said.

After the attacks, the writers read the play carefully to be sure that puns and humor did not cross the subtle line into insensitivity.

“We don’t have the luxury that publications have to postpone things, to change our schedule. We thought about postponing the first reading of the script, but we have to start rehearsing,” Padgett said. He said he hopes the joy of preparing for the performance will help the campus return to normalcy.

“As time goes on, we have to be able to move on and this will be a part of that,” Roiff said.

He said he hopes the world of hilarity , abominable snowpeople and beauty pageants will prove valuable to his audience as well.

“It’s really soothing to be able to go off into another world, where everything’s OK—even for a little while,” Roiff said. “I’ve always thought that’s what theater’s all about.”

Meyers said he is already eagerly anticipating hearing the lyrics put to music. The audition process for composers begins this week and rehearsals start in January.

“It’s going to be a real thrill,” Meyers said.

Roiff, who served as vice president of the Theatricals last year, agreed.

“The cool thing about it is just the way things come together so quickly,” Roiff said. “It’s pretty amazing to see one night at Uno’s become 40 nights in Cambridge.”

—Staff writer Daniela J. Lamas can be reached at lamas@fas.harvard.edu.