For the past several months, A&E reporter Maddy Kloss has been interviewing members of the cast and crew, sitting in on select rehearsals, and speaking to Varsity Show alumni about their experiences to examine the culture surrounding the beloved campus tradition. This installment of the series investigates the production’s hype and budget to find out what makes the show such a highly anticipated event.
“The spirit surrounding the Varsity Show is greater than that of the football team,” said Kendale Winbush, CC ’11, one of the 115th Varsity Show’s principal actors.
If ticket sales are any indication, Winbush’s claim may be more of a factual statement than a boastful one. While the Varsity Show sells over 4,000 tickets each year, according to V115 co-producer Becca Lewis, CC ’11, home football games sell an average of 3,800 tickets, according to numbers obtained from the official Columbia University athletics Web site.
The Varsity Show is one of the most popular and public happenings at Columbia, and the production is a common topic of campus conversation each spring. In some circles, the show is considered to be the University’s foremost vehicle for promoting student theatrical talent and to have the power to rocket students to local celebrity status.
While games at Baker Field are often met with hundreds of empty seats, Lewis said that V115 expects at least three of this year’s four Varsity Show performances to be sold out. Though Wien Stadium certainly has more seats to fill than Roone Arledge Auditorium, the production’s ticket sales still beg the question: what makes the Varsity Show such a highly anticipated event?
Money Matters
Much of the buzz is due to the consistently high quality of the show, which may in part be a result of its enormous budget—a Columbia College student involved with last year’s Varsity Show who wished to remain anonymous said that the production consumes more money than every other arts group on campus, if not every student group of any kind. Varsity Show alumna Carly Hoogendyk, CC ’07 noted that the large budget allows participants to have a great deal of freedom with their ideas, and to take creative risks that often pay off.
No one except V115’s producers knows exactly how big the budget is, but rumors have circulated, through both Bwog and word of mouth, with guesses of up to $120,000. Winbush offered his estimate as well, which wasn’t any more accurate than what can be found through a quick search on the Internet. “It [the budget] is more than a hundred dollars. They probably spent that much printing out scripts,” he joked.
While the producers refused to divulge or even hint at the magnitude of their funds, it is possible to estimate the Varsity Show’s budget by piecing together information from the various campus organizations that contribute money to the production.
Cliff Massey, CC ’10, the Varsity Show’s representative to the Activities Board at Columbia, said that V115 received $14,000 from ABC, as well as additional money from undergraduate councils and the President’s and Provost’s Student Event Fund. Chad Miller, the CUArts events and outreach coordinator, filled in another piece of the budget puzzle, adding that CUArts’ Gatsby Student Arts Support Fund provided an additional $1,000. But if this year’s budget bears any resemblance to that of last year, that total of $15,000 is a mere fraction of V115’s total funds. According to an anonymous Columbia College student previously involved with the production and design crew, last year’s set-building budget alone totaled $14,550. It is doubtful that this year’s is much different.
As the design crew member explained, the show’s large budget is a considerable advantage for the creative team. “It [the large budget] lets you be ambitious. Even if you screw up, you have enough money to do it again.”
Lewis and co-producer Darcy Zacharias, CC ’10 are quick to point out, however, that the Varsity Show team is very careful with the money it spends. “In the theater, of course there are times when great ideas don’t come to fruition, but we are very careful to keep an eye to feasibility at all times,” said Zacharias.
Celebrity Culture?
Along with ample resources, another perk of involvement with the Varsity Show is the possibility of subsequent small-time fame.
This February, the Varsity Show advertised its annual West End Preview by plastering posters that
featured large black-and-white photos of cast members on nearly every campus bulletin board. “It was weird at first, but seeing myself everywhere was kind of cool,” principal actor Adam May, CC ’11 said of the publicity tactic. “It’s unnerving sitting, eating lunch, looking down on college walk and saying ‘Oh, I can see three posters of myself.”
Other cast members were not so fond of the campaign, including one of May’s co-stars, Nina Pedrad, CC ’11. “I like my anonymity. The poster thing was horrible. It’s totally self-indulgent,” she said.
Some actors deny that there is any substantial celebrity culture associated with the Varsity Show. “I think James Franco takes that [title]... I wouldn’t call us celebrities,” said V115 principal Giselle Gastell, CC ’09.
But Hoogendyk begged to differ, proposing that some cast members use the popularity of the performance as an excuse to consider themselves famous. She said, “It [celebrity status] is not entirely self-imposed. Just mostly.”
Star of Stage and (Computer) Screen
In rare cases, however, the Varsity Show has promoted a Columbia actor, writer, or composer to legitimate fame beyond the campus gates—or at least provided them with additional theater experience.
Renowned musical director Oscar Hammerstein, CC ’16, Law ’17, and LittD ’54, participated in the 1917 Varsity Show. And in the last fifty years, Varsity Show alumni have included Jeanine Tesori, BC ’83, who wrote the music for Shrek The Musical, and the duo of Tom Kitt, CC ’96, and Brian Yorkey, CC ’93, whose musical Next to Normal just opened on Broadway in April.
The most recent recognizable face to get her start on the Varsity Show stage is the star of V114, Sarah Dooley, BC ’11. Students can download Dooley’s songs on MySpace Music and the Varsity Show Web site, and her faux-documentary series And Sarah has become a cult hit on YouTube.
Many Columbia students have taken interest in Dooley’s work on the Internet after seeing her performance in the Varsity Show and are enthusiastic about following her theatrical career.
Avanti Adhia, SEAS ’11 is one such Dooley fan. “The fact is that she [Dooley] is all over the Internet, and people know her around campus as having real talent. I also know a friend who has a class with her and is very excited about it. I think you know you’ve hit it big time when people are so excited to be sitting in the same room as you,” she said.
According to Pamela Lu, SEAS ’11, no other recent Varsity Show alumni have managed to achieve the same buzz that Dooley has. “I can’t say I’ve heard any of their [Varsity Show actors’] names thrown around as often as Sarah Dooley’s. Come to think of it, I don’t think I know the names of any of the other cast members.”
While the names of nearly all past and present Varsity Show actors may be forgotten with time, certain alumni career trajectories seem to suggest that the production has the potential to propel its cast members to more widespread theatrical popularity.
The prospect of watching Columbia’s own stars-in-the-making, along with the show’s campus renown and large pool of resources, builds immense hype for the Varsity Show each year—and that’s a level of appreciation of which the football team can only dream.
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