Letter to the editor

To the Editor:

I enjoyed Sean Walsh’s observations on Columbia’s most famous annual rite of musical theater (“Reflections on the Varsity Show,” April 4). But in describing the alumni critique of the show’s dry run, he states, inaccurately, that it is “arbitrarily named the ‘Turkey Day’ performance.”

Actually the etymology of Turkey Day—whereas skits are modified and even eliminated—stems from the very origins of the modern Varsity Show.

When Adam Belanoff, CC ’84, revived the show in the spring of 1982, he modeled it after the annual revue of his alma mater, Horace Greeley High School in Chappaqua, N.Y. That show was overseen by Phil Stewart, the head of Greeley’s drama department. (Mr. Stewart himself in turn modeled the Greeley show on a revue he had created at Northwestern University.)

As Mr. Stewart recently observed, the show “began rehearsals in late September and went on during Homecoming week at Greeley, which was usually before Thanksgiving. The expression was mine because Broadway flops were once called ‘turkeys.’ I called our elimination day that so the kids found the term less offensive than calling it ‘dropping the skits.’”

When Mr. Belanoff brought back the Varsity Show, he naturally imported his old teacher’s nickname for the alumni rehearsal process.

Thomas J. Vinciguerra CC ’85, J '86, GSAS ‘90
Writer of “Sing a Song of Morningside.”
April 18, 2011