A Varsity Show Exorcise
The cast of the 115th Varsity Show entered to raucous applause from the crowd of 100 packed into the back room of the West End (as it will forever remain, at least for V-Show purposes). Our host for the evening was this year’s narrative patriarch, retiring Dean Austin Quigley, caught up in reading his own interview in Columbia College Today.
After announcing that he would still be teaching, as well as being “Supreme Chancellor to the Committee on Tree Lightings” (“I can light a Yule log like nobody else”) Dean Quigley (a delightfully posh Adam May Patrick Blute) took us to the first scene — a SEAS sophomore (sophomore Nina Pedrad) in Butler on a Friday being annoyed by fellow “studiers.” After getting snappy, she received the first Barnard joke of the night: “Do you need a hug? At Barnard, we hug.” In Preview form, it wouldn’t be the last.
Fed up, the SEAS student returned to her dorm, only to have her floormates, expelled from broken-up parties, make her the subject of an exorcism. This not only led to the truest line of the night (“But we don’t know how to have an exorcism.” “We’re Columbia students; we can bullshit anything!”), but also the most complex choreography, including a SEAS student being raised up Jesus Christ Superstar-style, and all the performers “doing the devil.” Read more…
Tags: arts, austin quigley, fall 2008 exorcism investigation, previews, the 115th annual varsity show, the west end
20 February 2009 @ 11:05 PM · 23 comments
On November 12, Bwog received an anonymous email with the subject line: “Exorcism on Broadway 9.” The email detailed an incident that occurred between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. on October 25th, that involved several students who the sender identified as Christian Koreans — despite our attempts to reach various groups, there’s been no way of verifying this. There was also a Barnard student present who had been signed in earlier that evening.
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