Every spring, Washington University students become confused when suddenly the barren Beaumont Pavilion in the Quad becomes a construction zone (as if we didn’t have enough on campus already) and wonder if they have written down the wrong date for WILD.

Although it would be awesome to witness a concert in which the drum set was in a castle tower, and the guitarist began his set by jumping off of twenty stacked mattresses, all the hoopla that has blocked the path from the west end of Cupples I to the scenic Brookings arch is in fact for the annual All Student Theater production, which this year is Once Upon a Mattress, a musical that can only be described as a horny fairy tale.

If you were unfortunate enough to have been taking a nice stroll through the Quad around 12:45 AM last Wednesday morning and chanced to glance over towards the stage, you would have seen ten guys running from the stage in the frigid cold wearing nothing but boxers and shoes remarking, “We are actors, not athletes. Nobody wants to see this.” Apparently some people did, specifically the girls in the cast who were upset with the guys for not getting them a stripper.

One of the traditions of AST productions is the set sleepover, which started after power tools were stolen a few years back. A natural extension of this tradition became “Guys’ Night” and “Girls’ Night” which in turn led to the “Guys’ Night prank” and the “Girls’ Night prank.”

Last year, had you happened to again been taking a stroll through the Quad one innocent night in late March, you would have seen a group of stunned men getting lap dances from a male stripper named Nick who was wearing a leopard-skin thong and had black hair down to his bum. This was the girls’ prank for last year’s Guys’ Night and they were hoping for a little reciprocation from the guys this year. Sorry ladies; guys are cheap.

This display of hormones reflects exactly why Once Upon a Mattress is a perfect production choice for a college setting. This adaptation of the Princess and the Pea tale has everything to do with sex. Quick scenario: no one in the kingdom can get married (and thus get laid) until princy boy gets married, which he is having a hard time doing because his mother, the Queen, has some incestuous lust for him. Sounds like a typical way to spend a Friday night.

And although the tuition has gone up again, AST has not seen any extra funds and their budget is even tighter than usual because musicals cost more than normal plays. Which is why last week, in the lower level of Mallinckrodt, AST held a daily garage sale offering whatever the cast and crew could find from their closets and the AST office. Soon the costume worn by The Real World’s Cara Nussbaum in last year’s AST production of “Psycho Beach Party” will be gracing the web-pages of Ebay. Even so, AST has had to do its fair share of cutting corners and the production team is depending largely on the posters and cast t-shirts-which read “NO ONE IS GETTING ANY…”, a line from the play, on the front-to get the word out about the play which is coming to a Quad near you April 5,6,7 and 8.

All Student Theater performs outdoors which means they have to compete with the weather: if it rains, the show is canceled. But we are in St. Louis; Snow on Thursday means 55-degree spring weather on Friday, so go see it Friday, bring your friends, and see what happens when a fairy tale is told the way your mother never dared to tell it.

Popularity: 1% [?]

 Print This Post

This entry was posted on Friday, April 5th, 2002 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Cadenza. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Every spring, Washington University students become confused when suddenly the barren Beaumont Pavilion in the Quad becomes a construction zone (as if we didn’t have enough on campus already) and wonder if they have written down the wrong date for WILD.

Although it would be awesome to witness a concert in which the drum set was in a castle tower, and the guitarist began his set by jumping off of twenty stacked mattresses, all the hoopla that has blocked the path from the west end of Cupples I to the scenic Brookings arch is in fact for the annual All Student Theater production, which this year is Once Upon a Mattress, a musical that can only be described as a horny fairy tale.

If you were unfortunate enough to have been taking a nice stroll through the Quad around 12:45 AM last Wednesday morning and chanced to glance over towards the stage, you would have seen ten guys running from the stage in the frigid cold wearing nothing but boxers and shoes remarking, “We are actors, not athletes. Nobody wants to see this.” Apparently some people did, specifically the girls in the cast who were upset with the guys for not getting them a stripper.

One of the traditions of AST productions is the set sleepover, which started after power tools were stolen a few years back. A natural extension of this tradition became “Guys’ Night” and “Girls’ Night” which in turn led to the “Guys’ Night prank” and the “Girls’ Night prank.”

Last year, had you happened to again been taking a stroll through the Quad one innocent night in late March, you would have seen a group of stunned men getting lap dances from a male stripper named Nick who was wearing a leopard-skin thong and had black hair down to his bum. This was the girls’ prank for last year’s Guys’ Night and they were hoping for a little reciprocation from the guys this year. Sorry ladies; guys are cheap.

This display of hormones reflects exactly why Once Upon a Mattress is a perfect production choice for a college setting. This adaptation of the Princess and the Pea tale has everything to do with sex. Quick scenario: no one in the kingdom can get married (and thus get laid) until princy boy gets married, which he is having a hard time doing because his mother, the Queen, has some incestuous lust for him. Sounds like a typical way to spend a Friday night.

And although the tuition has gone up again, AST has not seen any extra funds and their budget is even tighter than usual because musicals cost more than normal plays. Which is why last week, in the lower level of Mallinckrodt, AST held a daily garage sale offering whatever the cast and crew could find from their closets and the AST office. Soon the costume worn by The Real World’s Cara Nussbaum in last year’s AST production of “Psycho Beach Party” will be gracing the web-pages of Ebay. Even so, AST has had to do its fair share of cutting corners and the production team is depending largely on the posters and cast t-shirts-which read “NO ONE IS GETTING ANY…”, a line from the play, on the front-to get the word out about the play which is coming to a Quad near you April 5,6,7 and 8.

All Student Theater performs outdoors which means they have to compete with the weather: if it rains, the show is canceled. But we are in St. Louis; Snow on Thursday means 55-degree spring weather on Friday, so go see it Friday, bring your friends, and see what happens when a fairy tale is told the way your mother never dared to tell it.

Popularity: unranked [?]

 Print This Post

This entry was posted on Friday, April 5th, 2002 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Cadenza. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.