Pudding Gains A Heart

The Hasty Pudding Theatricals has renounced its singleminded dedication to the production of bawdy musical extravaganzas in favor of public-spiritedness and philanthropy.

The Pudding will continue to produce the yearly musical comedy, but plans to have benefit performances in the future.

This year a benefit in New York will send Harlemites to Harvard. The Pudding Theatricals will also let other Harvard theatre groups use its stage, and possibly offer them financial aid. The dining room may even be opened to audiences.

The Theatricals will continue to lend to other Harvard productions its equipment, especially valuable follow spot lights, which no other Harvard theatre owns. To improve the musical, it hopes to recruit players, rather than just hold auditions.

Though club parietals are now limited, the rules will be changed to allow girls to rehearse long hours in the future. A precedent for this was set during World War II, when a woman gave benefit performances in the Pudding Theatre.

Peter E. Gilbert '69, veteran of two past shows, proposed the reforms which were formally approved by Theatricals producer Paul J. Zofnass '69, graduate president Richard Chapin '45, and informally by "general consent" of the membership.

Gilbert said he was "sick of defending the Pudding for what it's not." He and others said they want "to create an image of the Pudding as a respected theatre group instead of just a bunch of clubbies."

The change in Theatricals policy will offer the Harvard community three or four slots a year, according to Gilbert. He expects that this will open new opportunities for dance productions and student-written shows. He hopes it will supplement the Loeb, which he called "more a director's than a writer's theatre."