On a chilly day in late April, amid blustering spring gusts and dewy magnolia trees, The Harvard Crimson’s Arts Board embarked on a much-awaited retreat, leaving behind our beloved brick-clad campus to set off into the wild unknown.

Finals were incoming. Creative writing projects were due. Theater productions were in residency. Spring formals were upon us. But, no matter. We would devote our precious Saturday — rain or shine (it turned out to be rain, much to our chagrin) — to a lovely team-bonding activity of braving the elements.

Where did we go, you might ask? Oh, just to the iconic, world-renowned, award-winning (if towns could win awards — wait, can they?) town of “TinyTown, Mass.” — a pseudonym, of course, for the roughly quarter mile stretch of sea-bordering cold sand dotted with lobster shacks, clapboard cottages, and antique stores.

Unfortunately, not every Arts Exec could make it to our actual retreat to TinyTown last spring. However, for the sake of this story — which is meant to share the whimsical, slightly quirky, and eccentric nature of the Arts Board of the 152 — we have taken some creative liberty and have included their presences on this reimagined, loosely-based-on-historical-events retreat; as, after one year of late production nights, watch parties, and enjoyable chaos, we now know them all so well.

First of all, it’s imperative that we rewind to the week prior when Arts Chairs IAL and TAF (us) were sitting at Arts’ usual table at 14P (the real one) — having just finished publishing — and were frantically refreshing the Weather app for Saturday’s forecast on their phones. 9 a.m. — rain. 10 a.m. — rain. 11 a.m. — dark, cold fog. 12 p.m. — rain. 100% chance of precipitation. 90 mph winds. Wind chills dropping to 20 degrees.

Slightly concerning news, as most of the board (save a couple of, in fact, very outdoorsy FOPpers — TAF was also a FOPper, but doesn’t count it as he was there by accident) are, let’s say, more cafe and art museum-oriented; people who consider Harvard Yard and Boston Common as the wilderness. So, TinyTown — a town that only has one matcha cafe — was daunting. But isn’t that what retreats are all about?

As we piled into two cars and set off down Route 3 North, LBM — the very person who wrote “So You Want to Dress Like a 14th-Century Medieval Lady” — suggested that we listen to bardcore or, specifically, a hauntingly beautiful interpretation of Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club” by Hildegard von Blingin’. So, off we went, equipped with fresh fruit and granola bars, listening to the medieval harp, with hopes of finding a sheltering gazebo on the beach — “The Notebook” vibes and all.

Upon our arrival in the town, social media connoisseurs-in-residence NSK and KSD took it upon themselves to revitalize — or perhaps just vitalize — the sleepy town of TinyTown on Arts’ highly followed Instagram, @harvardcrimsonarts. With our combined internet influence, we would make this town go viral if it was the last thing we did!

As we took shelter in the town’s one rain-battered cafe, we had some time to kill. Quadruple espresso — not from the cafe but rather her portable espresso machine (send name suggestions!) — in hand, ED, also known as Rarity-Twilight-Fluttershy, broke the silence by explaining her highly researched and niche extracurricular interest “My Little Pony Game: Mobile” — showing a pride for her digital village that no pony had known was humanly (ponyly?) possible.

When the percentage of precipitation lowered to a miraculous 65%, we decided to venture onwards. Ever the iconic Culture Exec, GPA sensed the radiating energy of a nearby antique store, leading us to a treasure trove of costume jewelry, chic posters, and vintage postcards. The store proprietors — unfortunately for them — could not follow GPA’s internet culture hot takes.

After being stared down by some suspiciously pale, antique, fading dolls in the corner of the perhaps haunted store, CJR lightened the mood by casually recalling the time when she met Cillian Murphy, Reneé Rapp, Doechii, Barack Obama, and Jonathan Bailey in a gym in London, all at the same time — even the porcelain dolls cracked their mouths agape.

MJW, with her trademark chunky jewelry, attracted the attention of the owners of the establishment. Over the course of the next half hour, she bartered with the envious shopkeepers, who lost all negotiating leverage in their desperate attempts to purchase her — not sell their own — thrifted finds. Unlike the rest of us, who spent perhaps too much money in that store, MJW left having made a small fortune.

MJW, in turn, purchased lunch for all of us at a stilted seaside restaurant overlooking the gray Atlantic. When MF spotted the stormy waves crash over the Cape Cod restaurant’s huge window, she Whatsapp-texted each of us, individually, an enormous — like, oversized — Face Screaming in Fear emoji. How she happens to make each emoji triple its original size is a mystery to us — and, it seems, to her as well, as she immediately threw her head in her hands with a heartbreaking “Noooooo!”

After lunch, veteran FOP leader HMW inspired all of us with a rowdy speech to take the retreat outside into the Massachusetts wilderness (the beach). Although quite moving, it seemed suspiciously rehearsed. Sources have confirmed that HMW had given the exact same speech, verbatim, in the New Hampshire mountains to her FOPpers in the previous summer.

After we arrived at the crab-scented beach, we set up tent. One thing’s for sure: When the Editors-at-Large put their mind to something, they’re unstoppable. The backbone of the board, as they are so lovingly called, took it upon themselves to create a shelter — a temporary 14P, if you will. In addition to actually fashioning a makeshift tent — with tarps and ropes — between the two vehicles, they couldn’t help but be themselves at every step of the way.

NSG, for instance, decided to re-assume her former role as Music Exec to add some ambient music — specifically her unedited Spotify-suggested playlist from 2024, as detailed here — to the tent-building festivities. There’s nothing like building a tent out of tarps in the rain while listening to aldn’s “icantbelieveiletyougetaway.”

AJB, with his chemistry skills, conducted a pH test in the puddle rapidly forming on top of the tarp — just to ensure that the rain wasn’t too acidic and wouldn’t melt the tent: “Pfear not,” he assured us.

AXN summoned her inner Elphaba and kept yelling that the sky has “no real power!” Then, as happens 50 times a week, she got distracted and started wondering — out loud — “When will I find the love of my life?”

MEG found solace on her laptop by looking at 16th-century depictions of the night sky, perhaps inspired by the genuine fear that the cars would get stuck in the mud and we’d have to camp outside for the night.

And, of course, JJM made sure to film the whole endeavor in a short titled “Trying Your Best Sometimes Isn’t Enough” — we submitted this to the Cannes Film Festival, don’t worry.

Inside the tent, with the sound of gentle waves crashing into the icy sand, we debated — or wondered, silently — what we should do next. When the sound of crickets became unbearable, RSCK repeated her go-to line — “Woah, not everyone all at once!” — and decided to debut her newly written one-person show, in which she performs satirical — but tear-jerking — skits of Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande’s beloved (by Arts, at least) press tour.

After we emailed the Tony Awards nominating RSCK’s new show, “No, It’s a Non-Demi-Curious Semi-Binary Relationship,” EEC, who was still holding the bouquet of red roses her boyfriend sent her four weeks ago, suggested we play hot seat. Before we could even start, however, EEC volunteered a lot of information about herself, proudly claiming that she is, “in fact, always the drama.”

Hot seat ended quite quickly with NGC’s ponderous assessment on various movie stars, beginning with a fond endorsement of Cillian Murphy, Callum Turner, and animated sloths that soured into an only medically explainable revulsion for Austin Butler. She punctuated her monologue with her perpetually unanswered plea for knowledge on the latest films, one which struck a chord with the whole board in our quest to keep up with arts and culture: “Pick this pitch up and let us know how it is! Let us knowwwww!!!”

And, just like that, we left. Dismantled the tarps. Scurried back to the Zipcars. Cranked up the bardcore. Drove towards Harvard Square to return to our finals, creative writing projects, theater productions, and formals. All of us the same. But all of us — at least a little bit — changed, too.

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TAF: We have been changed…

IAL: For good.

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With much Artslove,

Isabelle & Thomas

—Outgoing Arts Chair Thomas A. Ferro can be reached at [email protected].

—Outgoing Arts Chair Isabelle A. Lu can be reached at [email protected].