Notes from the Archives of Peter Zavon: Yeomen '70

In September, the Savoyards were some $700 in debt and bills for Gondoliers were still coming in. The Savoyards, in the person of Paul Seltzer, went to the Student Union (i.e. the student government) asking for financial aid on the order of $2000. Eventually the Savoyards presented a specific request for $1756 and some odd cents, and were given $1000. The Savoyards then went to the CLA Forum, the CLA student government, asking, but not expecting, that CLA provide the difference. It was planned to take what CLA would give and then go to the other schools and the dorms for the rest. The Forum, however, funded the entire request. Connie Miller had been wanting to do Yeomen for almost four years. She had already devised the general blocking and had only to adapt it to the size of the stage and the cast. During the summer, she spent some weeks with George Fulginiti, co-ordinating the staging with the musical interpretation. George had been promised a full musical staff to help him with the production. As a result, he had an orchestra manager, secretaries, and a choral director. He held auditions for assistant musical director and had the candidates each teach a piece of music to a group of Savoyards who represented a crossection of the membership, from accomplished vocalists to people who couldn't read music. Following this, Victor Bolarinwa was offered the post of Assistant Musical Director and Susan Rose was offered the post of Assistant Choral Director. Since the Savoyards' room in 236 Bay State Road was filled with the Gondoliers set, the Yeomen set was built in the Drama Club's apartment in the basement of 232 Bay State Road. A good deal of the Gondoliers set was used and only about half of the Yeomen set was built for that particular production. It had been planned to repaint the Gondoliers backdrop, but it disappeared during the summer, and, attempts at improvising another having failed, blue flats were used to mask the organ pipes. Unfounded complaints against the Savoyards were filed with SFAA to the effect that they left rehearsal rooms in a mess and created disturbances in the halls. As a result, the Savoyards enforced total silence in the hall during rehearsal breaks, etc., and increased the care with which they cleaned rehearsal rooms upon leaving. For a time, it was thought that SFAA would not permit the organization to use their tympani, or the traditional dressing room, room 171. Due to scheduling difficulties, the production opened on a Saturday evening. This permitted the set crew to work all day Saturday putting the finishing touches on the set. A matinee was given on Sunday, and, for the first time, an evening performance was also given on Sunday. The house was virtually sold out for every performance except Sunday evening, when there was a 50% house. As a result, the production made a profit of nearly $2000. As a director, Connie emphasized the dramatic, as opposed to the purely savoyardian elements of the show. There were many comments to the effect that this was truly a "theatrical experience." The staging of the Act II Finale so stunned the audience that, after the last note of the orchestra, there was three seconds of absolute silence on Friday night. On opening Saturday, and again on closing Saturday, the silence lasted for a full seven seconds! At the cast party, which was held in the Country Kitchen of MIT's McCormick Dorm, Ollie Myers received the Bucky Beaver Award. Brad Krevor was voted the Mac Sloan Letch Award, and Marc Kelberman was given the Silver Screw Award. The citation for the Best Supporting Role went to Carol Garner's bra. With this production, the Savoyards graduated to an eight page program, and were able, for the first time, to sell advertising, thus defraying the cost of the program. * Mac Sloan remembers: The peak of my theatrical career was in Connie Miller's production of Yeomen at BU, c. '70. She had cast Karl Dierup (RIP) as Jester-Mensch, a most unusual interpretation. Her artistic thought was to give the girl a serious choice between the Captain and the Jester. Karl as Jester had clearly achieved the audience's sympathy as mensch and the audience was totally unprepared for his (directed) death in the Act II finale. You remember what joyous, noisy music the Yeoman finale is and we sang it loudly from our hearts, with whole sections of the chorus doing triumphant, sweeping crosses of the stage, with Karl down center, expired. We arrived at our final curtain positions (I was down left in a kneel in front of Wendy Shattuck's sweeping curtsey). George Fulginiti(-Shakar) gave the chorus our cutoff. He cut off the orchestra. I started counting...slowly. The audience was in pin-dropping shock for ten full seconds before they erupted, roaring to their feet. I am shaking as I write this. It was simply the most thrilling ten seconds of my theatrical life. I hope others of the cast got that from it.

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