Harvard's Hasty Pudding Theatricals Will Celebrate 175 Years with HEIST HEIST BABY

Harvard's Hasty Pudding Theatricals has just announced its 175th annual show- HPT 175: Heist Heist Baby, written by Madeleine Dowd and Sophie Garrigus.

Heist Heist Baby will run February 2 through March 3, 2024 at Harvard’s historic Farkas Hall, followed by engagements in New York City and Bermuda.

Tonight, Manhattan’s rich, famous, and devious are painting the town red at a gallery opening for the mysterious celebrity artist Spanksy. Everyone who’s anyone is on the guest list, except aspiring journalist RITA L’BOUTETTE. Desperate for a big headline, Rita sneaks into the party and finds herself rubbing elbows with VIPs like the wealthy geriatric CASSIUS WHATIMAFTER, his fetching socialite wife EILEEN ONYOUFINANCIALLY, and teenage prince of pop HOLDEN OUTHOPEFORYOU-GIRL. Bumping into her college crush, art critic ALEC ZIS, isn’t the only surprise in store for Rita tonight: when Spanksy’s $175 million masterpiece goes missing, Rita’s got exclusive access to the hottest scoop in town . . . that is, if she can solve the case by morning. But Rita’s detective work gets dizzyingly derailed by the museum guests’ secret ambitions.

How far will downtrodden paleontologist ARTHUR BONESBURIEDHERE go to find a missing fossil? Will trickster ghost queen HELGA TBORING find meaning in her life after death? Can ex-soviet spy MISCHA NIMPOSSIBLE and television star MEL O’DRAMATIC put aside their differences long enough to finish their mission? And is ELI ZABOUTIZAGE, the oldest fourth grader in New York, keeping something under his hat? Steal away to Farkas Hall this spring for our 175th musical comedy spectacular: HEIST, HEIST, BABY!

ABOUT THE HASTY PUDDING THEATRICALS:

The Hasty Pudding Theatricals (HPT) is the oldest theater company in the country, comprised of 50 Harvard college undergraduates. Since 1844, HPT has produced an original, entirely student-written and composed, pun-filled musical extravaganza. Each year, the show runs for five weeks in Cambridge before our annual tour in New York City and Bermuda. In 2019, HPT announced its first gender inclusive cast allowing women to perform on stage. Some of America’s most prominent personalities got their start in the Pudding, including Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, JFK, Jack Lemmon, Alan Jay Lerner, Rashida Jones, and even the two most recent Governors of MA.

HPT 175:

This year we are celebrating the Hasty Pudding’s 175th anniversary. We are the oldest theatrical organization in the United States, and the third oldest organization in the world. The Hasty Pudding Theatricals have presented their unique brand of student-written theater every year since 1844, the only exceptions being for World Wars I and II and the COVID-19 pandemic.

HPT WOMAN AND MAN OF THE YEAR:

HPT bestows annual Man of the Year (MOY) and Woman of the Year (WOY) awards to high profile celebrities who have made impressive contributions to the world of entertainment. Recent honorees have included Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Jennifer Garner, Bob Odenkirk, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Bateman, Whoppi Goldberg, Robert Downey Junior, Scarlett Johansson, and Justin Timberlake.