Hamburg Show Memories - Swarthmore College Bulletin

“Another op’ning show, another show....”
—Cole Porter

In November 1953, a new musical, Let’s Go Barefoot!, was performed in Clothier auditorium, continuing a Swarthmore tradition that began in 1879 as a pep rally for the Haverford football game. According to a 1932 Phoenix, these annual events were known as the “Hamburg Show” because they were “made of odds and ends”—usually skits and songs satirizing campus life. This latest edition, about three Swarthmore girls vacationing at the beach who get involved with three boys from other colleges, was more romantic comedy than satire.

In June 2000, another new musical, For the Love of Ike, premiered in Lancaster, Pa., exploring the romantic relationship between General “Ike” Eisenhower and Kay Summersby, his driver and personal aide during World War II.

What these two shows had in common was as uncommon in American musicals as it was for a Hamburg Show: one person wrote the book, lyrics, and music. As that “one person,” I can attest that taking total creative responsibility for entertaining a theater full of people is downright frightening.

My lifelong association with musical theater—spanning the 47 years between these two shows—is one more example of what can develop from an accidental involvement in a Swarthmore “extracurricular activity.”

GETTING INVOLVED

The “accident” occurred the fall of my freshman year, as I was playing the piano in a Parrish parlor. Senior Johnny Miller ’58 introduced himself, explaining that he had written songs for the upcoming Hamburg Show and needed someone to arrange them for piano and accompany the singers. Having performed in high school musicals and arranged for the school stage band, I felt right at home helping with the Hamburg Show—more so, in fact, than I did as an engineering major.

That led to performing a similar service for another annual Swarthmore event—an elaborate floor show at the spring dance, called the “Roccatorso” because it always featured a “kick chorus.” It included my first original song, “Be Quiet, Love.” That same spring, I switched my major from engineering to English literature.

Because all the other composers were graduating, Marc Merson ’53 asked if I would write the music for the next Hamburg Show, with him writing the book and lyrics. We met once over vacation, but most of it came together that fall, including one lyric of mine. The Book Is Open was about two students, played by Chuck Torrey ’55 and Chuck Cooper ’55, who started a bookmaking establishment on campus. Sally Andrews ’54 directed, and I was musical director. For days, people were singing Marc’s philosophical lyric “Life is a bridge game played for real, and we all get our cards from the same Big Deal.” Outgoing President John Nason called it the best Hamburg Show he had ever seen.

The following spring, I had a script performed in the annual one-act contest, wrote songs for another Roccatorso, and composed music for the lyrics in a student/faculty production of a play by Christopher Isherwood and W.H. Auden. With a heavy debt to Gershwin, Porter, Rodgers, Arlen, Bernstein, et al., I was beginning to find my own musical style.

GOING IT ALONE

With no guarantee of production, I gambled my summer on writing a complete Hamburg Show of my own, only to find that a competing script was being written about the new college president. An ad hoc judging panel gave the nod to Let’s Go Barefoot!, and I enlisted Erwin Ephron ’54 to direct, Jane Woodbridge ’55 to stage chorus numbers, and a cast headed by Gordon Kahn ’56, Debby Gross ’57, Mike Breen ’56, Carolyn Cotton ’56, Kit Lukas ’56, and Shirley Lasch Menaker ’56. Peter Schickele ’57 (now famous as “P.D.Q. Bach”) arranged the overture.

The Phoenix review by Professor Robert Walker was headlined “Hughlett Hamburg Lauds Love in Bright Barefoot Production” and began, “We have learned to look forward to a Hughlett production, and Let’s Go Barefoot! was no disappointment.” Then it was on to another play in the one-act contest and another Roccatorso. Considering the time I devoted to reading the classics, I wasn’t really surprised when a letter came from the English Department that summer: either quit Honors or curtail my extracurricular activities.

I returned to school with the promise to spend more time studying—until Hugh Nissenson ’55 and Charlie Sullivan ’55 asked me to do the songs for a Hamburg Show they were writing about Swarthmore in the Roaring Twenties. Professor David Cowden’s review of Bottled in Bond observed, “Although it seemed as though there were fewer songs this year than in previous Hamburg Shows, they made up for their relative scarcity by their consistently high quality.” Even with another one-act (co-authored with Jeff Davidson ’59) and Roccatorso that spring, I passed the Honors finals.

WAY OFF BROADWAY

Conservative instincts told me I was not destined to succeed Cole Porter, so I cleared the way for Stephen Sondheim by pursuing a “real job.” Amazingly, Armstrong, the linoleum company in Lancaster, was looking for someone with “theater-writing experience.” I showed up for the interview with a portfolio of my Swarthmore shows, and the manager with the opening especially liked the lyric, “A beer party’s a beer party in Commons or in Crum ...; with no tensions or pretensions and anyone can come.”

That’s why the first decade of my Armstrong advertising career included writing parody lyrics to existing songs for some 30 sales meetings. I became director of these shows, which led to doing the same for the community—directing 16 shows between 1959 and 1996, ranging from The Wizard of Oz to West Side Story.

Along the way, I began writing my own songs again—for a comedy revue and a girl pursuing a singing career—now influenced by newer composers like Burt Bacharach and Henry Mancini.

A LABOR OF LOVE

In the early 1980s, I decided to develop a musical of my own for the local amateur theater. I remembered reading about the Eisenhower/Summersby relationship and, over a couple of years, wrote several songs to fit the story. I auditioned them for the theater’s creative director, and although she declined to gamble on an original for the regular season, she encouraged me to complete the show—For the Love of Ike—for a staged reading in 1987. Audience reaction and reviews were encouraging, but when submissions to professional theaters and competitions yielded nothing, I went back to directing old Broadway musicals.

A dozen years later, with the “affairs” of presidents becoming a national pastime and revived interest in World War II, I asked another local theater to consider presenting a fully produced version of For the Love of Ike—a chance to incorporate everything I’d learned from working with the classics. They gave me a year to totally rewrite the book, add new songs, and enlist friends to perform an audition for them. The show was scheduled for June 2000, giving me another year to arrange the music and assemble the best cast I could find.

The newspaper review began, “The audience at Friday night’s premiere of For the Love of Ike got the chance to see the triumphant birth of a new show. The two main characters are well developed, and the music is terrific. In fact, it’s the music—from the rousing patriotic themes to poignant love songs to a humorous ditty about a rat—that truly makes For the Love of Ike soar.”

I now have a videotape to help me relive the experience. Although I’ve again submitted the show to some professional theaters—on the chance that lightning might strike—I’m content with having completed the journey from entertaining my Swarthmore peers to creating an evening in the theater that anyone can enjoy.