Founding

The program for Fly With Me (1920), one of the only collaborations between Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, and Lorenz Hart

The poster for Half Moon Inn (1923), for which the tune for "Roar, Lion, Roar" was originally written

The Columbia College Dramatic Club (the "Strollers"), the predecessor to the Varsity Show, was established in 1886 as a way to raise funds for the university's athletic teams. The proceeds of the club's first performance were donated to the university rowing team.^[1] Though originally founded as an undergraduate organization, the Strollers soon began admitting members who had already graduated into the cast, in addition to professional actors; it stopped contributing to university athletics around 1890, instead keeping the money it raised for itself, having grown into a semi-professional theater company with only a tenuous relationship with the college. The issue of funding for athletics had deteriorated to the point where the Columbia Lions football and men's rowing teams had ceased operations in 1892.^[2]

In response, the undergraduate student body formed the Columbia College Music Society in 1893, which was to perform burlesques entirely written and performed by students. The first show, Joan of Arc, or The Monarch, The Maid, The Minister, and The Magician, written by Guy Wetmore Carryl and Kenneth MacKenzie Murchison, debuted on April 2, 1894. The show was first dubbed the "Varsity Show" in 1900 with the performance of The Governor's Vrouw, written by Henry Sydnor Harrison, Melville Henry Cane, and John Erskine.^[1]

The lyrics and book of the 1903 Varsity Show, The Mischief Maker, were written by Edgar Allan Woolf, and set to music by Cassius Freeborn. It moved to Broadway three years later, with its all-male student cast replaced with traditional casting, under the name Mam'zelle Champagne. It was during its premiere at Madison Square Garden that architect Stanford White, whose firm had designed Columbia's Morningside Heights campus, was shot by Harry Kendall Thaw.^[3]

Rodgers, Hammerstein, and Hart

The music for the 1920 Varsity Show, Fly With Me, was written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. Since the book for the play was considered inadequate by the judges, the tunes were adapted to another entry, written by Philip Leavitt and Milton Kroopf. During the editing process, alumnus and judge Oscar Hammerstein II, who had first appeared in the Varsity show in the 1915 production, On Your Way, added two of his own songs to the musical, "There's Always Room For One More" and "Weaknesses". This incident marked the first instance of collaboration between Rodgers and Hammerstein, a partnership that would go on to initiate the "golden age" of musical theater in the 20th century. The writing of Fly With Me was one of the only collaborations between all three men. The next year, Rodgers and Hart co-wrote the Varsity Show again.^[1]

Rodgers was the first freshman to write any portion of the Varsity Show, and would later cite his participation in the show as his sole reason for choosing to attend Columbia, writing:

... the Varsity Show at Columbia offered a boy like me something no other school in the country could supply: an almost professional production. There were experienced directors, a beautifully equipped stage with good lighting situated in the heart of the Broadway theatre district, and best of all, professional musicians in the pit.^[1]

The three men collaborated again for the 1921 show, You'll Never Know, with Rodgers writing the music, Hart the lyrics, and Hammerstein as "Director of Production". This was the only show where all three men worked together directly.^[4]

Later history

The 1948 Varsity Show, The Streets of New York, co-written by Alan Koehler and Joseph Meredith and with music by Richard Chodosh and Phil Springer, was so popular upon its premiere that it was revived three times (1952, 1958, 1961). A version of it opened at the Maidman Playhouse in 1963, and was awarded the 1964 Drama Desk Special Award.^[1][5]

The Columbia University Bicentennial was celebrated in 1954. That year's Varsity Show saw the return of a number of alumni contributors, including Roy Webb, Kenneth Webb, Howard Dietz, Arthur Schwartz, I. A. L. Diamond, Herman Wouk, and Chodosh. It recounted the history of the university since its founding, with scenes such as "The Revolutionary War and Who Won It", "Barnard College is Founded for Good Reasons", and "Football is Banned at Morningside".^[1]

In 1968, the Varsity Show was cancelled due to the large-scale protests at the university that year, and would not stage another performance until 1978. The next performance, a revival of Fly With Me, was in 1980, the 60th anniversary of the musical. 1982 saw two Varsity Shows: College on Broadway, which stitched together several shows from earlier in the century, and Columbia Graffiti, a low-key, one-hour production that was accompanied by only a piano; due to the success of that year's shows, another production, Fear of Scaffolding, was made the next year, and, combined with Columbia Graffiti, was performed on Dean's Day 1983 before an alumni audience.In response, the Class of 1920, headed by President Arthur Snyder, who had performed in the original production of Fly With Me, donated their class treasury to create a prize fund to support future productions of the Varsity Show, fully reviving the tradition.^[1]

The Varsity Show's centennial production, Angels at Columbia, in 1994, included performances by several celebrities, including former vice-presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro, former New York City Mayor David Dinkins, NBC news anchor Jane Pauley, and sports journalist Len Berman.^[6]

The pony ballet

From its inception, the Varsity Show had been an all-male production, and always featured cross-dressing. The high point of every show was the pony ballet, a type of kickline routine. This often involved athletes, especially football players, who became increasingly involved as the pretense of appearing passingly female was slowly dropped over time. They apparently took their roles very seriously, and, according to football coach John F. Bateman, who was a pony in the Fair Enough (1939), would practice three hours every day in preparation for their roles.^[1]

Though Columbia College only started admitting women in 1983, Barnard College had been founded nearly a century earlier in 1889, and Teachers College had been coeducational since its founding in 1887. Women performed in the Varsity Show in the 1936 production, Off Your Marx, and were met with great applause.^[7] However, during the 1937 show, Some of the People, undergraduates reportedly shooed the female cast members off stage by pelting them with bananas and pennies. The presence of women in the Varsity Show only returned in 1956, and the show has been coeducational since. The pony ballet was revived in 1988, and has since appeared on and off.^[1]

Venues

Ticket for Isle of Illusia (1904), which ran during the week of March 14, 1904 at Carnegie Hall

Since the university had no dedicated performance spaces on campus, the first Varsity Show, Joan of Arc, premiered in 1894 at the theater of the Manhattan Athletic Club.^[8] The planned 1895 show, The Buccaneer, was slated to be performed at the same venue; however, this was objected to by the authors of the show, who complained that the space was too cramped, as well as by its two lead actors. Due to the impasse, the show for that year was cancelled, and was instead performed in 1896.^[1] An 1894 plan for the university's new Morningside Heights campus proposed the construction of an academic theater at the level of 118th Street; it never materialized.^[9]

The lack of an adequate performance space on campus continued through the first half of the 20th century, during which the Varsity Show was staged at various venues around the cities, including Carnegie Hall, the Waldorf-Astoria, and the Hotel Astor. The university's now-demolished Brander Matthews Theatre was constructed in 1940, and the production permanently moved onto campus in 1944. Later on, the Varsity Show would move into the McMillin Theatre in Dodge Hall, and then Ferris Booth Hall. In 2023, the show was performed in the Roone Arledge Auditorium of Alfred Lerner Hall.^[1]

Prior to 1967, the Varsity Show occasionally went on tours around the country, performing in cities including Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C..^[1][8] The 1901 show is recorded to have taken a tour through Connecticut, with its first performance in New Haven.^[10]