Princeton Triangle Club

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The Princeton Triangle Club is a musical-comedy theater troupe based out of Princeton University. Its undergraduate members write and produce a Broadway-quality musical every autumn, take it on tour over the winter break, and then re-stage it in early June during the alumni reunion week. They also produce a "Best of" show as a recruiting effort at the beginning of the school year every September, taking only a week to assemble, rehearse and produce the show. And every spring they produce another show. (And since 2000, there has often been a third show, also original, between them.)

It is the oldest touring collegiate musical-comedy troupe in the United States, and the only co-ed collegiate troupe that takes an original student-written musical on a national tour every year.

Since the middle of the 20th century, the Triangle Club's original shows have tended to be revues, mixing comedic sketches with musical numbers, all usually based around a unifying theme (upon which the show's title frequently puns). The few original shows which haven't been revues have been book musicals, also written in-house by Triangle members.

The spring show, conversely, is usually a popular Broadway or Off-Broadway production that hasn't recently been on tour. There are sometimes even more, supplemental performances, as in 1999 and 2000, when the Triangle writers produced so much material that extra productions had to be added to the schedule between the fall and spring shows.

While the Fall "mainstage" show is written by members of the Club, Triangle has for the last several decades hired professionals from Broadway and Off-Broadway to handle directing, choreography and sometimes orchestration and musical direction. Previous to that, Triangle had its own dedicated director, the late Milton Lyons, who oversaw most of the shows between 1955 and 1995.

History

The Triangle Club was founded in 1891, born from a joint venture between the Princeton College Dramatic Association, the Instrumental Club and the University Glee Club. The name of the new organization, according to author and member Booth Tarkington, referred to the Triangle walk, a central feature of the campus in that era, as well as the musical instrument:

"As a triangle is a somewhat musical instrument, and we were a somewhat musical organization, the name seemed befitting. Thus we made a neat reference not only to a musical instrument ... but also to the old Triangle that well knew the music of our steps."

The club's first production was a show called Po-ca-hon-tas, or The Gentle Savage in 1891, and they managed to put on a show every year until 1917, when instead a four-man troupe entertained troops in Europe. Triangle went on hiatus again between 1944 and 1946, but since 1947's Clear the Track has had an uninterrupted run of original shows. In 1901 they began what would eventually become the annual tour with bookings in New York, followed by performances in New York and Pittsburgh the next year. By 1913, this had turned into a full-fledged national tour, complete with a performance in Washington, DC attended by former president of Princeton and then-President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson.

Between the early 1920s and the early 1930s, Triangle had what some call its "Golden Period". During this time it became nationally known thanks to the Tour. The club experienced a growth in both its prestige and finances, and was able to undertake the design and construction of a new and permanent home, McCarter Theater (see below). But even more importantly, during this period its graduates included a number of outstanding talents who would later go on to make a profound impact in the burgeoning entertainment industry. Among these were director Joshua Logan '31, actors James Stewart '32 and José Ferrer '34, broadcast historian Erik Barnouw '29 and theatrical impresario C. Norris Houghton '31.

During the Great Depression, though, Triangle took a hit in both finances and talent, which finally resulted in the University suspending it entirely for the duration of World War II. In the 1946-47 academic year, though, Triangle returned with Clear the Track, which was not only its first show after the war, but also its very first revue, establishing a precedent which has dominated the format of the main annual show ever since.

Triangle and television discovered each other in 1951 when the cast from Too Hot for Toddy performed on The Kate Smith Show and Ed Sullivan's The Toast of the Town. In fact, for the best part of the next decade Triangle had a home with Ed Sullivan, who once wrote the club president, "The Princeton Triangle Club has an annual appointment on our stage, so long as I’m on TV."

Ironically, as Triangle gained greater national recognition, student apathy on the campus in the late 1950s began to adversely affect the size and quality of performances, prompting the formation of subsidiary troupe Ding!, a small group who would perform classic Triangle songs at University functions.

The club had its first European tour in 1960, presenting Breakfast in Bedlam at several US Army bases in France and Germany. This was followed two years later by a second that brought the cast of Tour de Farce back to American bases in Europe.

The late 1960s and early 1970s brought with them all the upheaval of that time, among them co-education. 1969's A Different Kick featured the first female cast member -- Sue Jean Lee '70. Its successor, 1970's Call a Spade a Shovel, had six women in its cast, but this was overshadowed by the alumni backlash to the show's socio-political content and commentary, which was strongly anti-Vietnam; the show offended so many that one performance suffered a mass walk-out, and many if not most of Triangle's previously-traditional tour venues in California refused to book them for nearly twenty years afterward.

Since the 1980s Triangle has continued a generally strong path, celebrating its centennial in 1991 and its 125th anniversary in 2016. In the late 1990s it organized its often haphazard writing sessions into a formalized workshop program which provided more structure and support to writers, composers and lyricists who have dodge around exams, studying and campus activities in order to find time to be creative. The program was an undisputed success, producing not only outstanding Fall shows for the years spanning the turn of the 21st century, but also generating such an embarrassment of entertainment riches that Triangle created extra additional shows to run in the Spring in order to use the material they could not fit in the Fall shows. Triangle also continues to receive a high level of regional recognition, with The New York Times reviewing 2007's A Turnpike Runs Through It: A New Jersical.

The Kickline

A classic Triangle Club Kickline, from the 2009 production, Store Trek.

One of the classic features of the Triangle Club's annual shows -- its trademark, even -- is the Kickline. In the decades before Princeton became co-ed in 1970, female roles of a necessity had to be played by male undergraduates, which naturally included dance numbers. Group performances such as skirt dances and Ballets were common, but eventually these gave way to a Vaudeville-style Kickline. The first such documented in the Triangle archives was in the 1907 performance of The Mummy Monarch, and it soon became an expected -- indeed, eagerly anticipated -- part of every Triangle show.

Traditionally, the Kickline is made up of 8 to 12 of Triangle's burliest male members, done up in Incredibly Conspicuous Drag. The choreography is almost always implemented as a classic Busby Berkeley Number, and while the dance will vary widely from year to year, it always ends with the performers in a line doing high kicks to the blaring accompaniment of the orchestra.

During the early years of co-education in the 1970s, there were several attempts made at a corresponding all-female Kickline (with one of each per show). Allegedly this was strictly for gender equality purposes. However, the female Kicklines proved to be far less popular with audiences and were eventually discarded.

McCarter Theater

In the years before the Great Depression, Triangle grew quite successful, and by 1930 was able to open its own Broadway-quality theater just off of the campus -- McCarter Theatre. It's been home to Triangle since. Initially, it helped provide revenue to Triangle and the University by providing a venue into which other productions could be booked between Triangle shows. For instance, it was for many years a common "preview" theater for works on their way to Broadway. However in 1960, after more than a decade of declining revenues from bookings, it became a "producing" theater, with its own company generating content for its stage.

In 1973 it became an entirely independent concern rather than a University facility. Triangle, however, still retains its offices in the theater basement as well as its annual slot for the mainstage show in McCarter's schedule. And despite decades of renovations and expansions, Triangle's mark is still literally stamped on the theatre, both in the stonework of its exterior walls, and in the presence of the Triangle logo (as seen above) on the endcaps of every row of seats.

More Information

A complete list of Triangle Club productions can be found at The Other Wiki's page on the Club.

In 1968, an official history of the club, The Long Kickline by Donald Marsden, was published. Stacks of the orange-jacketed book were still a common sight in the Triangle Club offices under McCarter Theater fifteen and more years after its publication, and it can still be found used through Amazon and other outlets on the web for those who want a more in-depth look at the early history of Triangle.

The club maintains a website, a Facebook page, an Instagram site, a Vimeo channel, and two YouTube channels.

Princeton Triangle Club provides examples of the following tropes:

With over 125 years' worth of shows, and two or more different shows most years since the 1960s, the question isn't "what tropes has the Triangle Club employed?" but "what tropes haven't they?" That said, here are a few standouts.

• All Musicals Are Adaptations: Usually averted with the original Fall shows. Triangle's earliest productions tended to be scratch-written book musicals. Modern productions are almost always revues assembled piecemeal by the club's writers and composers. The 1981 show, Bold Type, though, was a musical adaptation of The Gentleman from Indiana by former club member Booth Tarkington 1893.
• Alma Mater Song: Every performance ends with Princeton's alma mater, "Old Nassau", sung after the curtain call by cast, crew and audience alike.
• Attractive Bent Gender: F. Scott Fitzgerald '17 was actually voted "most beautiful show girl" for his role in the the 1916 show, The Evil Eye.
• Audience Participation: Encouraged at the Freshman Week shows.
• Biting the Hand Humor: It's not uncommon to find a little something pointed at the University or its administration in a Triangle show.
• Busby Berkeley Number: The Kickline. Always.
• Charity Motivation Song: "USA for USG" (USG = Princeton's Undergraduate Student Government) from No. 96 - Untitled (1985) parodied "We Are the World" and Band-Aid.
• Chez Restaurant: Several examples over the years, but one of the more entertaining is "Chez Chez Chez" , the setting for the "Thriller" parody "Spiller" from Revel Without A Pause.
• Crowd Song: Act openers and closers are almost always Crowd Songs, especially in revues.
• Cut Song: The annual shows often go into rehearsals over-long, with more sketches and songs than will fit the allotted run time; it is almost inevitable that some songs will end up cut. Depending on the composer (and whether or not he'll be graduating), a Cut Song may end up recycled into the next year's show.
  • Subsequent to the restructuring and formalization of the Triangle writers' workshops in the late 1990s, it wasn't uncommon for there to be so much "cut" material that an entire second show could be -- and was -- made out of it.
• Ear Worm: Each of the five very different parts in "The Examination" (see Massive Multiplayer Ensemble Number below), although the first less so than the other four.
• Either or Title: Several of the earliest shows were titled in this format, starting with the very first Triangle production, Po-ca-hon-tas, or The Gentle Savage.
• Enforced Trope: Wholesome Crossdresser, for the Kickline.
• Farce: A deliberate element in the earliest shows, frequently added to more serious storylines; less commonly used in more recent productions.
• Freak Out: What happens to all the characters in the story being written by a hack author in "The Elevator", a classic sketch frequently seen in the Freshman Week shows.
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: A grand Triangle tradition, as is failing at it. In the late 1930s, alumni complained to the trustees of "dirty" humor in the touring show (all of which would be inoffensively tame now). And 1970's Call a Spade a Shovel was apparently so offensive (more for its political humor than sexual) that Triangle's California tour venues refused to book them for almost 20 years afterward.
• Gospel Revival Number: "I've Got The Key" from Stocks and Bondage (1982), telling the story of a young office worker finally getting a key to the executive washroom.
• Hey, Let's Put on a Show: Essentially how the club got started back in the late 19th century.
• Hurricane of Puns: A frequent feature of comedy sketches, dating back to the first shows Triangle ever put on.
• "I Am" Song: "My Own Work of Art", the Show Stopper closing number from No. 96 - Untitled (which is also a List Song).
• Incredibly Conspicuous Drag: The Kickline, and Played For Laughs.
• Irrelevant Act Opener: Often automatically so in the revues.
• Ivy League: Naturally, a portion of any given show's content (some more so than others) will be about The Princeton Experience, such as "The Ivy League Look". At the same time, expect digs (both subtle and far-from-subtle) at traditional rivals Harvard and Yale.
• Joisey: Given Princeton's location, the occasional New Jersey joke is inevitable. And even though Princeton is in the middle of some of the most beautiful of the "garden" areas that make up the Garden State, there will still be jokes about Newark, Chemical Alley and landfills.
  • New Jersey in fact became the theme of an entire show, 2007's A Turnpike Runs Through It: A New Jersical.
• Jukebox Musical: The Freshman Week show produced every September is a "Best of Triangle" assembled from nearly a century's worth of material. Some numbers, like "What a Morning" and "The Ivy League Look", have been consistently included in it for fifty or more years. Here's one such show, from 2015.
• Massive Multiplayer Ensemble Number: Common. A good example would be "The Examination", from American Zucchini (1975).
• Musical Theater
• Must Make Her Laugh: In the 1970s and 80s, the Freshman Week "Best of Triangle" performance always included one or two segments where a cast member would simply walk in front of the curtain from one side of the stage to the other, absolutely stone-faced, while the entire audience tried to make them laugh.
• Non Sequitur Scene: If you're not familiar with Triangle (or Princeton) traditions, the Kickline will be one of these for you.
• One-Hit Wonder: At least as far as general pop culture is concerned: The song "East of the Sun (and West of the Moon)", recorded by Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong and many other artists, was originally part of the 1935 Triangle Club show, Stags at Bay. (It still provides the club with royalties.)
• Opening Chorus: A standard feature of the shows.
• Oral Tradition: The choreography for the dance numbers that reappear regularly in the annual Freshman Week shows is transmitted from generation to generation of Princeton students in this way. (Fortunately, file copies always exist for music and comedy sketches.)
• Parody: "The Elevator", an older sketch frequently seen in the Freshman Week show, appears to be at least in part a parody of Six Characters in Search of an Author.
• Pun-Based Title: A common theme in naming the show since the early 1950s, and often a Pop Culture Pun Episode Title. A few examples: Ham 'n Legs (1953), Breakfast in Bedlam (1960), High Sobriety (1966), American Zucchini (1975), Stocks and Bondage (1982), 101 Damnations (1999) and Tropic Blunder (2016).
  • Since 2000, the Freshman Week show -- which previously never had a title other than perhaps "Best of Triangle" -- has been given titles that pun on the graduating year of the incoming class, starting with 2000's 2004Play, including names like Magic '08 Balls, Knockin' on '11's Door, NC-'17 and most recently 2015's A '19 Shining Armor.
• Rage Against the Author: The blackout ending of "The Elevator", a classic sketch about a hack writer (on one side of the stage) narrating his way through a (bad) thriller story set in an elevator filled with people (on the other side of the stage). When he gives up on the piece he's writing, the characters all turn to attack him.
• Show Stopper: The writers usually try for at least one every show.
• Signs of the Zodiac Song: One Kickline in the early 1980s was an absolutely letter-perfect Golden Age of Hollywood-style "Brides of the Zodiac" number eerily reminiscent of "Beautiful Girls" from Singin' in the Rain.

The Gemini Bride -- what a treat, you get two!

• Song Parody: Not uncommon, and occasionally implemented by inverting the melodic line along with writing parody lyrics. Some notable examples would be "Spiller" from Revel Without A Pause (1984) and "Nothing" from No. 96 - Untitled (1985).
• Spontaneous Choreography: "What A Morning", the traditional opener for the Freshman Week shows since the 1970s, includes what is intended as a spontaneous group dance -- complete with a fall taken by one of the dancers which turns out to be all part of the performance.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: In a tradition that dates back to Princeton's pre-coeducation days, there is always one number in the Triangle show which is built around a chorus of 8 to 12 men performing female roles in drag. This number is always called "the Kickline" because regardless of the musical style it is written in, it will inevitably end in one.