Waa-Mu’s history seems like the plot for a “Frankie and Annette Go to College” movie. A group of eager, ambitious and overly talented kids concoct a swell idea: “Hey guys,” You can imagine one of them saying, “Let’s put on a show!” And so they do, and it’s a smash.
Seventy years later, a group of similarly eager and ambitious youngsters continues the tradition as if nothing has changed, as if each year another Waa-Mu show simply will grace the stage in Cahn Auditorium without question. Ahh, but that is the question: Has Waa-Mu changed? Or rather, has it changed enough?
When it first began, the Women’s Athletic Association and the Men’s Union offered their underground fund-raising production in more of a choral concert style, says Waa-Mu director and Music Theatre chairman Dominic Missimi. As it continued throughout the years, different groups on campus often would make an appearance in the revue – the Wildcat Marching Band or the Lady Cats would take their place onstage along with the singers and the tap dancers, demonstrating that there was talent to be found other than in the music and theater departments.
Now, though, Waa-Mu co-chairwoman Jen Bender says they’re more interested in having a “flow to the show” rather than just showcasing talent.
Each year the executive committee chooses a theme. This year’s is “Sorry, We’re Booked,” and more recently, they’ve tried to focus on having a through-line so that all the numbers and sketches stay within the guidelines that the theme sets. It’s still a musical revue – but more like a Broadway-style revue, Missimi says.
“We’re interested in training performers for the Broadway stage, so it’s gotten a little more professionally focused,” he says.
Eugene Sunshine, who graduated from NU in 1971 and is now the vice president of business and finance, remembers the shows in the late ’60s and early ’70s being more focused on the school itself.
“There were more inside jokes that people inside Northwestern had a heck of a better time understanding,” Sunshine says. “The show now doesn’t have that slant. It’s more generic in nature and it doesn’t require you to be a part of the university to get something out of it.”
Though Sunshine doesn’t see the NU connection as now being essential, he still enjoys the production. It’s just different, he says.
Missimi recognizes that in the past, the content of the shows might have catered more to a student audience, but he says the fact that Waa-Mu is offering more than just sketches about losing football games and songs about fraternity life does not mean it won’t appeal to students. But Waa-Mu stage manager Kate Webster disagrees. She says the show isn’t as appealing to student audiences.
“It doesn’t target students in general,” says Webster, a Speech junior. “It targets old ladies and old men of the North Shore.”
Speech senior Jonathan Wagner, who has been writing for Waa-Mu for three years, agrees that it targets an older audience. But that’s understandable, he says.
“The show runs for two weekends,” Wagner says. “If you got every student on campus to come, you’d still only sell out six of the shows.”
But Webster says the audience isn’t what’s really important. Waa-Mu caters more to the students working on the production – what’s important is that they gain valuable experience. Working on Waa-Mu is unlike working on any other student theater production, she says, because of the professional caliber of the production. There’s a cast of 40 students, professionals designing the sets, lights and costumes and a full orchestra: “It’s gigantic and it’s good,” she says.
But because of this stress on professionalism and the drive for more sophistication, the line between Waa-Mu being a student production and a professional/faculty-run program has become very thin. Once presented by two student groups, now the show is put on as a joint effort by the School of Music and the School of Speech. Though the student co-chairmen have an incredible amount of responsibility, a staff member of Theater & Interpretation Center serves as the producer of the show. And while the students do write all of the music, it’s actually a professional in New York who provides the orchestration for the show.
Wagner says that even the fact that Waa-Mu is a musical revue sets it apart from other productions on campus. Unlike many student shows, Waa-Mu isn’t trying to revolutionize theater or bring something new on the scene. This, in turn, makes it much “safer” than other student theater shows, he says. Though the songs and the sketches change from year to year, Waa-Mu always offers the same thing: a revue.
“Waa-Mu is almost a brand name,” Wagner says.
But Speech sophomore Alex Harvey says this is where Waa-Mu fails.
He thinks it’s time Waa-Mu offered something different – something a little more innovative than a musical revue.
“It’s very outdated and very showy,” Harvey says. “It’s not meant to be something that’s expressive of anything. It’s meant to stay very on the surface – it’s not theater to make you think and it’s not theater to make you emote in any way.”
At the same time, Harvey says it’s difficult to say anything negative about Waa-Mu because “it’s done as well as it can be done.”
“I will never see it. I have never seen it,” Harvey says. “It’s very good quality and it’s very well put together, but there’s no reason why any student interested in theater would see it.
“Waa-Mu is the epitome, and full and fleshed out realization, of everything that everybody hates about musical theater.”
But change may be around the corner. Missimi says he’d like Waa-Mu to take some turns – maybe present a full-length musical or a currently running Broadway show like “Les Mis
