"The Varsity Drag"

"The Varsity Drag" from the musical "GOOD NEWS!" produced by the Shakespeare League of Pasadena in March 1987 at the San Gabriel Civic Auditorium. The number was sung by Kendall Baldwin and the Chorus of the Shakespeare League and choreographed by Gregory Scott Young.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• varsity
• drag
• good
• news
• shakespeare
• league
• club
• Pasadena
• San
• Gabriel
• Gregory
• Scott
• Young
• Kendall
• Baldwin
• dance
• musical

[cbak12sg]

I wonder why the lines about a sheikh learning to speak Latin and Greek badly have been removed?

[campbecl178]

Anybody's guess at this point. We did this show 20 years ago. I looked up the lyrics and it appears that two verses were dropped. I would suspect it was to shorten the number as it was quite long.

[livingaragtimelife]

I enjoyed this -- some of the dancing was really fun. I had a little problem with some of the costumes -- those plaid skirts look more like the 1940s or 50s rather than the 1920s. That was distracting. Was this a school production?

[campbecl178]

You're right -- the original Broadway showed opened in 1927. There was also a movie made with June Allyson in the late 40s. When we (the Shakespeare League) put it on 20 years ago, we pretty much were on our own for finding our own costumes. I think we went for the plaid skirts, etc. because it was set on a college campus, and that was just our interpretation at the time.

[TheLovableMan2]

is the stage actually slanted or is it just the camera angle? The performers upstage look like giants compared to the ones downstage

[DickieDaviesPM]

I love this! Thank you for posting it. The girl who is singing ad dancing, wow I gotta applaud keeping all that choreography straight in her head. The band rocks this so well. I've been playing this video over and over for an hour using it to help me write a key scene in my new novel.

[thelonelyslayer]

i kept waiting for them to start dong the actual varsity drag but it never happened....

[UniLea]

That girl has a set of lungs! :O

This makes me want to Charleston...

[pirateninjab]

To fricken slow.

[nostalgiajunkie70]

A movie version of "Good News" was made in 1930. Someone on youtube has posted The Varsity Drag scene from the 1930 movie. Its really peppy and kinda naughty.

[equinoxrox]

Hooray for the singer! Especially loved the ending and the way the she crazily danced her way out.

[XoXoSkyblueXoXo]

omg i love this play i did at Golden performing arts center i was slats great charater lots of fun

[willieneal57]

Thanks for posting this. Really great dancing and singing. Two thumbs up!!

[baldevis]

This is sort of slow and swing-ey...owes more to the 1940s movie than its 1920s origin. It seems like that's really common to modern settings of 1920s music, though. Modern musicians just can't seem to grasp the style, and tend to move it forward to the swing era.