Revels Turns 100

em ma’s mo s t s ac red t r a dit io n t u r ns

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100.

BY ROBYN PFORR RYAN

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evels A CE N T U RY O F

A scrap of linen cloth fell from the shelf as retired English teacher Chris Carroll whizzed by on her scooter, talking about the costumes she has altered, mended, designed, sewn, and stewarded for almost 40 years. The Revels costume collection that fills a basement room in Sage holds within it hundreds upon hundreds of crystalline memories of the Emma Girls who wore them.

One of these girls, now a woman, her hair shot with gray, leaned down to pick up the fallen linen. Mary Nelson ’73, a potter after a long corporate career, carefully unfolded the cloth and laid it out on the work table in the room, leaning forward to examine pencil marks on it. Another alumna brought over an additional scrap found tucked back on the shelf.

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D

ozens of alumnae

were crowded into the costume room that afternoon during the Bicentennial Celebration weekend to listen to Carroll talk about the silk, velvet, satin, brocaded, green and gold, purple and red costumes hanging from wooden clothing racks. Lords and Ladies of the Manor, Jesters, Devils, Herald, Marshalls and Morris dancers, Beelzebub, the Hobby Horse. A green and shiny dragon with vacant eyes that sometimes flame red takes up a corner of the room. Silent, empty now, these costumes hold within them a piece of who these women were at 17, 18, working with their entire class on the brief and intense adventure that is Revels, just before leaving Emma to start the rest of life.

Deborah Dodds ’79, whose mother and daughter had their own Revels, darted about the room taking photos, her tall frame adorned in a custom skirt fashioned from two commemorative Bicentennial silk scarves. Alumnae gathered around the work table as Nelson and others pieced together scraps of cloth: Noel Nowicki Knowles ’88, and her sister, Karen Nowicki-Jacobs ’82, who wore the same Blue Lady costume (a costume also worn by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand ’84 in the intervening years), stood by Carol Hillman Van Dyke ’74, the Herald her year.

Deedra Neitzel Bowman ’63 recalled how, as a first grader, she was a Sprite in the 1951 Revels, riding a snow-covered yule log with fellow Sprite Sandra Bibbs, ringed with Attendants. As a senior, she was a Caroler.

“It was the most magical thing a first grader could be,” Bowman said of her turn as a Sprite, her eyes alive with the memory. “It (Revels) stayed with you. It was [set in] the age of gallantry and chivalry, all those high ideals and the magic of it.”

Carroll explained how she viewed the collection as a “working collection,” always trying, if she could, to work with a costume’s aging fabric so Emma Girls could wear a costume that had been part of the school’s history. Sometimes costumes link generations and families of Emma Girls: daughter-mother-aunt-sister-grandmother.

As Carroll talked, someone found another piece, laying it out on the work table, finding its corner’s match. Together, talking to each other now, nodding, smiling, several alumnae pieced together the scraps to form part of a Country Woman’s dress pattern.

Several stood back, smiling, pleased with the result of their work.

This is the beauty of Revels—a tradition of music and theatre and, many say, magic that, for almost 100 years, has knit together community. The community of the performers, getting to know classmates in new ways, exploring a new side of themselves.

The community on Mount Ida, teachers and parents traveling in from far away, and those from Troy. And the community of generations of Emma Girls, now women, living different lives in all parts of the country and the world who have had their own Revels.

“Revels is all Emma Girls think about from the moment they first step on campus. I feel like I was part of something so much bigger than myself,” wrote Pascale Stain ’14.

Stain played the Manor House Baker in a billowy gown with a lace trim. “Your Revels part connects you with Emma Girls all around the world.”

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300 guests into the hall which was adorned for the occasion After the very first Revels performance, in 1915, the with Christmas trees, ropes of laurel and scarlet flowers, and cast and audience followed the yule log procession into wreaths set against woodwork panels. the library, dark but for a fire in the fireplace. Someone The Lord of Misrule (the early Jester), the Morris Dancers, tossed the yule log onto the fire, adding more rosy warmth a slow-moving procession of the Lord and Lady of the for the gathering. The black, cold December night remained Manor and their guests and attendants entertained visitors outside the library’s lead-paned windows as those gathered with antics. The Kings and Shepherds with their Pages and sang carols, ending with the Alma Mater.

Torchbearers sang carols and circled about the room until “Tonight, something has been started, which will, I settling at their long table to watch the “merry-making of the believe, become a school tradition,” Principal Eliza Kellas country girls and boys.” The Mummers, a 1918 addition, “in is recorded as saying in words that foretold a century. the rich garments and strange headgear,” presenting a comic Well, a century, just so far. play and the play of St. George—the valiant St. George who Arriving on campus in 1911, Eliza Kellas was able slays the Turkish Knight to win the hand of the King of to build on the school’s strong academic foundation of Egypt’s daughter (the infamous Dragon would not appear almost 100 years, and add, well, a bit of fun in the form on campus until 1947). All the while, Miss Effie Hogben, of Field Day, senior class ownership of the Triangle, Senior the school seamstress, a 1914 graduate of Emma Willard Dance, Prize Day, and Revels. If Emma Hart Willard was Conservatory of Music, played piano accompaniments. Then, the dignified founder, wearing black clothes and her big the finale scene: a yule log fastened upon a sled covered with grey bonnet, Eliza Kellas (still with her own trunkful of glittering frost; the sled pulled by six dancing and singing aphorisms on the proper comportment of young women) Pages dressed in golden satin. was the head of school who led the students in a snake The size of the celebration postdance through the school every year on her performance involved intense preparations. founding forbearer’s birthday.

The school baker prepared 60 pounds of In 1915, Kellas asked Ellen Manchester, fruit cake, “ripening since the first of head of the English department, to creNovember,” 50 pounds of plum pudding, ate “a Christmas fete in the old English is all emma later set aflame thanks to the essential manner.” Manchester later wrote that the contribution of “Miss Weaver and her gothic assembly hall and library were the girls think bottle of alcohol,” and 400 each of lady“perfect setting” for her hopes to create “that about from fingers and macaroons. And, not to worry, blend of the secular and religious which the moment “Miss Jones of the school presided over was the essence of the ancient celebration.” they first step the coffee urn,” the Troy Record reported.

It is possible, probable even, that she was “Revels, beloved Revels,” wrote Katharine familiar with the boar’s head and yule log on campus.

Knowlton McLane ’23 in an April 2, 1926 Christmastime celebration at nearby Hoosac i feel like i letter. She played Father Christmas in the School in Hoosick, New York. was part of 1922 Revels. Her passion for Revels prompted The first Emma Willard Revels almost something so her and two classmates, one being Clementine didn’t happen. A blizzard in December Miller Tangeman ’23, to shut her Smith 1915 stranded the eagerly awaited trunk much bigger College dorm room door and “put on the of costumes ordered from Tam and Co. of than myself. whole works—Mummers, Morris Dancers, New York City. boar’s head and all just by and for ourselves!”

“Miss Kellas and I remember only too As a tradition, Revels can be difficult to vividly our hurried trip to the Troy station describe. “A weirdly wonderful thing” and “bizarre, but (by trolley!) in the late afternoon to find but one trunk magical” are how two alumnae tried. Revels is not just about holding crowns and silk hats for the Morris Dancers; the script, the processions, the pageants, the winter holiday thence a fruitless journey to Albany in an effort to persuade season, or even its ingredients: roles like the Jester or the a costumer to outfit the cast for that evening,” Manchester Alchemist, St. George, music and carols composed wrote in 1933 in The Triangle. Since no invitaby teachers, a costume collection unusually large tions had gone out for this performance, Kellas for a school of this size. Revels lives in its live delayed the show until after the holidays. performances and in being passed down Revels quickly grew into a tradition from generation to generation. Revels lives beloved by the greater community. In in the caring of students like Bina Williams 1917, Kellas began sending invitations to ’71, who wears her Revels pin each holiday, the performer’s parents, many traveling to Drusilla Escher Malavase ’54, who sings the the school from far away states in the days Revels carol “On This Day” to herself each when interstate travel was an arduous underChristmas, Joshunda Sanders ’96, who carries taking. Soon, Miss Kellas was receiving up to

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reveal of a senior’s part to the Emma community is an with her—from move to move—the VHS tape of her Revels, essential element of the electricity of the Friday night Revels despite not owning a VCR. performance each year. Thumping. Thunderous. Ear-piercing Since 1915, Revels has undergone some changes. Today, screaming. “Tribal” is another word used to describe the Revels is very decidedly a senior tradition. But, originally, noise of the underclasswomen and recent alumnae as they Revels parts were played by underclasswomen and seniors, recognize each senior transformed in her Revels role. seniors even came back to reprise their parts. Also, for “I still wonder when the floors of Kiggins are going to many years, Revels was a performance given by boarders fail,” wrote Dodds, whose class was only allowed to stomp for the school’s boarding community and their parents. at the beginning when the doors were first opened, but It was not until after World War II that day students not during the show. were full participants.

Arriving as a new junior, Jane Giammattei White ’79, The boar’s head, now a painted stage prop, once was felt outside of the Revels experience as she sat among real. The school’s chef baked a 12-pound pig’s head butchered her classmates, suddenly stomping on the floor with for the school, decorating it with mashed potatoes, cranberall they had. ries for eyes and, according to ancient tradition, an apple in “I so wanted to have that feeling like I belonged,” said its mouth—all in the days before refrigeration. The plum White, who played “a really slurry drunk” in her Revels. pudding, decorated with holly and ground pine, was made “The moment I came through that door in Kiggins, I did. by the school baker from an old English recipe.

That was the moment of belonging.”

Changes in the size of the graduating class Revels is a giant ensemble production built have necessitated flexibility and creativity around a core of roles in the original script. on the part of the directors and costumer.

One of these roles, the Jester, bringing antics In 1973, an unusually large class of 120 and play to the English manor scene, later girls led to the Revels appearance of 10 is not merely became the school’s mascot in the 1970s, as Monks. Another year, there were four Jesters. a production a sign of the importance of the Revels tradi“Really,” sighed one alumna, trying in vain tion. Susan Decker Hendricks ’60, who sang to withhold judgment. Carroll would agree. of one age, a duet, “No John, No,” with Peggy Brown, “Okay, girls we’re not going to have endbut rather an pointed out, with evident pride, how the less Jesters. We’ve gotten up to four. We’ve accumulation Jester her year, Kendra Stearns O’Donnell had more Devils than we ever thought we of time’60, went on to become, in 1987 at age 44, would,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. the first female principal at Exeter in the Originally, Revels was overtly Christian honored school’s then 206 years. with a nativity scene, or “the Episode of the traditions, “I loved being the Jester. I felt it was a Adoration,” reflecting the far different role gathered great honor,” said O’Donnell, who had played by religion in society until the late and blended been the head of Campus Players. “I still 21st century. The scene was later removed, remember what it felt like to wear that probably as part of efforts to make the school through costume. It was all satin. It felt terrific. It more inclusive. the ages. was a great moment. Revels is just astonishToday, Revels’ casting is cloaked in secrecy. ing. Every single role is critical to the whole.

“Do Not Enter Under Threat of Death” was And you can see it. Everyone knows that her a sign warning underclasswomen to stay role is so important so they give it so much heart.” away from top-secret rehearsals, after the director and senior At audition time, the roles are quickly divided into singclass commandeered Kiggins Hall, recalls Deb Geraghty ’88. ing roles, dancing roles, and acting roles. Bina Williams ’71, This past year, Eugene Lee ’17, without intending to, saw who had been involved in all the singing groups was cast as part of the Dragon costume on a visit to the Assistant Head one of the Waits who sang a capella. Dodds didn’t try out for Academic Affairs’ office. “I didn’t mean to see it! Really,” for the Lord, the part played by her mother, Polly Parker she said, laughing.

Dodds ’54, because she had no acting experience, as her Originally, the cast list was not a secret. Newspapers mother had had. in Winnetka, Illinois; Buffalo, New York; and Detroit, “I was not a dancer. That narrows down the roles rather Michigan, published notices of a hometown Emma Girls’ fast. I was a Marshal,” she wrote. Her daughter, Katie roles in the Emma Willard School “traditional Christmas Smith ’14, was Tom and a Bearer of the Boar's Head this pageant.” Secrecy, with its attendant mystique and weeks past year. of guessing, was added to the Revels tradition sometime Mary Nelson had tried out to be the Jester, but was cast between 1946 and 1952; by 1953 the casting was comas a Lantern Bearer. pletely secret, reports Drusilla Escher Malavese ’54.

“When it was announced, I was ecstatic and quickly realThis past year, the entire senior class held hands in ized it was a much better ‘fit’ for me than the Jester. I was a Maguire as the directors ran through the cast list. The big

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class clown, a little immature. We had such a great time, the other Lantern Bearer, Marilyn [Beachum Wilson ’73], and I.” Paige Hill Starzinger ’76, who had not done theatre, was cast as a Lady, a fitting role given that she later worked for Vogue for 12 years.

Joshunda Sanders ’96 was cast as the Alchemist, a role she viewed as “perfect for a person difficult to categorize; sort of funky and one of a kind (not that all Emma women aren’t in their own way!),” she wrote. She relished the role because one of the upperclasswomen she loved, Qiana Mestrich ’95, also had been the Alchemist.

Twins Deborah Geraghty and Wendy Jenkins ’88, were both Devils. “Some things never change,” joked classmate Noel Nowicki Knowles ’88.

For at least two years, Carol Russell Collier ’69, told the director she wanted to be the Dragon.“I loved people trying to guess who it was,” she said, smiling.

Drusilla Escher Malavase ’54 also wanted the Dragon role, but for mostly practical reasons. She had to get on a train to Ohio right after the performance and didn’t want a role with a lot of make-up to take off before her trip.

As parts go, very few people try out to be, well, the Dragon’s Butt.

“I was the Country Woman carrying the eggs. Then at an assembly, Mr. [Kevin] Bradley [then the director] announced, ‘We have a problem, girls. We need an ass,’” Kelly McDonald ’05 recounted. “Well, I have a policy in which I will try anything once.” And so, a star, or dragon’s butt, was born.

The Revels tradition is a dynamic one, the script expanding and changing from year to year to include new features. In the early days, these additions were still in keeping with the festive Elizabethan tenor of the show. For example, in the late 1950s, new additions included a scene from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and a dramatized version of the English ballad “The DarkEyed Sailor.”

“We can see that Revels is not merely a production of one age, but rather an accumulation of time-honored traditions, gathered and blended through the ages,” wrote Sally Paige Hooker ’31 in The Triangle.

Some performances have blended in the individual talents of members of the class. Meredith Hunter ’05 and Kathryn Prout ’14 performed Scottish dances; Yuan-Ti “Annette” Ho ’14 played the cello. In 2001, sisters Branca and Gabriela Ferraz ’02, skilled in acrobatics, did their entrance as Jesters over the Lords and Ladies’ tables from the catwalks, rolling down on aerial silks.

“The truth is that Revels is constantly shifting and changing and that is part of its wonder and joy,” said Mark Van Wormer, who has photographed 34 years of Revels performances.

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In recent years, Revels has included cameo appearances from pop culture and other literary characters chosen by individual classes, reflecting today’s far less formal society.

Recent performances have included Harry Potter, Gollum and Bilbo Baggins, a gargoyle, the young royal couple— Will and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

Even Justin Bieber and the Grinch have visited the English manor house.

Gemma Halfi will be directing this year’s Revels— the 100th production. Halfi calls Revels one of her very favorite things in the world. She has been at Emma Willard for the past ten years as a resident faulty member, and, for the last four, as the assistant director of Revels.

“Each individual class is able to add their ideas and talents to leave their mark. I think that’s important. They need to own that Revels,” said Halfi. “The beauty of Revels is that we combine the magic of a century-old tradition with each particular senior class' own personality and flair.

Once they enter Kiggins Hall the playing field is leveled.

Everybody is connected through this beautiful magical thread of people who have experienced Revels. The result is a generous gift given to the community, from the senior class, of their own, special, Revels.”

Traditions that endure rely on guardians who care and put the work in from year to year in order to pass down their ritual and their meaning to the next generation. Effie Hogben, the campus seamstress who designed and sewed most of the original Revels costumes on her old-fashioned Singer sewing machine is surely one of these guardians.

“Getting a fitting with her in this Harry Potter-like basement room was part of the magic of it,” recalled Carol Hillman Van Dyke ’74. Chris Carroll, as a new English teacher, was asked to assist Hogben in 1976. Sadly, Hogben, then walking with the assistance of two canes, died the next year. Ever since, Carroll has put time and skill and patience and heart into her role as keeper of the costumes as only the second head Revels seamstress in a full century. Carroll is surely another guardian who has kept Revels alive for so many Emma Girls.

“As I work on the pieces through the generations, I invite her spirit,” said Carroll, who began working on Revels at age 24 and has recently become a grandmother.

“Okay Miss Hogben, what would you do here? Should we consider doing something new? Is it time to retire this piece? I have such a sadness that I didn’t have these conversations with her that first year.

But there just wasn’t time.”

Directors have left their passionate imprint on the tradition. Revels’ author Ellen Manchester directed the productions for more than 30 years. Over the years, there have been a handful of other directors, including Dorothy Kirkland in the 1950s and early ’60s, and Brian

Davidson, who began developing a history of the play in the 1980s through mid-’90s. Several Revels’ carols were composed by William Glover, the director of the music conservatory.

So many faculty members have put time and heart into the production.

In 1986, Associate Head Emerita Trudy Hanmer, then acting head of school after the death of beloved principal Bob Parker, in September, faced an emergency when a storm knocked out power at the school only hours before Revels. No generator.

The idea of the underclasswomen walking down stairs in the annual tradition, many wearing high heels they were not used to walking in, prompted her to consider cancelling Revels.

“You’ve ruined my life,” one upset student exclaimed.

Hanmer quickly enlisted faculty to go out and buy as many flashlights as they could. Van Wormer recalls ducttaping flashlight after flashlight on the woodwork in Kiggins; others lined the first floor of Slocum. Of course, the power came on in time.

This Revels will be Halfi’s first as director. This Revels will be Chris Carroll’s 40th. This Revels will be the 100th production after its first performance on a cold night in December 1915.

This Revels will be the Class of 2015’s first, and only.

This Revels will be two nights in December that will link these Emma Girls to the voices and spirit and laughter and toil of so many Emma Girls before them, and so many more who will follow in the Revels tradition.

Robyn Pforr Ryan is an award-winning writer and journalist based outside Albany, New York. In addition to working on her first novel, she is also the proud parent to Emma Girl Chandler Ryan ’15 who will grace the 100th Revels stage as…shhhhh.

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T H AT WA S N ’ T

The “Show Must Go On” is one of the oldest adages in theater. But one year, 1945, Revels did not.

The world was at war. The school sponsored a transport ship, the S.S. Emma Willard, with war bonds. The students knit socks for the soldiers overseas. Their letters from home included news of older brothers, uncles, fighting overseas as soldiers. But it was the specter of death from the flu, and not wartime exigencies, that forced Anne Wellington to shut down the school early that December.

“Flu Epidemic Sweeps State, Many Schools Closed Down” was the December 10, 1945, United Press headline. As best as she can recall, Nina Pattison ’46, said there was no mention of Revels at all. Very quickly, the students were ordered home. “We were just outraged. We were so furious. We could not believe this could happen. We had been practicing so hard,” said Pattison. “We had all looked forward to Revels forever and ever. Some of us day girls had been there since first grade.”

The cast list for the two Revels productions had already been printed in the Troy papers. Pattison had been picked for the role of Mary in the Adoration, which began Revels in those years. Jeanne Papy Dixon ’46 wrote her mother, back home in Savannah, Georgia, that she got a part as a Morris Dancer, “a pretty good part and I’m lucky to have gotten it.”

The disappointment at Revels’ being cancelled was acute for the seniors, who had been looking forward to their turn at Revels for so many years.

These wounds healed slowly. Alumnae Relations reached out to the Class of ’46 for their 25th Reunion, asking if they wanted to recreate the Revels that wasn’t. The answer: no. “We maintained our mad,” said Pattison, some mischief in her eyes. Pattison, who had been a Sprite in an earlier Revels, is now a mother of three, grandmother of seven.

It was not until she read Associate Head Emerita Trudy Hanmer’s book, Wrought With Steadfast Will: A History of Emma Willard School, that Pattison realized that Wellington had had a serious situation on her hands.

This past winter, Pattison, as her class reporter, wrote in her class’ notes, “Those of us who have held that grudge for all these years might have to consider giving it up! Hmmm,” noting that she herself was preparing to attend the 99th Revels to see her grandniece perform.

On an early evening this summer, Pattison and Hanmer drank iced tea and lemonade flavored by mint from Pattison’s garden on the back patio of Pattison’s Troy brownstone. They reminisced about events at Emma so long ago, laughing and talking and laughing again. It was apparent to this reporter that, for Pattison at least, the grudge was history.

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