Hasty Pudding's First Female Cast Members Make History At Harvard
CAMBRIDGE (CBS) - Hasty Pudding Theatricals has its 2019 cast set and it includes women for the first time ever.
The student run theater group at Harvard made the announcement women would be able to join the cast during the Woman of The Year Ceremony with Mila Kunis back in January.
"As soon as they announced that women would be allowed on cast I was so excited," said cast member Celia Kenney.
Junior Celia Kenney remembers that announcement vividly. She spent all summer preparing her audition song and it paid off over the weekend when she made the cast.
"We were all so excited we screamed we hugged each other," said Kenney.
Six women will join six men for the 171st Hasty Pudding production in the winter. It's a change two centuries in the making. Women have been able to work behind the scenes, but this is the first year being members of the cast.
"It's just crazy to think that this has been so many years in the making and that I get to be a part of the first ever cast especially as a woman of color to be the first ever black woman in the cast is really exciting," said cast member Ashley LaLonde.
The group will keep with tradition and have cast members act in drag. Eight members will be in drag, but that's all producers would reveal.
"I think there is really an emphasis on keeping people in drag kind of hearken to what a Hasty Pudding show is, keeps our patrons excited," said producer Mariana Sanchez-Medina.
The show is still in the works and will debut early 2019.