Protesting Women Sign Up To Audition For Harvard's All-Male Hasty Pudding Show

Since 1844, Harvard University's Hasty Pudding Theatricals has been toasting and roasting the famous names of the day with bawdy and colorful Hasty Pudding Shows, featuring low-tech theatrics, rousing musical numbers and an all-male cast that traditionally cross-dresses for female roles.

One of those features may be changing very soon. The Harvard Crimson reports that an organized protest has led to 17 undergraduate women signing up for upcoming auditions and the troupe is considering ending the tradition that allows women to participate behind the scenes, even as writers, but not appear on stage.

According to the Crimson, undergraduates Tess V. Davison and Olivia R. Miller organized the protest after participating in a summer competition to write the script for the upcoming show, wanting to be a part of Hasty Pudding but rejecting its practice of gender discrimination.

The article quotes Glenn A. Kiser of Harvard's Freshman Arts Program: "For the actors that are potentially interested in pursuing an acting career, the Pudding is really the closest thing available as an undergraduate to what a professional career might be like because you work with a professional director, choreographer; a lot of the direction comes from professionals."

Click here for the entire article, and enjoy this video of Amy Poehler accepting Hasty Pudding's 2015 Woman of the Year Award.