The Freshmen Musical

At Harvard University, The Freshmen Musical or The Freshman Musical is a student group of first-year students at Harvard College who annually write and produce a full-length musical theater production in the Broadway/West End style.

The Freshmen Musical began in 1996 as an outgrowth of Harvard College's Freshman Arts Program (FAP). Students who had participated in this summer pre-college program decided that because so many roles in Harvard theater were relegated to upperclassmen, first-year students ought to stage their own production where they could take-on the more challenging principal acting roles as well as the senior crew roles such as director and musical director. Rather than stage an existing musical, these first-year students decided to write an original production. This tradition has continued so that as of 2005, ten completely original musicals have been written by the first-year students at Harvard.

The organization is run in the style of a self-perpetuating corporation. Each year, the sophomores who were the producers of the previous year's freshmen musical audition and select a new board of producers, who then take sole-responsibility for overseeing the new production. Because the productions are written as a collaborative effort, it is unclear who holds the copyrights of each script. Since often the music is written by individual composers, the copyrights of most of the music are clear.

List of productions

* 1996 (class of '99): Shakespeare in the YardThe first Freshman musical, established as a Harvard tradition by the Class of 1999.
* 1997 (class of '00): No Bull: The Matador and The Politician
* 1998 (class of '01): This End Up
* 1999 (class of '02): The Hong Kong
* 2000 (class of '03): Star-crossed Dressers
* 2001 (class of '04): I Spy
* 2002 (class of '05): The Happy Few
* 2003 (class of '06): Get Some
* 2004 (class of '07): Hot Noise: Pecs, Jugs and Rock & Roll
* 2005 (class of '08): Shady Business
* 2006 (class of '09): On the Heir
* 2007 (class of '10): Ask Me Anything
* 2008 (class of '11): Castaways

External links

* [http://hcs.harvard.edu/~fm Official Website of The Freshmen Musical]