Triangle Club

The Triangle Club evolved from the Princeton College Dramatic Association, which changed its name to Triangle Club in 1893, ten years after its founding. Two years before, the association had given up formal drama for musical comedy, and, according to Booth Tarkington 1893, the new name, which fittingly referred to a musical instrument, was inspired by a favorite walk* on which students would sing Henry Van Dyke 1874's Triangle Song: "Well the Old Triangle knew the music of our tread / How the peaceful Seminole [Seminary student] would tremble in his bed / How the gates were left unhinged, the lamps without a head / While we were marching through Princeton."

In his senior year, as president of the Dramatic Association, Tarkington wrote "The Honorable Julius Caesar," a musical parody of Shakespeare's play that was performed again the following year as the Triangle Club's first production. Tarkington played the part of Cassius, for whose "lean and hungry look" he was well cast, being, as Jesse Lynch Williams 1892 wrote, "woefully gaunt, almost cadaverous."

To provide a home for the Triangle Club -- its early performances were staged in University Hall's dining room -- Tarkington initiated a campaign that raised funds for a small building erected in 1895 on what was then the lower campus. For more than a quarter of a century this modest structure, which was called the Casino, served as a home for club rehearsals and local performances, as a place for dances, tennis, and bowling, and as an armory for a local company of the National Guard.

Outstanding among early Triangle shows was "Tobasco Land" (1905-06), which was enthusiastically received. "What these players lack in technique," Professor Stockton Axson said in a Prince review, "they make up for by their superior intelligence and manifest glee in acting" -- an observation that could apply to a long line of shows that followed. "Tobasco Land" was distinguished by the music and lyrics of Kenneth S. Clark '05 (composer of "Going Back to Nassau Hall"). One of Clark's hits was "Floating on a Marcel Wave':"

"And it's oh, my lads, yo-ho, How the ladies all pursue me! And it's ev'ry where I go, They are always clinging to me. As a breaker-up of homes I'm a reckless sort of knave, Whene'er I go a-floating on a Marcel wave."

In the years just before the First World War, Triangle shows were enlivened by the lyrics of F. Scott Fitzgerald '17, who also appeared on stage as a very attractive chorus girl. One show entitled "Fie, Fie, Fi-Fi!" (1914-15) became "Ha-Ha Hortense!" in This Side of Paradise, where Fitzgerald, describing a classically hectic rehearsal, says: "How a Triangle show ever got off was a mystery, but it was a riotous mystery anyway, whether or not one did enough service to wear a little gold triangle on his watch-chain." Another show, "The Evil Eye" (1915-16), for which he wrote the lyrics, employed the talents of two other students who became well-known writers, Edmund Wilson '16, who wrote the book, and John Peale Bishop '17, who was a member of the cast.

In the postwar years the club attained a high point in its history under Donald Clive Stuart, Professor of Dramatic Literature, who directed performances from 1919 to 1934. An updated version of "The Honorable Julius Caesar," (1918-19) and "The Isle of Surprise" (1919-20) introduced a Gilbert and Sullivan kind of show, remarkable for the clever dialogue and lyrics of Hope Coffey '20 and the tuneful melodies of Erdman Harris '20, whose evocation of Triangle music at alumni reunions in later years made him one of the best known of Triangle men.

A memorable song of this period, "One Hour More" ("Just one hour more is all I crave / For one hour more I'll be your slave"), from the 1921-22 show "Espanola," was still being hummed at reunions fifty years later. It was composed by Louis E. Tilden '22 and played by him on his accordion, as it was sung by his classmate J. Russell Forgan '22. The song's opening notes are inscribed on a piano at Prospect as well as outside Woolworth Music Center's Room 108, which was given by Forgan and Tilden to commemorate their Triangle collaboration and lifelong friendship.

Another star of the twenties was Wallace H. Smith '24, one of the finest comedians in the club's history. In his senior year he wrote "Drake's Drum," based on a poem about Sir Francis Drake by the English poet Alfred Noyes, a visiting professor at Princeton. Critics called this the best Triangle production ever; its book, dialogue, music, lyrics, costumes, scenery, acting, and dancing were all effectively combined to make it a standard by which succeeding shows were judged. Best known and longest remembered among several outstanding hits was "Ships That Pass In The Night," whose lyrics and music, by Smith, appear on the following page. Four other numbers in the show were written by Robert M. Crawford '25, who also did the orchestration and played the part of Sir Francis Drake.

"Drake's Drum" was the first of seven shows that were put on without a local theater, the old Casino having burned down in January 1924. By 1930 the club had secured a permanent home, whose cost was met by a $250,000 gift from Thomas N. McCarter 1888, for whom the theater was named; by Triangle Club earnings of over $100,000; and by other gifts, including the proceeds of a benefit performance by the Hasty Pudding Club of Harvard.

The last years of Dr. Stuart's directorship were enlivened by a very talented group of undergraduates who produced a number of notable shows and who later made their marks in the performing arts. Best known among them in college and afterward were Joshua Logan '31, James Stewart '32, and Jose Ferrer '33. Logan helped write the book and played leading roles in "Zuider Zee" (1928-29), "The Golden Dog" (1929-30), and "The Tiger Smiles" (1930-31). Stewart had parts in the last two of these and also played the lead in "Spanish Blades" (1931-32). Ferrer, who joined the Triangle Club his senior year, was the bright spot in "It's the Valet" (1932-33).

Other talented members of this group were actor Charles Arnt '29, who went on to a career in Hollywood; writer Eric Barnouw '29, who became dramatic arts professor at Columbia; writer and actor A. Munroe Wade '30, later a leader in theater productions and a drama teacher in the Princeton community; set designer Norris Houghton '31, later a founder of the Phoenix Theater and a drama professor; and Myron McCormick '31, who was a comic hit in "The Tiger Smiles" as he was later in Logan's "South Pacific." "The Tiger Smiles," a satire on student life put together by Logan when he was club president, was highly praised by the Prince as "a grand show, brilliant and original."

Following Dr. Stuart's retirement, the club had a succession of directors including Logan and several other Triangle alumni. The first of several shows that Logan was associated with, "Stags at Bay" (1934-35), earned enthusiastic reviews on its tour, sold out two nights running in New York, and had three memorable songs: "Will Love Find a Way?" by Brooks Bowman '36 and Kirkland B. Alexander, Jr. '37, and "Love and a Dime" and "East of the Sun (and West of the Moon)" by Bowman. "East of the Sun" was probably the most popular and longest-lasting hit nationally ever to come out of the Triangle Club.

The 1940s brought several good shows. "Ask Me Another" (1941-42), a swift-paced review based on the Gallup Poll and organized by club president Mark Lawrence, prompted Variety to say "the Princeton lads really have something this year." The first postwar show, "Clear the Track" (1946-47), satirized the University's Bicentennial Year to the delight of the Prince, which pronounced it an undoubted hit because of its spontaneous gaiety and its excellent music.

In 1955-56 Milton Lyon began a long and successful directorship with the production of "Spree de Corps," which one veteran reviewer thought "the best of them all." This show was put together in its initial stages by Triangle president D. Brooks Jones '56, who later became head of Cincinnati's Playhouse in the Park.

The 196Os produced a number of creditable performances, some of them displaying the talents of exceptional writers. "Breakfast in Bedlam" (1959-60) and "Tour de Farce" (1961-62) made summer tours of United States army bases in Europe. All of the music and some of the lyrics of the tuneful "Breakfast in Bedlam" were written by Clark Gesner '60, in later years author of the popular off-Broadway musical "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown." Jeffrey Moss '63, who collaborated with John Simon '63 in writing the book, music, and lyrics for "Ahead of the Game" (1962-63) was head writer for TV's "Sesame Street" during its formative years. "Funny Side Up" (1963-64) found much favor with alumni for its pleasing revival of songs and skits from past productions. "Grape Expectations" (1964-65) and "A Different Kick" (1968-69) won prizes as the best college shows in the country.

In 1971 alumni representing fifty years of the club's history came back to Princeton to honor Benjamin Franklin Bunn '07, graduate treasurer from 1908 to 1965, who had died at the age of ninety-six. At their memorial gathering in McCarter, called "One Hour More for Uncle Ben," they sang hits from the past and listened to affectionate reminiscences by Josh Logan and others about the man who had "chaperoned" their Christmas tours for half a century. At the conclusion, Jimmie Stewart read the text for a plaque in memory of Bunn, and as the lights dimmed, undergraduate men and women from the current show, holding lighted candles, lined the aisles of the theatre, and sang "All the Ships That Pass in the Night."

With the advent of coeducation in 1969, the Triangle Club was able to assign to women the female roles formerly taken by men. In the chorus lines, however, the club on occasion managed to enjoy the best of the old and new worlds by having men portray women, as was done in the successful 1974-75 production, "American Zucchini." This entertaining examination of a day in the life of a Princeton undergraduate, was directed, as were most of its twenty predecessors, by Milton Lyon.

What Triangle has meant to generations of undergraduates was summed up by Joshua Logan in the foreword to its history, The Long Kickline by Donald Marsden '64, which the club's Board of Trustees brought out in 1968:

". . . The Triangle Club, smiling like a basketful of cats, lives on as though it had nine-times-nine lives. It is the Great Vitrine for youth, the Bulletin Board for young ideas, the proving ground for talent that still is permitted to fumble; it is a place to sing, to do pratfalls, to thumb one's nose at authority, to test the last liberties of adolescence, to taste the true wine of being an American."

George S. Stephenson

*The sides of the Triangle Walk were Stockton and Mercer Streets, the apex their junction at University Place, the base of the "Little Triangle," Lover's Lane, and of the "Big Triangle," Quaker Road.

Source: Leitch p. 476 ff