Published on Princeton Alumni Weekly (https://paw.princeton.edu)


This Side of the Kickline

By Princeton Alumni Weekly
Published in the October 8, 2014 Issue
Matt Dengler as Fitzgerald
Kayla David

Matt Dengler as Fitzgerald
Matt Dengler as Fitzgerald
Kayla David

F. Scott Fitzgerald 1917 — or at least his spirit — will appear on a New York City stage this November alongside an all-male kickline when the musical The Underclassman opens. The show portrays Fitzgerald as a Princeton sophomore penning songs for the Triangle Club and pining after Ginevra King, the Chicago heiress considered the model for Daisy in The Great Gatsby. 

Written by the husband-and-wife duo Cara Reichel ’96 and Peter Mills ’95 and inspired by Fitzgerald’s first novel, This Side of Paradise, the musical depicts the author “finding his voice as a writer,” says Reichel, who founded Prospect Theater Company with Mills and three other Princetonians in 1998. The show is a reworked version of The Pursuit of Persephone, which the group staged in 2005. 

The 19 cast members of The Underclassman — including Billy Hepfinger ’10 in the role of Edmund Wilson 1916 — will spend their first day of rehearsals learning the locomotive to immerse themselves in Princeton traditions. The Underclassman opens Nov. 9 at the off-Broadway theater The Duke on 42nd Street. For more information, visit ProspectTheater.org.


Source URL:https://paw.princeton.edu/article/side-kickline