Jordan River Revue

The Jordan River Revue was originally conceived as a benefit performance featuring Indiana University students to raise money for a new auditorium. Though strongest in the 1920s and 1930s, the Revue continued until 1966.

Notable performers through the years included students Hoagy Carmichael and Charles "Bud" Dant.

From the description of Jordan River Revue records, 1921-1966, bulk 1922-1933. (Indiana University). WorldCat record id: 55006954

The first Jordan River Revue was brought to fruition by Charles Hays, the superintendent of grounds and buildings and an avid supporter of drama and theatre at Indiana University. Charles Hays sought to raise money through the Memorial Fund to build a new auditorium that would accommodate full-scale theatre productions. The Jordan River Revue was conceived as a benefit performance, featuring exclusively student talent at all levels of writing, directing, and performing.

In November of 1921, Mr. Hays sought the musical assistance of student, George “Dixie” Heighway, who led a dance band with experience in theatrical productions. On 8 December 1921, they posted an advertisement for auditions in the Daily Student and created a committee to write and direct all facets of the production. The original committee consisted of Helen Coblentz, P.E. instructor and dance director; James S. Adams, writer; William Rawles, Jr., publicity manager; Katherine Rice, lyricist and costumer; and Walter Stiner, composer. The plot and script were developed as a collaborative effort between student coaches, directors, artists and composers.

Over the course of December 1921 and January 1922, numerous auditions were held resulting in 75 students being chosen as actors, dancers, singers, and musicians for the first Revue. The final cast was announced to the public on 14 February 1922, leaving approximately two weeks for rehearsal before the first performance on 2 March 1922.

The Jordan River Revue was an immediate success. It played to a full house at its premiere on 2 March 1922 in Old Assembly Hall. Due to its popularity in Bloomington, a tour to Indianapolis, Indiana, was arranged for 11 April 1922 at the Murat Theater. Rehearsal minutes from the first Jordan River Revue reveal that, as late as 8 April, the script was being rewritten and new musical numbers were being added. In addition, the Jordan River Revue was also performed during commencement weekend that same year. The performances of the 1922 Revue netted $600.00 for the Memorial Fund Drive. After graduating, bandleader Dixie Heighway went on to manage future fundraising efforts as Alumni Secretary and director of the IU Foundation.

A highlight of the 1922 Jordan River Revue was the jazz music of Hoagy Carmichael, then a student at Indiana University. His “Carmichael and Company” jazz group played in the Revue’s New York cabaret vignette. A notable associate of Carmichael, Charles “Bud” Dant, appeared in later Jordan River Revues, first as an assistant musical director and composer in 1929 and then as leading man in 1931. Bud Dant is also known for making the first transcription and arrangement of Carmichael’s famous composition “Stardust” in 1927.

Though the first Revue was produced on a $65.00 budget with a largely volunteer cast and crew and a plot designed around donated scenery, the overwhelming success of the original 1922 production won the Jordan River Revue a substantial budget for subsequent years. By 1931, the Jordan River Revue had a budget of $9,350.00 and toured throughout Indiana. In scrapbooks of the newspaper clippings of the 1931 Revue, 22 towns around Indiana featured articles about the Revue. Though the tour did not travel to all 22 localities, the Revue had gained such wide acclaim that citizens of these towns traveled to see the show in Muncie, Fort Wayne, and Indianapolis.

In October 1932, a permanent campus all-dramatics board was formed; this board combined the resources for several campus variety shows, including the Jordan River Revue and the Garrick Gaieties, to produce one professionally written production titled The University Revue. Due to the strain of the Great Depression, the Revue halted production in 1933, and the production did not tour from 1934-1937. The student-produced Jordan River Revue resumed regular production in 1938, having regained its budget from the university.

Throughout this period, the high quality of student talent remained a hallmark of the Revue. In 1940 and 1941 the script and score won the regional award for best college musical play from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP).

The Revue continued through 1943, taking a 2 year hiatus during World War II. When the war ended, Dr. Lee Norvelle, director of the University Theatre, revived the Jordan River Revue for the 1945-46 school year. Incidentally, Norvelle was instrumental in realizing Charles Hays’ original goal of building a new theatre, which was completed and dedicated on 22 March 1941.

The popularity of the Jordan River Revue peaked in the 1920s and 1930s, but the Revue remained a well-loved campus institution into the 1960s. By the late 1950s, the quality of the Revue was less consistent and experimental scripts and plots proved less successful. The 1957 Revue centered round a teenager using South African voodoo in a botched attempt to fix up her coed sister’s love life. In 1958, the plot focused on a young witch who longed to become mortal and featured a ‘flying’ witch on guy-wires. Despite the Revue’s technical display, the Indiana Daily Student commented that “the lack of plot and dialog hindered the show and the resort to profanity did not bring response. It lacked subtlety.” (15 March 1958) The 1959 production returned to more traditional subject matter and was “a deluxe Jordan River Revue, which IU has sorely missed the last two years.” (IDS, 14 March 1959) The 1960 Revue looked to tradition even further by featuring a revival of the popular 1949 Jordan River Revue, The Bandmaster, rather than a new script and score.

The quality of the productions may have waned, in part, due to lack of funding. Administrative records show that in 1929, the score was commissioned from Amos Otstot for $175.00. By 1961, the compensation for both the script and score was a $100 prize from the Speech and Theatre Department. The winner of this competition, Lee Devin, produced a script satirizing student life at IU in a “corny and gaudy farce.” The “script’s highest aim was a laugh,” but it was still a success with students. (IDS, 10 March 1962) The last program in the collection dates from this 1962 production and clippings from the Indiana Daily Student also indicate that the Revue was not performed after 1962.

A 5 January 1966 IDS headline stated that “Poor scripts seal fate… Jordan River Revue’s rebirth chances bleak.” With lack of participation in the script and score writing contest, quality scripts were hard to find. Theatre professor William E. Kinzer (who co-directed the Jordan River Revue in the 1950’s) also commented that other student-produced shows and musical groups filled the place of the Jordan River Revue and that the student talent, once so vital in the Revue, had been channeled elsewhere. No further mention of a revival of the Jordan River Revue is found after 1966.

From the guide to the Jordan River Revue records, 1921-1966, bulk 1922-1933, (Indiana University Office of University Archives and Records Management http://www.libraries.iub.edu/archives)