Off Broadway On Campus

OBOC is the University of Rochester’s only musical theater performing group. Each semester, we present a musical revue with numbers from a great variety of Broadway and Off-Broadway shows. The revues are produced, directed, choreographed, accompanied, musically arranged, costumed, and performed by students.

Auditions play a role in casting smaller numbers, but the group is open to anyone who enjoys musical theater. Celebrating our tenth anniversary this fall, our ranks have swelled to over seventy singers, dancers, and musicians!

Check out the side panels to learn more about the group. In the articles below, we keep each other up to date about musical theater happenings on campus, in the local area, and on the Internet.

Alumnus David Lu!! built a zoom-able panorama of the stage packed with OBOCians past and present, belting out “Seasons of Love. Take and a look and decide for yourself: Why are Rob W. and Calley so sad? Is Rob Rice ever not photogenic? What exactly is Dan Allan looking at? Is Caitlin pulling up her jeans to show some ankle? Has Phil worn those gloves the whole time since Be My Friend? Check it out.

Interested in joining our group? You should be! Simply come to our general interest meeting, and we’ll set you on the right path.

September 7th, 2009
May Room of Wilson Commons
10pm

Hope to see you there! If you have any questions, just contact any one of the executive board members and we’ll help you out.

Every OBOC show back to the fall semester of 1999 is now available on DVD.  The Songs & Shows page may help you remember which semester your favorite numbers were performed.

You can mail your requests to Dan Allan (currently at 311 East 30th Street, Apartment 3, Baltimore, MD 21218).  Please include your mailing address and specify which semesters you want.  I’m asking for $5/show, enough to cover materials and shipping with a little left over for my time.

While some effort has been put into digitally restoring the sound and video, you should expect some glitches.  VHS recordings don’t last with time as well as Mike Axler’s recollection of every JRB song does.

I will also make this most recent show available to alumni.  It may not be produced for awhile, so I will be shipping it separately when it is ready.

If I received your request during the alumni weekend please mail me a note anyway.  I think the most reliable way to do this is to ask everyone to send in their requests on paper with the check.  If you did let me know what you want already, in person or by email, I’ve started making your DVDs.

Interested in seeing some professional to semi-professional musical theater?  Here is some information on musicals coming to Rochester in the next few weeks.

Pride and Prejudice
This movie-based musical is coming to Eastman Theater on Tuesday, October 21st @ 7:30pm on its way to Broadway!  According to the website, tickets range from $35-75 and can be purchased through Ticketmaster, but they should have discounted student tickets at the door.  For more information, call the box office at 585-274-1100.

Edges
This awesome new musical by Pasek & Paul is playing in Toronto on Sunday and Monday evenings through November 10th. Tickets are ~$18 for students.  Check it out here.

Rooms
Geva Theater in downtown Rochester is performing this “rock romance” musical through October 26th. You can find the website here.

The Turn of the Screw
Not to be confused with Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, this opera “…was claimed to be one of the most dramatically appealing English operas,” according to Wikipedia.  Coming to Kilbourn Hall at Eastman on November 6th – 9th. More information can be found on the concert calendar and the RPO website.

MTC at SUNY Geneseo
The Musical Theater Club at SUNY Geneseo puts on a musical revue each semester, similar to our own.  Being an audition-exclusive group, I would say they’re a more dance intensive version of OBOC (youtube).  After some hunting, I believe their show runs from November 13th – 15th. More info to come!

Quotable OBOC makes its triumphant return to the OBOC website! On the bottom of left column, there is a widget that displays a random quotable! There are over 500 600 quotables in the database, including all of the quotables from the old website, plus all of the quotes pulled from emails, starting with the Katie Walsh era, continuing through Lydia’s and my eras, and most* of the quotes from the current Joe Bedont tenure. New quotables are added every time the new minutes are sent out.

So take a look! Relive all of OBOC’s most eloquent and embarrassing moments, with such classics as…

• Katie W.: I said something really dumb to Rob Rice tonight but now that I’m in charge of Quotable OBOC I don’t have to tell you what it was! Ha!
• Jeff (’03): “My rule is, I don’t vote for girls.”
  Sue (’01): “Thank god I’m a woman!”
• Jess A. (’03) : My ex-boyfriend is out there.
  D.J. (’04, T5 ‘05): Mike’s boyfriend is out there?
• M-W: “Javert is the sexiest character.”
  Ben T: “Now I know why you cast me.”
• Kristen: “The alto section is incredibly sexually repressed.”
• Shonali: It would be REALLY beneficial for us to expose ourselves to the freshmen ASAP. Yes, that’s right. I want to expose myself to the freshmen.
• Tim: I’m a dancer at heart.
• Julie Lamb: Just because I like being a lesbian doesn’t mean I shouldn’t get to have fun.
• (after one of the less memorable cross-dressing jokes)
  Howie: “Where’s your notepad, Joe?”
  Joe: “Sorry, it’s in my pants.”
• Lydia: “I didn’t write down any quotables! Quick, someone say something funny!”
  Dan: “That was pretty funny.”
• Dan: You make me want to take off and fly…oh noes, I made quotable again.
  David Lu!!: That’s your third tonight.
  Dan: Goddammit.

* I lost a bunch of the OBOC emails from September-October 2007, so if they happen to be in your personal archives, please forward them to me!

Edit: Howie has supplied me with the needed quotes, putting the database at over 600 quotes now. We are a rather quotable bunch, aren’t we? Thanks Howie.