Ten Boxes (Boxes 1-10); 6 linear feet , 1907-1999

The Scotch n’ Soda Club was formed in 1938 as a student organization to produce a musical for the Carnegie Tech’s annual Spring Carnival. Previously, a group called the Bacchanalians produced a musical comedy for the Spring Carnival. They were organized in 1932 and were the first student-run theater group that was open to students from all departments. However, the first student drama club at Carnegie Tech was organized in 1907 and was called the White Friars. This all-male group produced a musical comedy about school life called “All in the Dormitory” in 1908. The show was well received and toured local towns such as Sewickley, New Castle, and Butler. By 1913 the White Friars had disappeared due to World War I and the drama department took over stage productions at Carnegie Tech.

Harry Schofield and Leonard Feinblatt were two instrumental students in organizing the Scotch n’ Soda Club. Almost called Hop n’ Scotch, the group got wide participation from students of all departments and produced “No Strings” for the 1938 Spring Carnival. The Club produced five popular musical review shows at Carnegie Music Hall until World War II suspended productions in 1942. In 1946 the group reorganized and their next success was the 1947 “Rock n’ Riot” production.

The group remained very popular through the 1950s. The Club produced one musical in the spring until the late 1960s and early 1970s, when they began to experiment with performances at Homecoming and multiple one-act plays. In the 1960s the students had moved away from the traditional musical review shows and began to write in the contemporary American musical style. It was in this period that award-winning productions were made. Stephen Schwartz wrote “Pippin, Pippin” in 1967 which would go on to be a Broadway hit. In 1972 and again in 1973, Stephen Fechtor won the Broadcast Music, Inc. award for Outstanding Varsity Show for the plays that were done by the Club. But in 1976, students in the drama department were prohibited to be involved with any productions outside the department, and the Scotch n’ Soda Club suffered a loss in membership. By the early 1980s, the Club was producing a number of plays each school year in various lengths and formats. The group put on its first improvisation comedy show in 1988 and it was a huge success.

The new decade of the 1990s saw the theater group producing more serious musicals and settling in on a schedule of three performances in the fall semester and one large performance in the spring. In addition, the Club offers workshops in acting, writing scripts, directing, and improvisation. The group is still run by students elected to the Executive Board every spring, and it receives some of its funding from the Student Activities Board.

The Scotch n’ Soda Club has provided Carnegie Mellon students with an opportunity to contribute to all aspects of theater production and has a number of well-known thespians among its former-members including Frank Gorshin, Herb Gardner, Alex Segal, Barbara Feldon, Jerry Adler, Bob Finkel, Franklin Heller, and Stephen Schwartz.

The Scotch n’ Soda Club Records are housed in eight boxes and arranged in eight series. Series have been designated for subject files, events, productions, reel to reel audio tapes, phonograph records, cassette tapes and compact disks, video tapes, and oversized materials. Generally, the paper records include correspondence, meeting minutes, financial records, newspaper articles, scripts, music scores, programs, and production notes. The majority of the paper materials in this collection are files in the production series that contain information about the vast number of stage productions done by the Scotch n’ Soda Club over 60 years. The amount of information about each production varies widely, but the collection covers productions from almost every year from 1938 to1998, aside from the four-year break during World War II. The subject files in the collection provide a more general view of the Club and its operation. The rest of the collection is made up of various audio/visual formats of the Club’s performances. With the exception of the 1940 “One on the House,” these audio/visual materials cover productions from the mid-1950s to 1999.

These materials were received in three accessions and combined into one collection. Accessions from Jerry Adler, Christy Moore, and Norman Selikoff.

None.

One folder of oversized materials have been separated and stored in the second floor map case in drawer 8. A list of the materials can be found in series seven.

A half foot of photographs have been separately arranged and described as Student Activities, Scotch n’ Soda Club, photographs.

Cassandra Pyle