#tbt Amy Poehler as Hasty Pudding's Woman of the Year (2015)

Amy Poehler as Hasty Pudding's Woman of the Year (2015)

Amy Poehler as Hasty Pudding's Woman of the Year (2015)

Each year Harvard's Hasty Pudding Club picks a Woman (and Man) of the Year. The Woman of the Year is honored by a (very short) parade down Mass Ave in front of Mr Bartley's & the Harvard Book Store over to Holoyoke Street where Farkas Hall is located. In 2015- Burlington, Massachusetts native, Boston College & Saturday Night Live alum, co-founder of the Up-Right Citizens Brigade and one half of everyone's favorite Golden Globe hosts-  Amy Poehler was selected.

The Parade kicking off at Quincy Street

 The Hasty Pudding Club is a social club founded at Harvard in 1795 by Horace Binney. The name "Hasty Pudding" is derived from what the members ate at their first meeting. From the Hasty Pudding Club came the Hasty Pudding Theatricals which is the 3rd oldest theater organization in the world. The group presented its first production in 1844. Filled with social and political commentary, and extremely heavy on puns, the productions had been typically male students with all the female roles performed in drag. President Theodore Roosevelt is among the many alumni that performed in drag for a production. In recent years female students at Harvard have taken on a greater role.

There are a number of rules/traditions for each production- they were explained to me once by a Harvard graduate that invites us to the productions if some extra tickets come up. One is they have to make fun of Yale, and the others....escape me. Needless to say there are many Harvard in-jokes, but the productions we've seeen have been a lot of fun for the not-so-Ivy-League...and again they are really, really heavy on puns.

The Woman of the Year Parade is a short affair, under 20 minutes and a good crowd will gather once the parade is under way. Recent Women of the Year include Scarlet Johansson, Mila Kunis, Bryce Dallas Howard and Anne Hathaway. Typically the press truck stops at just about the Harvard Book Store for a picture opportunity- its probably the best spot to get a peak. 

Hasty Pudding Parade Route