February 3, 1961

In what chairman Phoebe Jane Wood ’63 called the “most gala event on the Vassar social calendar so far this year,” the sophomore class presented “College All-Around Weekend,” a program of events ranging from an address by American contralto and UN delegate Marian Anderson to a performance by comedian Shelley Berman and an original musical, “When Better Men Are Found.” A member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee since her appointment in 1958 by President Dwight Eisenhower, Anderson, who had recently sung at the inauguration of President John Kennedy, spoke on Friday evening in the Chapel on “A Step Towards Peace.”

Saturday afternoon commedian Berman—a frequent guest on the Jack Parr and Perry Como television programs—performed in the Students’ Building with musical support from folk-singers The Cumberland Three. In the evening the curtain rose on “When Better Men Are Found,” a musical by Bonnie Baskin ’63, Sue Buck ’63 and Judy Welles ’63. The cast was supported by a 17-voice chorus, five dancers and music by Phoebe Wood and Jackie Awad.

The play centered around “five girls’ search for a C. A. G. [College All-around Guy]” that took them from a Vassar committee room to two Ivy colleges, “Hale” and “Yarvard,” the Biltmore Hotel and a beatnik pad in Manhattan, “and to rustic Pickahick Falls, Arkansas,” according to The Miscellany News. “As the Organizer of the search says, ‘We’ll not leave any men’s rooms untouched.’”

Following the performance, a dance was held to the music of the Yale Six Pack from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. “As an added attraction, 2:30s taken for this occasion will not be counted…. The weekend’s final event will be a milk punch party on Sunday from 1-4 p.m. at Alumnae House. The Spizzwinks, of Yale fame, will furnish the music to drink by.”

The Miscellany News