With the 50th Keenan Revue coming up, The Observer sat down with Joshua Dobashi, the production’s director, and producers Jack Kuka and Doug Tackney together to discuss this year’s Revue and what it means to these Keenan seniors.
Revue as belonging
Keenan residents clearly see the Revue as more than just another signature event raising money.
“Revue is community for me,” Kuka said. He explained that participating in the Revue is a great way to get to know people across grade levels and that “it is a genuine expression of the awesome personality Keenan has to the rest of campus.”
“Revue is an expression of love and an expression of family,” Dobashi said. “Being that we do some pretty ridiculous things on stage, it does bring us together. We are down in the basement stripping and practicing, and it is super uncomfortable at first, but then you just start to own it.”
He elaborated, “Ask any Keenan guy, this is by far their favorite time of the year.” He noted that he was in an RA meeting the other day in which they were talking about checking in on residents because of “the winter, depression and people being inside,” but he felt fortunate that for Keenan residents, the Revue makes winter an exciting time.
The Revue’s logistics
Dobashi said the process of creating the $50,000 production begins with director and producer candidates applying over the summer. Once selected in September or October, the head staff are tasked with gathering a team of 40 people. Weekly meetings begin in November.
“Over winter break is the time when people start writing skits. The first weekend back of the spring semester is when we hold skit tryouts,” Dobashi said. “The first weekend back we watched 77 skits over 16 hours.”
Tackney explained that there are more freshmen involved in skit writing this year, which he said “is awesome for us to see that Keenan is in great hands for the future.”
Dobashi shared that from the 77 skits presented by residents of Keenan Hall, 30 skits are invited to callbacks the following week and the list is eventually narrowed down to the final 15.
These final skits are then sent to Residential Life for approval. “One of the hardest parts is making sure that all our skits are written correctly and the University agrees with, or at least can tolerate, what we say,” Dobashi said.
Once the skits are set, weekly rehearsals are in full force. This year, Dobashi explained that they are aiming to practice skits earlier.
Funding the Revue and Dismas House
To put on an event the size of Keenan Revue takes considerable funding. Some of this funding comes from alumni of Keenan Hall.
“Every year we raise forty to fifty thousand dollars for the Revue,” Kuka said. “The Revue is completely funded independent of anything from Keenan Hall. All the money that we receive is from donations. The Revue funds itself every year through separate fundraising.”
Dobashi expressed gratitude for the fact that they “never even had to worry” about funding.
While all the funding raised for the event goes straight back into the event, they raise money for charity by inviting Dismas House, a local organization supporting formerly incarcerated individuals through reentry, to take up a collection during the intermission of the show.
“Last year, we raised over $6,000 for Dismas House, which they really appreciated, and it was a fun way to see some part of what we are doing, making an impact on the greater South Bend area, just more than Notre Dame’s campus,” Tackney said. “Keenan has had a really long-term relationship with Dismas House. Every week, Keenan guys go over and share a meal with them.”
Kuka added that this relationship has been going on "basically since Keenan started.”
This year’s theme and promotional events
The 50th rendition of the Revue has been given the theme Deja Revue.
“We thought Deja Revue really encompasses looking back on the past. As we mentioned, it is the 50th anniversary of the Revue, which is a milestone for us, so we wanted to pay homage to all the people that have come before,” Kuka said.
Andrew Schnitter, one of the promotional materials managers, said, “Each year, the theme is a pun with the word Revue in it. This year, it is Deja vu Deja Revue. We thought a lot about this in our early meetings as to kind of the direction we wanted to take the Revue, and we wanted something that was going to be able to look back and be in remembrance of all the shows to come before this one, while still having this one be able to be its own show that is not purely based on previous ones.”
Dobashi noted that given this theme does not relate to a movie, it was harder to plan shirts and events.
“Within the staff of 40 people, there is a marketing team that handles promotional materials, promotional events, social media, video, photography and graphic design. This group is responsible for creating a theme teaser video that drops over winter break, along with the theme reveal video, annual T-shirt and tickets,” Dobashi explained.
“Everyone knows about the Keenan Revue already. We do not need to promote it as hard, but we still try to make it fun and get people excited for it,” Tamsen Hayden, a member of staff on the promotional events team, said. “This [theme] is a little bit more abstract, so we have a little bit of trouble coming up with things.” Nevertheless, he described plans for a music-guessing game happening in front of North Dining Hall and a memory-matching game.
Schnitter explained that a lot of the promotions work as “come play this game and you will get a free ticket to the Revue.”
Despite tickets being free, ticket distribution is an event in and of itself, compelling students to wait in line for hours in Dahnke Ballroom.
Ticket distribution “really brings the energy less than two weeks before the show. People walking through Duncan, who may not even know about the Revue, can kind of feel the energy and excitement that comes from the lineup,” Kuka said.
Alumni Involvement
While alumni are not directly involved in the production of the Revue, their continued support is palpable to current residents.
“No one beats the Keenan alumni coming to that Saturday show and just cheering for every single one of the people they saw the last three years, just going on and performing,” Tackney said.
According to Dobashi, Keenan alumni can get VIP Revue tickets through the Keenan rector, Cory Hodson.
Directors continue to support one another even after graduation.
“There is not much training to be a Revue director [or] Revue producer, so we go in with an open mind, but it is not stressful because we know we have [alumni] support, and the support of our whole dorm,” Dobashi said.
At this point, the Revue is rooted in tradition.
“The reason we can do this today is because of consistent excellence over the past 50 years. It is a well-oiled machine; you cannot just start up out of nowhere. We just keep it going,” Dobashi said.
He noted that this year’s event features some specific nods to the first producers and directors of the show in the form of a pre-show documentary.
