"A great seething anthill was the Triangle Club. It gave a musical comedy every year, traveling with cast, chorus, orchestra, and scenery all through the Christmas vacation. The play and music were the work of undergraduates, and the club itself was the most influential of institutions, over three hundred men competing for it every year."

-- F. Scott Fitzgerald
This Side of Paradise

Strike A Pose: A final pose from the kickline in Triangle's 110th Annual Production, The Blair Arch Project

Fitzgerald was describing the Triangle Club of 1914-15, but in many ways the description still holds true. Princeton University’s Triangle Club is the oldest collegiate musical-comedy troupe in the nation, and the only college group that creates an original, student-written musical each year that is presented on a national tour. An uncommon blend of tradition and innovation, Triangle is famous for its all-male drag kickline; Last year's For Love or Funny featured booty hungry pirates.

Each season, the Triangle Club busies itself with a few major productions. Triangle presents a Freshman Week show in September, a revue featuring some of the Club’s best material and known for its all-out audience interaction. The original fall show goes up in November at the Tony Award-winning McCarter Theater, located just off the Princeton campus. This production then undertakes a ten-day tour around the country in December. Triangle also recently began a spring show tradition called The Rude Olympics, which showcases our writing talent in a smaller venue. Although theater professionals direct the fall show, Triangle shows are completely conceived, written, produced and performed by Princeton undergraduates.

Poster advertising the Freshman Week Show in September, 2007

Triangle’s traveling troupe, Ding!, performs at the University of Pennsylvania’s Mask and Wig Annual Comedy Festival, Communiversity, schools, malls, and practically anywhere that can be turned into a performance space. Using a variety of new, recent and classic sketches and songs, Ding! shows are flexible in length and content.

The Club boasts a rich and complex history, as well as long list of alumni who have graduated to eminence in the creative arts. Besides F. Scott Fitzgerald '17, notable Triangle members of yesteryear include Booth Tarkington 1893, Joshua Logan '31, James Stewart '32, José Ferrer ‘34, Wayne Rogers '56, Clark Gesner '60, Jeff Moss '63, David Kelley '79, and Brooke Shields '87.

Triangle exists primarily to produce original shows, but it is also one of the largest clubs on the Princeton campus. Its members throw parties, take trips into New York, bring guests to campus, and send each other too much e-mail.