The eternal curse of the 1L was the focus of the 2015 Harvard Law School Parody, Beauty v. the Beast. This year’s parody, which sold out and ran from Feb. 27 to March 3, drew an audience of students, faculty, and visitors, and involved a cast and crew of more than 70 students.
In the production, Beast is an entitled 3L who gets cursed (along with his section) back to 1L by “Deanchantress Cosgrove” until he can learn to love someone more than the Harvard name. The rose from Beauty and the Beast has been replaced with Dean Martha Minow’s Civil Procedure casebook, and Beast has “until the last page drops” from the book to stop the eternal curse of 1L.
The parody is the creative outlet for many students at HLS, and it is the only production of the law school’s Drama Society. Students spend all year putting the show together. It includes legal puns and popular songs rewritten to lampoon life at HLS.
The Parody was inaugurated in the 1980’s with a production of Supraman—The Parody, in which the superhero came to the Law School in order to stamp out evil and win the heart of Lois Lien. A history of past shows appears of the drama society’s website and posters from past productions adorn the walls of the game room in the school’s Pub.