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Life in the West Point Band

~ A chronicle of daily life in the Army's oldest band

Life in the West Point Band

Category Archives: 100th Night Show

What happens at West Point’s 100th Night Show?

12 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by Briana Lehman in 100th Night Show, Concert Band

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100th night, Army, army band, army music, band, concert band, United States Military Academy, USMA, West Point, West Point Band

We’ve not much longer here to stay,
For in a month or two,
We’ll bid farewell to ‘Kaydet Grey,’
And don the ‘Army Blue’
-L.W. Becklaw, ‘Army Blue’

Every February in West Point, a certain electrifying phrase pulses through the heart of every Firstie (fourth-year): 100th Night.

100 nights to graduation. 100 nights to adulthood. 100 nights to freedom.

But what does the West Point Band have to do with that?

Let’s step back in time…

Before Facebook, before TV, even before radio, there were “entertainments.” Jokes, dances, poetry, and storytelling pulled together into a show designed to dazzle any pre-electronics audience.

And in the 1800s, West Point’s appetite for such spectacles was just as strong as anywhere else. From the earliest days of the Academy’s history, touring groups would travel to the post to perform amateur theater shows and musicals, providing students a welcome break from the rigors of cadet life.

But after the troupes had left town, what was a bored cadet in need of excitement to do?

Why, make his own of course!

West Point's 100th Night Show logo

Starting in the mid-1800s, cadets took the important matters of mood-lightening and merriment into their own hands and began crafting entertainments aimed specifically at a West Point audience.

The West Point Dialectic Society began putting on their own evenings of skits and dramatic readings, which quickly evolved into elaborate, fully-staged shows based on quirky West Point-isms that left their fellow cadets roaring with laughter.

Cadet originals with names like “Toodles” and “Nineteenth Century Brevities” titillated students and faculty alike for years. As time wore on, the entertaining evenings gradually coalesced into one annual night of West Point-centric satire that persists to this day — the 100th Night Show.

Though its content has always been 99% inside jokes understood only by the Corps of Cadets, West Point’s 100th Night Show quickly gained traction in the outside world, drawing crowds from around the area.

It was kind of a Big Deal.

So much so that in the 1940s and ’50s, Academy Award-winning lyricist Sammy Cahn took time off from writing for a guy you might have heard of — I think his name was Frank Sinatra? — to travel to West Point and help craft the next big 100th Night hit.

100th Night at West Point

You read it here folks, West Point’s 100th Night is bigger than Sinatra!

But wait, you say, certainly a musical production of this magnitude must have a fine pit orchestra to accompany it!

That’s where the West Point Band comes in.

We at the West Point Band have always been lucky enough to be honored guests at the 100th Night Show.

Each year requires a uniquely perfect soundtrack to tell the saga of that particular class’s journey from Plebes (first-years) to Firsties. West Point Band saxophonist Master Sgt. Mike Reifenberg composes all the original music for the 100th Night Show, crafting just the right melodies to tell the tales of the cadets’ bravery, adventures, and, of course, the occasional mishap during their four years at the Academy.

The band spends the week of the 100th Night Show — this week!— rehearsing with cadets, putting the finishing touches on the musical numbers.

This year’s show debuts on Thursday and we can’t wait for it!

 

Master Sgt. Reifenberg in the 100th Night Show pit
Master Sgt. Reifenberg in the 100th Night Show pit
Chief Warrant Officer 3 Michael Franz at the helm
Chief Warrant Officer 3 Michael Franz at the helm
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Just one hundred days till June

22 Saturday Feb 2014

Posted by rjny in 100th Night Show, Benny Havens Band, Jazz Knights

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100th Night Show, Army, army band, Broadway, Cadets, Eisenhower Hall, Eisenhower Hall Theatre, Jazz knights, Music, United States Military Academy, West Point, West Point Band

Screen Shot 2014-02-22 at 11.00.25 AMFor over 140 years every February the Corps of Cadets has presented the “100th Night Show” to celebrate the fact that there are “just one hundred days till June.”

Dialectic Society

Dialectic Society of 1920

In December of 1860, the Dialectic Society gave an “entertainment” entitled “Toodles.” This forerunner of the 100th Night Show included two farces, a few dances, poetry and dramatic readings. During these years, before movies and television, amateur theater and musicales were often the only entertainment available to officers and families at West Point and these shows became a welcome part of life at West Point.

Early 1900's cast

The first “100th Night Show” was a collection of skits presented by the First Class in 1871. The “Nineteenth Century Brevities” was performed in the Mess Hall, and resembled an English recitation more than anything else. By the late 1800’s the show moved to Grant Hall and was earning write ups in the New York Times. People began traveling all the way from the city to see the festivities. By 1902 the show found itself a proper stage in Cullum Hall, still used today for Cadet Hops with the Benny Havens Band. The next year the first full-length musical comedy, “The Caprices of Cupid” was staged by the Class of 1903 and ever since the “100th Night Show” has been a musical comedy. During the 1940’s and 50’s Academy Award winning lyricists like Sammy Cahn would take time off from writing lyrics for Frank Sinatra to work with Cadets crafting the next big 100th Night hit.

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The story is not complete without mentioning the West Point Band’s “100th Night Show Orchestra” under the baton of SGM Scott Arcangel this year. The orchestra has always been built from members of the West Point Band and resembles a standard Broadway pit orchestra. For this years show SFC Mike Reifenberg has worked closely with Cadets for months, composing a full book of completely original music that covers everything from Broadway show tunes to Green Day-death-metal-rock.

This is the story of the 100th Night Show. You probably won’t hear many of the songs played again after the show, but we guarantee that you will be whistling at least a couple of them in the weeks to come.12653463565_81dff3f8b6_c

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2018-04-22 Benny Havens Band at the 9/11 Memorial Community Day in NYC
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