Kevin Schoenfeldt (3L)
The Follies Exec, led by Adam Ragusa and Elizabeth Creelman, announced this week that they had decided to cancel this year’s show in light of the fact that Professor Anthony Niblett is on leave.
“It’s really tough,” Ragusa told us. “We’ve been brainstorming all summer, we had tons of great ideas, and suddenly we find out that Professor Niblett is on leave? That’s, like, three quarters of the show out the window.”
The decision hit Creelman hard. “The decision hit me hard,” she said. “But I guess Niblett is somewhere in Australia or England or something. Which one is it again?”
When this reporter informed Ragusa and Creelman that Professor Niblett had been spotted on campus as recently as last week, Ragusa responded, “Yeah, but 1Ls won’t even know who he is, you know? What’s the point?” He seemed very depressed.
In response to the news, a grassroots campaign has formed to have Dean Iacobucci step in to save the show and take on a more central role in this years Follies. A Kickstarter page has already raised $4.57. However, some commentators have pointed to the language of the “Make Iacobucci a Star” page with suspicion: “Ed Iacobucci starring in Follies is the stuff of which deans are made. Get it? Like dreams, but deans. Dean Iacobucci has long been the most beloved dean in U of T Law history and it’s about time he became the most beloved star of Law Follies. Nobody ever liked Niblett that much anyway.” Who else but the Dean himself, these sceptical commentators ask, would describe Edward Iacobucci as U of T’s most beloved dean?
UV reached out to Dean Iacobucci for comment and we were told that, “Under no circumstances did Dean Iacobucci start his own Kickstarter campaign. But if he did, it would only have been because the enormous groundswell of support from the U of T Law community at large demanded it. The Dean has a natural and magnetic charisma, unlike others who require fancy PowerPoint presentations to overcompensate for their own mediocrity.”
Is this truly the end of Law Follies? We here at UV hope not. What else are we going to do at 8:00 PM on February 8, at The Opera House? How else will we see how talented our fellow students are? How else will we share in an all-too-brief reprieve from the hellacious nightmare that is living in the modern world? We need Follies—now more than ever.