Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory

by Mickey Rapkin

  What this year had been about, she said, was learning to grieve for someone who was still alive—there but not there. She had come to this quiet understanding. When Marissa was a child, her father had rarely been without a videocamera. And when he left, she found the tapes—hundreds of them. He’d always said, These tapes will be my gift to you. In the end, it was a greater gift than he could have ever imagined.

  “We still have the memories,” she will tell you, of the magic tricks he used to do around the house, of him dressing up in costume with his daughters. “We still have so much.”

  The ladies of Divisi sat together, wiping tears from their eyes. Marissa, however, remained strong, her voice unwavering. Until she told this story. The lights dimmed in the theater and a projection came on behind her. It was a video from when she was eight years old. Marissa Neitling is Greek, and growing up, her grandfather was always called Papou. It was Christmastime on-screen, and there was Papou—dressed as Santa Claus, placing gifts under the tree as he did every year. Marissa’s younger sister, Mackenzie, was at the age, five, when she didn’t necessarily believe in Santa anymore. But Marissa—herself still a child, really—was desperate to preserve that innocence for her sister.

  “Santa looks like Papou! ” Mackenzie says in the video. "Why does Santa look like Papou?”

  Marissa grabs her sister by the ponytail and yanks hard. “Leave him alone!” she says. “It’s Santa! It’s Santa!”

  Marissa stops the video and turns to the audience. When she looks back on that moment, she’s still not sure where it came from. But Marissa turned to her little sister, pulling on her ponytail even as the little girl repeated, again, “Why does Santa look like Papou!”

  “Because Santa looks like the people you love,” Marissa said.

  It was the one moment in her life, Marissa says, when she said exactly what she felt. When she didn’t analyze, and worry, and rethink. She wanted to find that place again as she moved forward with her life. Marissa’s sister was sitting a few rows back in the theater, alongside their mother. That’s when Marissa’s voice broke. She could no more protect her sister than she could bring their father back from the abyss.

  Growing up, Marissa’s mother had a saying. In tough times, she told her daughters, you had to Put on your boots and tromp through the muck. Marissa used the line onstage. Throughout the show, a bright pair of Wellington boots was visible off to the side. At the end of the show, Marissa sat down, looked out at the audience, and put on her boots.

  In that moment, Keeley McCowan cried too. “We cry when the people we love cry,” she says.

  It had been an emotional spring for Divisi. But the girls who came in all those months ago, with their sloppy habits and worse intonation, had found their voice. “We weren’t the old Divisi,” Keeley said, “or the new Divisi. We were just Divisi.” The disappointment over the ICCAs had subsided somewhat. Though there was a pang of regret when the girls from Brigham Young’s Noteworthy not only went to Lincoln Center for the finals but were crowned the champions. It wasn’t even close. Julia Hoffman, who’d been a judge at the West Coast semifinals and later emceed the ICCA finals, summarized it best. “Any of the top three groups from the West”—Divisi, Noteworthy, or Vocal Point—“could have won at the finals,” she said. “The West Coast semifinals has become the real finals.”

  Divisi’s singular focus on the ICCAs, meanwhile, had let Michaela Cordova hide the troubles in her own life. Always a thin girl underneath those hoodie sweatshirts, Michaela was losing more weight. She was a vegan—and the intricacies of what a vegan could and could not eat gave her license to pick at beans on a plate in broad daylight and without appearing conspicuous. But a few weeks after the semifinals, the girl who’d walked out of a hotel room in Alaska less than a year ago, rather than share some bit of herself, found the courage to let these women know her, to confront her own demons head-on.

  At rehearsal one night, Emmalee Almroth sat down with Divisi, as they had done so many times during this difficult and often-times remarkable year, and she read a letter from Michaela. She’d been suffering from an eating disorder for seven or eight years, the note explained. And she was worried about herself in a way she’d never been before. She couldn’t be at rehearsal—not tonight, not for some time. She checked herself into a residential treatment center forty minutes from Eugene.

  Divisi would not see her for six weeks. It was not easy for anyone. “She’s such a strong part of the group,” Keeley says, “and all of a sudden she was gone.” But not forgotten, certainly.

  Peter Hollens put together practice tapes so Michaela could learn the new music for the spring show from her room at the treatment center. Megan Schimmer would drive forty minutes out to the center to run the choreography with her. Later, when Michaela was able to leave the center for a few hours of supervised watch, Divisi worked additional rehearsals around her schedule.

  On the afternoon of Divisi’s spring show, Michaela stands onstage at the sound check trying to pick up the last elements of the set. Her mother is in audience. Michaela is not allowed to be alone—that’s part of the deal. Still, she is there, present in a way she’s never been before. “I’ve never really tried to deal with my emotions and my past hurt,” she says. “I know that I’m changing now. I’m becoming better. I’m becoming the kind of person who can start to experience life rather than going through the motions.”

  Following intermission, Divisi returned to the stage—this time dressed in their customary red ties and black shirts, paint-thick red lipstick, and pearl earrings. Michaela sailed through Michael Jackson’s “I Want You Back.” Next it was Jenna Tooley’s turn to shine. The blond girl who’d missed the first round of the ICCAs with mono, the girl who’d nearly been kicked out of the group, had landed a solo. “Oh what a night!” she sang. “Late December back in ‘63.”

  A few weeks before, Divisi had rented a houseboat, of all things, a few hours from campus. It was something of a spring retreat, a chance to learn some new music away from the confines of campus. Jenna’s best friend in the group, a fellow named Meghan Bell, missed the trip. For the first time, Jenna was on her own musically and socially. “She really earned our respect that week,” Rachelle Wofford says. Jenna knew all of her music, and she sang confidently.

  At that final show, Divisi reveled in the new material, including songs like “Truth No. 2” by the Dixie Chicks (which Haley Steinberger sang with sass appeal). It was Keeley’s idea to bring back the Divisi medley—once the group’s signature performance piece. Lisa Forkish had arranged the medley, which opened with the familiar choral strains of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer,” the girls holding their hands together in devotion, staring up at the sky. There was intricate choreography and key changes but tonight, the song progressed, effortlessly, through Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff,” Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On,” and even the Spice Girls’ “Wannabe.”

  Evynne Smith was sitting down front with most of the original Divisi members—save for Lisa Forkish, who was in Norway with her boyfriend. (Her thoughts, however, were with Divisi. On the morning of the show, Lisa Forkish turned to this man and said, “This is going to be a tough day for me. Please take care of me.”) Keeley hadn’t told the alums that they’d be bringing back the medley. Sarah Klein and Keeley quietly taught the girls the music. Megan Schimmer watched an old video of Divisi to familiarize herself with the choreography. When Divisi put their palms together and began to sing, they could hear the alumni whispering to one another in the front row. By the time the song ended, as Rachelle did the rap on “Wannabe,” Evynne Smith and the Divisi alums were on their feet.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE BEELZEBUBS

  Wherein the Beelzebubs unleash Pandaemonium on the world

  In 1973, a handful of alumni from the Tufts Beelzebubs got to talking. One thing became clear: Everyone missed performing. The matter was broached with the Beelzebub Alumni Association (The BAA), whose members in turn proposed an annual on-c
ampus talent show where Bub alums could perform. Gene Blake in ’73 was heavily involved. They called it the Beelzebub & Friends Coffeehouse—and the first show included guitar playing and women performing but not a lick of a cappella music. Peter Gallagher, later of American Beauty, sang to piano accompaniment. “The show was developed to highlight that there is musical life after Tufts,” Blake says. And it became an annual tradition held every spring in the Dewick-MacPhie Dining Hall, which (in less litigious days, and before the drinking age went twenty-one) the university regularly converted into a pub on weekends. In time this show would become known as Bubs in the Pub.

  From time to time, Tim Vaill ’64, the founder of the Bubs, would perform at Bubs in the Pub alongside his side project, Peking and the Mystics. “The current students loved to see these gray-haired Bubs up there singing,” Vaill says. But The BAA would give up ownership of the show in the eighties when university rules about who could—and could not—rent campus venues changed. With the undergraduate Beelzebubs now planning the show, selling tickets, securing the venue, it seemed only fair to invite them to perform. It was a decisive moment. Over time the show became less and less about the alumni and more about the current group. “Peking would say they’d do twenty minutes,” Deke Sharon says, “and they’d do forty-five.” In 1991, Deke Sharon (the only one willing to take the fall) officially told the alums the party was over, wresting Bubs in the Pub from those liver-spotted hands.

  Long after the actual pub closed, the show would continue to be their final concert of the year and a send-off to the graduating seniors. The Dead Guys—that’s how the Bubs refer to the alumni—were no longer invited to perform. And while some of them have never gotten over this affront, in late April 2007 some twenty-five Dead Guys—ranging in age from twenty-two to sixty-two—turn out for Bubs in the Pub, to bid farewell to Andrew Savini, Matt Michelson, Arkady Ho, and Matt Kraft. And the crowd is full of familiar faces from the group’s travels.

  While Tufts closed the pub when the drinking age went twenty-one, the concert is still held in Dewick-MacPhie Hall. There is no hint that it was ever a pub—no sepia-toned pictures of long-haired Tufts students from the seventies hammered, no neon Budweiser sign. Actually, the place looks like Folsom Prison. Ed Boyer takes his seat in the audience, just behind Chris Kidd, who’d spent a day at Disney with the Bubs over spring break a few months earlier. Danny Lichtenfeld ’93 is in attendance as well. Though he’s been largely absent since having kids a few years ago, he has a wedding nearby the next day and is happy to make the show. He hugs Jeremy Cramer ’00, who, as far as David Letterman is concerned, is still a squirrelly little kid.

  Sometime in the eighties, the Bubs started dressing up for Bubs in the Pub. Dressing up—as in Halloween, not black tie. Tonight the Beelzebubs are backstage warming up and behind them one can’t help but notice garbage bags full of disparate— and elaborate—clothing. When Deke Sharon was a senior, the year he put the kibosh on the alumni talent portion of Bubs in the Pub, he came out dressed as a Pez dispenser. As with everything the Bubs do, there is an elaborate set of rules to the costumes. To wit: If any one of the Bubs—living or dead—should discover another’s costume prior to the performance, said costume must be scrapped entirely. Arkady Ho, one of the seniors, was a Vietnamese prostitute his freshman year (his words), then a hula girl (with grass skirt and coconut bra), and, finally, Cupid. There is good money going that he will again be showing skin.

  Andrew Savini’s parents are seated in the pub, a few rows back from the small stage. Minutes before the show they are chatting with Doug Terry’s mom. “DID DOUG STAY AT MY HOUSE?” Mrs. Savini asks. (She is a lovely woman, but she speaks in all caps.) One year the Bubs traveled to Hawaii for spring break and bunked up with the Savinis. “I NEVER SAW SO MANY BOXER SHORTS IN MY LIFE!” Before Doug’s mom has a chance to respond, Mrs. Savini pulls out the concert program. “LET ME LOOK AT HIS PICTURE AND THEN I’LL KNOW.” She looks. “OH, I LOVE DOUG!”

  Eric Valliere, Bubs Class of ’91, materializes onstage to introduce the Bubs. “I’m just glad the fire marshal isn’t here,” he says, looking out into the capacity crowd. He pauses awkwardly before blurting out: “The Bubs told me to whip you into a frenzy. So, welcome the Tufts Beelzebubs!”

  “This is really weird,” Chris Kidd says to his girlfriend. That’s common the first year out—that first time you’re in the audience instead of dressed as Pez.

  This should have been Ben Appel’s biggest night—Bubs in the Pub, the release of Pandaemonium. But he was not on stage, not even in the audience tonight. In fact, he hadn’t returned to campus and wouldn’t until January of 2008—a full eighteen months after leaving Tufts on medical leave. In that time, he’d found the right combination of medication, seized control of his mind, did landscaping to make some cash, and took some classes at Temple University near home. He’d kept up with the Bubs, even recorded a solo for Pandaemonium. When he showed up at Ed Boyer’s place in the Bronx to record, he was fifteen pounds heavier. He’d always been a preppy kid, but there he was in a big army coat and a hulking pair of headphones around his neck. When Ben Appel looks back at what’s happened to him, he would never blame the Bubs. But the culture didn’t help. He tells a story:

  There comes a point in every Bubs audition where the group opens the floor to questions. Inevitably one freshman will ask about the time commitment. Can we still go abroad, can we play a sport, that sort of thing. “The Bubs always say, you can definitely do those things,” Ben says. They’ll point out how so-and-so played football, and so-and-so was on the basketball team. But that last time Ben was in the room, just before he left for school, he felt like a liar. “I wanted to pull each kid aside and tell them the truth,” Ben says. “When you join the group, there is this amazing sense of having joined something incredible and prestigious—and it is. But it sucks you in through total commitment and complete dedication. And it sets up this mentality, this insider mentality, and you begin to view the rest of college as a choice between Bubs and non-Bubs.” It’s not a surprise that the Bubs get you as a freshman, he says. The Bub speak, that lexicon of words they’ve invented—words like siv, hook, roll—it all serves to separate you from everyone else on campus, Ben Appel says. “If your friends ask why you’re always away on weekends, the Bubs say, ‘They just don’t understand.’ The Bubs never want to hear that it doesn’t have to be done this way.” He’s talking about the all-night drives. He’s talking about the commitment. “As a freshman,” he says, “you don’t know any better. They’re wrapped up in the allure of it. But the responsibility falls on the alumni to tell the group that they don’t have to be so strict with traditions. That it doesn’t have to be this way.”

  Even Matt Michelson, when pressed, will agree. “I wouldn’t trade being in the Bubs for anything,” he says. “But did I miss Tufts? Did I miss college? Yeah.”

  When it came time for auditions in the spring of 2007, in the days before Bubs in the Pub, one couldn’t help but wonder: Was becoming a Beelzebub the best thing that could happen to a kid or something more complicated?

  Jon Miller was a soft-spoken, good-looking kid whose family moved to Newton, Massachusetts, when he was in the first grade. Growing up, his dad often took him to Beelzebubs concerts as a kid. “We had The Blue Album and The White Album, The House of Blue Lights”—Bubs albums from the seventies, he says. When it came time to apply to college, Jon Miller considered the West Coast. “But Tufts just looks like college to me,” he told his dad.

  In high school, Jon Miller had played the guitar. But he was looking forward to singing in college—specifically with the Bubs. He’d auditioned in the fall, a week after he arrived on campus, and it hadn’t gone well. He didn’t even get a callback. He hadn’t realized how much he wanted it until then. That night, Jon Miller called home to relay the disappointing news. His father, Dr. Michael Miller, was uniquely qualified to field this call. Dr. Miller wasn’t just a concerned parent. He was, himself, a Beelzebub alum, fro
m the proud class of 1974.

  Dr. Miller came to campus the following morning to check in on his son. The two went for a walk, passing Dewick-MacPhie, unfortunately, where they ran into Matt Kraft from the Bubs at the ATM. “It was awkward,” Dr. Miller says. It got worse when Taylor Horst, a Bub alum who was now in medical school at Tufts, happened to wander by at the same moment. “There we were,” Dr. Miller says, “the four of us standing by the ATM.” Matt Kraft eased the tension. He told Jon that he shouldn’t be discouraged, that he should audition again in the spring. “Sometimes I wish I’d had my freshman year outside the group,” Matt said. “My whole time at Tufts has been defined by the Bubs.”

  When father and son walked away, Dr. Miller turned to his boy. “You don’t have to want to be like me,” he said. “You can have your own experiences.” His son looked back at him. “Dad, I don’t want to be like you,” he said. “I already am like you.”

  Not long after his failed audition, Jon Miller called Matt Michelson and asked for a sit-down, asked how he could do better next time, asked for any scrap of advice that might help him find his way into the Bubs. Michelson suggested voice lessons. Ouch.

  It was a hard semester for Jon Miller. Most of his friends from the dorm were involved in athletics and weren’t really around all that much. The one person Jon Miller did see—often—was Tiny Tim Conrad from the Bubs. “He lives in my dorm,” Jon says. Things were not working out as the kid had hoped. “I was worried I wasn’t going to find my niche,” he says.

  The thing is, his father, Dr. Miller, had gone through much of the same angst thirty-five years before. Though he is now a noted psychiatrist (and a featured guest on NBC’s The Today Show), he’d majored in English. And he nearly flunked out of physics that first year at Tufts. He started working for the Tufts Radio station, where he had his own rock ’n’ roll show. “I had a good voice for radio,” Dr. Miller says. He thought about pursuing a career in music. “But my parents grew up in the Depression and the idea of a musical career...” he says, his voice trailing off. And so the English major reluctantly switched gears. Freshman year was a particularly tough time for him. “I’m a psychiatrist,” Dr. Miller says. “Without going into too much detail, I was depressed. I planned to go to medical school, but I was ambivalent about it.”