By Sophia Petros

Please note, this is not a review of the recent Follies show. If you were expecting one, lower your expectations accordingly (and stay tuned for our issue at the end of the month).

On April 18, 2025, I attended Follies, SIPA’s premier and only (intentionally) comedic event. As the new Editor-in-Chief of The Morningside Post, I was battling an increasingly hostile environment to journalism, running an expedited recruitment process for the newspaper, and emotionally recovering from a humbling interview at the World Bank. Jeremie, the leader of Follies, noted my unravelling psyche and generously offered me a distraction: promoting his comedy show.

*Text exchange between Jeremie and Sophia*

This was my introduction to the seedy underbelly of SIPA student organizing. Little did I know how deep this daedalean maze would go.

I first heard about Follies from Jeremie back in March, and I thought he was talking about a Christmas tradition. He told me it was a comedy show with a long and storied history at SIPA, revived just last year. An 2018 flier published in The Morningside Post listed that year’s venue as Carnegie Hall, and I genuinely cannot tell if that’s a joke or not. But after spending 45 minutes watching Follies content on YouTube, Instagram, and this guy’s blog from the early Obama age, I can confirm that Follies has never been funny. But it has been persistent— the group has haunted IAB’s windowless halls since 1988.

Baffling.

In his defense, Jeremie is a legitimately funny person. Maybe he thinks I am too, because once he tentatively tried to recruit me to the group.

*In the end, Follies did field a diverse cast (in relative terms).

As the curtain call grew closer, tensions rose. I had yet to find anyone to cover Follies. I was feeling mildly guilty and trying desperately to hide it. And, as our dedicated readers know, The Morningside Post underwent a major transition a few weeks ago, when our international staff stepped down due to safety concerns with the current political climate. As a result, we had spent almost none of our budget this semester.

Like a shark in the ocean, Jeremie sniffed out our weakness.

Fundraising is difficult. As anyone who has worked for a nonprofit, campaign, or other underfunded enterprise knows, only a fool takes no for an answer the first time. So the reply was somewhat expected.

In the nonprofit world, however, we know to quit after two no’s. But as a naive new student leader, I was yet unfamiliar with the backroom deals necessary for derecognized student groups to successfully resource their operations. Also I’m pretty sure Jeremie used to work in tech.

I’m afraid I stuck Jeremie in the archive after this. As the day approached, however, I began to have moral qualms. As a consolation, The Morningside Post generously offered to lend Follies our broom-closet-office as a prop and staging room (we also agreed to photograph the event, but someone else volunteered before we accepted, so we didn’t end up following through). So on Friday, as I sat down on the back of a Publique sofa to watch the show, I felt proud of our patronage of SIPA’s iconic sketch comedy scene.

But now, I must admit, I have regrets.

The show was decently funny. I laughed more than thrice. Someone offered me a slice of their pizza. We bonded. But at the end of the show, I learned where TMP’s money would have gone. In a laudable moment of self-awareness, I recognize that I just wasn’t creative enough to see the value in funding Follies.

The last sketch was a song about the 4th floor women’s bathrooms, and to send the joke home, Follies members handed out props to audience members. The item of choice? Plastic-wrapped candies in small plastic toilets that tasted…like plastic.

A scathing commentary on late-stage capitalism and the asymmetry of resource distribution at an Ivy League institution, disguised as edible plumbing. Genius.

And to think The Morningside Post planned a social instead?

A Brief List of Follies Highlights:

The Morningside Post had a shoutout on one of its least comically-inclined articles.
Second-year capstone jokes get a lot of laughs, and as a first-year, I’m terrified.
If Jack and Rose had been SIPA students, they could have had the Titanic’s owners cancelled.
The Trump administration is hurting our educational experience.
Doru, even at 20% volume, was 80% funnier than most.
At one point, I thought we had a Republican Voldemort/Professor Quirrell on our hands, but silly me, it was just RFK and his French brain worm.
Groll gave it his all. The speakers didn't.
A couple got married, had kids, and grew old while waiting for their water bottle to fill. Unfortunately the water fountain was not visible to 75% of the audience. This never would have happened in Carnegie Hall.
The Trump administration is hurting our job prospects.
SIPA’s Weekend Update celebrated Columbia’s love of bagels, a cruel blow after Absolute closed in December.
Whoever played Dean Keren was excellent. I assume. I’ve never actually met Dean Keren.
The toilet humor was bizarre, but, somehow, they wrote a catchy song with it.
I knew two actors in the show, which made all of their jokes exponentially funnier than the rest.

Highlights do not constitute a review. I promised only guilt, bribes, and backhand deals. Looking forward to next year, when Follies might actually have its own budget.

Guilt, Bribes, and Backhand Deals: How Follies is Made