A scene from the OU Revue, presented on campus in 1939.

Remembering the OU Revue

“’Tho my college days are o’er,
I find that I’m thinking more and more
of a lonely and frightened little ‘freshie’
who never seemed to know the score
in the first year of that beautiful Four-Year Heaven …”

These words, co-written by local composer Vern Smolik and “Athens dance maestro” Rex Koons, launched “Four-Year Heaven,” a song included in Ohio University’s first and only OU Revue in 1939.

The song was among five written by Smolik to accompany the extravagant campus variety show. During the time, it was one of the most requested songs in Athens and still conjures memories among many alumni, including the show’s former student director, John McKinven, AB ’41.

“There had not been a variety show in the previous years,” says McKinven, who was hailed as “the Billy Rose of Ohio University” by the local press. “For us as students, it was a pretty ambitious production.”

McKinven recruited 16 acts, including students and local residents who participated in musical numbers, tap dances, jitterbugs, comedy skits and a magic show. In all, the production demanded 133 students, 11 lavish sets, a revolving stage with a fountain in the middle, a quarter-mile of curtain material and a giant reproduction of the cover of Esquire magazine.

The elaborate setting paid off, with 3,500 people paying a quarter to see the production Dec. 8 and 9 in Alumni Memorial Auditorium.

“Curtain after curtain was raised before the crowd stopped applauding,” according to a Messenger review of the show.

— Katie Fitzgerald