At the end of the April 1999 Friday Night Organ Pump, the pump host invited the audience to lie down on the Finney Chapel stage to feel the music of the organ. PHOTOGRAPH BY RAMON OWENS Off-Broadway Meets Sunday Morning Church By Lauren Goodman
	Benjamin Schaffer addressed the April pump audience before he sat down to play an organ piece. As pump host, Schaffer enlists performers, creates publicity, and ensures that each performance has high musical quality and entertainment value.		OCTOBER 29, 1999-- For eight years, the once-a-month-or-so Friday Night Organ Pump has been giving organ-performance majors an opportunity to mix serious organ literature with theatrical lunacy. "As I recall, we tossed handfuls of condoms off the [Finney Chapel] stage at the first pump," says Erik Suter '95, one of the founders of Organ Pump and assistant organist and choirmaster at the Washington National Cathedral. "We had a drag pump and a strip pump, too. All these things were fun, but the highest-quality music and performance were our first priority." David Kazimir '99, an organ-performance major who hosted Organ Pump until he graduated last spring, describes the events as "Off-Broadway meets Sunday morning church." Most of the performed pieces come from standard organ literature, says Benjamin Schaffer, a sophomore organ-performance major from West Hartford, Connecticut. "Some of this is sacred; some is not," he says. "We've also done transcriptions, like the "Liberty Bell" by Sousa and the theme music from Star Wars." Despite its name, the organ is not the only instrument played at pumps. "The tradition of intermezzi sprang out of the need to kill time because of the mechanical limitations of [Finney Chapel's] organ," says Schaffer. During the March 1999 performance, the Oberlin College marching band played swing tunes while the Oberlin Swing Society danced on stage. Piano pieces have also been performed. A rendition of Cole Porter's "You're the Top" featured the drag duet soprano "Bea" (Schaffer) and tenor "Larry" (Laura Shepherd, now a senior from Evanston, Illinois) in April 1999's comical drag pump. Schaffer became host of Organ Pump in February 1999, when he premiered his own transcription of Camille Saint-Saëns's Danse Macabre, complete with violinist and light board. The pump host enlists performers, creates publicity, and ensures that each performance has high musical quality and entertainment value. Schaffer has implemented a regime of theme pumps. The latest, the September 1999 Monty Python Organ Pump, included well-known Monty Python sketches: the dead parrot, the gorilla librarian, and the lumberjack song. Schaffer appeared in boxers and a shirt and tie to do Monty Python's famous naked-organist sketch. Rehearsals for the sketches are minimal, says Schaffer. "It's an experience in improv." This year, because the Aeolian Skinner organ has been removed from Finney Chapel to make room for a new instrument, Organ Pump has moved to Warner Concert Hall. Because the organist's seat is obscured from view in Warner, Schaffer has installed a video camera to project the organist's image onto a huge screen. "Personally, I'm thrilled that the Organ Pump is still carrying on after eight years," says Suter. "I'm sure it has evolved along with the students, and I think that's great." The next Friday Night Organ Pump is tonight at 11 P.M. in Warner Concert Hall. The theme is Halloween, and David Kazimir will return as guest host. The Oberlin College marching band played at the April Organ Pump.
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