125 Years of the Southwick Recital

During alumni weekend last fall, Emerson celebrated the 125th anniversary of the Southwick Recital, the College’s longest-running tradition.

In 1900, Henry Lawrence Southwick, then-dean of Emerson College, launched an oratory recital series that became a popular tradition on campus. While the recitals stopped after 2015, they were reborn in 2020 under the guidance of Communication Studies Senior Executive-in-Residence Kenneth Grout.

Now held twice a year, this new era of the Southwick Recitals has heralded many changes to the program’s presentation and content while still honoring its fundamental focus on oral literary presentation.

A historical black-and-white photograph of a seated audience listening to a speaker at a podium.

An elderly female performer with a lace collar gesturing dramatically on a dark stage.

“[Modernizing the recital] entailed adding movement, interaction, technology, multimedia, and the idea of thinking beyond the rules,” Grout said. “So it was very different from: ‘one person, one platform, one Shakespeare play.’”

The fall recital, Southwick 125!…Legacy, featured eight pieces by Emersonians focused on the concept of legacy, including performances by Grout and Professor Emeritus John Anderson, himself an integral part of the Southwick Recital’s legacy, as well as alumni Heidi Rose ’89 and Suzie Sims-Fletcher, MA ’94 (in bottom photo).