Every year, each house hosts a party for the rest of campus with music, dance, food, and drinks. Together, these are known as Interhouse Parties (or Interhouses for short), but each house has a special name for theirs. Venerable’s is called OPI (what it stands for is a secret) and is held on the 8th week of winter term. We pick a theme for the party at the end of fall term, and right as winter term begins, we start building a huge stage in our courtyard and painting giant 4×8 foot drywall spreads (we call these wallboards) to decorate our stage with. OPI is one of my favorite house traditions, and it takes a lot of effort from the entire house for it to come together!
Picking the theme
Near the end of fall term, members of Venerable House come together to vote on our theme. We have a big whiteboard in our lounge, and everyone writes their ideas for OPI on it in the week leading up to theme voting. We then have a huge meeting where we narrow down four options, which then get handed over to our “griffins” for a secret final decision. Griffins are members of the house put in charge of construction or art, and there’s usually 5-6 per team. This year, I was a construction griffin, but I also spent time helping the art griffins with their painting needs!
Our final four themes for this year were Pokemon, Nightmares & Daydreams, Spiderverse, and How To Train Your Dragon, and we chose our theme for this year’s party to be Spiderverse! It was actually one of the final four themes for several past votings and had never been chosen until this year, so we had a lot of expectations on our hands.
Art for OPI!
Art begins by clearing our dining hall of a few tables and chairs to make space for tarps, on top of which we put 4×8 foot drywall boards to be painted. Each of them are primed with white paint, and then a projector setup is used to trace a design over each of them. Finally, the art griffins mix together a bunch of colors for the design and we get to work painting!
We had several wallboard spreads – most were two wallboards wide, while others had designs covering three or four wallboards. Some art was taken straight from the movies (which had no shortage!) while others were designed by art griffins themselves. This year, we got special black lights for the stage, so we were able to incorporate some fluorescent paint into our colors, which made for a really awesome stage!
We also have a special tradition where senior art griffins make their own senior wallboard, which gets displayed around the house after OPI. This year’s was based on a gorgeous scene from the first Spiderverse movie called “Leap of Faith.”
Construction time!
Our stage is built using premade 4×8 foot wooden platforms that we reuse every year. We first build the base of the stage with these and short 4×4 inch blocks to elevate it a few inches off the ground. This year’s base was built using about 30 4×8 platforms and a couple triangular ones, which used about 1000 screws and 100 bolts.
From there, we start building raised platforms about 2 feet above the ground, which needs additional cross-bracing below to support it. We also start laying down floorboards, which are plywood sheets cut to the size of the platforms, so that the stage is actually walkable! Once we have all the floorboards done, the hardest part of construction is pretty much over.
Our last steps are to put up railings for the raised platforms and stairs to connect the base with them. We also paint the entire stage—this year, we chose to make it a New York street, so much of the stage was an asphalt gray. Lastly, we put up giant 2×4 inch planks of wood around the stage to support the wallboards. We also have dinner on the stage on the night before OPI!
Food, Drink, & Fun Traditions
For the party, we hire bartenders to make special themed drinks for the night – we had Miles Morales, Gwen, and Spider-Noir drinks! We also made themed food: New York style hot dogs, loaded fries, churros, and spider cookies!
We also have special traditions for our first-years! We have a piano (the OPIano) that gets painted every year, and has been for a very long time—there’s probably at least 50 coats of paint on it! We also have a face wallboard, where we have cutouts of characters for people to take pictures with. This year’s face wallboard was the Spider-man pointing meme.
All in all, OPI takes so much work, but it’s totally worth it. I’ve loved constructing, painting, and helping with little things here and there to make a great party. It’s super fun to build with your friends and see your vision come to life!
