March 14, 2003, was to mark the 30th anniversary of BC's Middlemarch Ball. The elaborate theme party is tantalizingly exclusive: Students compete in a scavenger hunt and lottery for about 400 tickets. This year's chosen motif was "Disney," and volunteers had begun to transform O'Connell House into the setting for a magic evening, when—a week before it was to take place—Middlemarch was canceled. A fatal Rhode Island nightclub fire had prompted BC administrators to call for a closer inspection of the venue than time allowed. Decorations came down; tickets were refunded. The costumes students would have worn were all that remained—evidence, like Cinderella's slipper, of magic interrupted.

Photos (left to right): Click to enlarge

Middlemarch publicity manager Zach Barber '04 gets in touch with his inner mouse on the BC bus

Jeannie Radbill '03 is Esmerelda (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) in O'Neill Library

On the quad, Kristen Klein '03 and Tim Christensen '04 are Bo Peep and Woody of Toy Story (dress and vest by Klein's grandmother)

Cruella DeVil, alias Katie Thomas '05, at ease in BC's new Hillside Café

All photos by Lee Pellegrini


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