Dog star

James Han ’24 View full image

We don’t know how to break it to the jocks, but Handsome Dan has been hanging out with the theater kids. Though he’s best known for inspiring athletic teams, the university’s official bulldog mascot trod the boards this spring in the Yale Dramat’s commencement musical, Legally Blonde. Dan—pictured here with Victoria Pekel ’25, who took the lead role of Elle Woods—played the part of Bruiser, Woods’s pampered pooch. Producer Abby Asmuth ’26 says the show was the highest grossing Dramat production in recent history. “Handsome Dan was a joy to work with,” she says. “You could tell he loved the attention from the audience. Every time he entered, he received a huge round of applause.”