First there was the nude calendar produced by that lady's garden club in England (eventually a major motion picture), then many a similar fund-raising and eyebrow-raising project at associations, fraternities and volunteer fire departments.

Miss December of CMU Drama Girls Calendar. The CMU seniors are selling calendars to raise money for the Senior Showcase. Click photo for larger image. CDs and Calendars The CD is available for $10, the calendar, for $15. Both are usually for sale at CMU plays, now dark. But there's a supply at the Purnell Center box office, open weekdays, noon to 5 p.m., through Dec. 22 (call 412-268-2407). You also can arrange purchase by e-mail at cmushowcase@yahoo.com.

So it was only a matter of time before the senior class at Carnegie Mellon's nationally prominent drama school took a similar plunge, but they've done it with a difference, following an older tradition. In pursuit of the $30,000 that CMU '05 needs to help fund its "Senior Showcase" spring audition in Los Angeles, the seniors have produced a classy, slightly risque pinup calendar based on the comic calendar kitsch of the 1950s.

And the CMU administration couldn't be more pleased. Elizabeth Bradley, drama head, admires the "real sweetness and whimsicality" of the resulting 13-month calendar which features 13 CMU senior women ("the drama girls" the calendar calls them). The mode is that of nubile young women "accidentally" showing more flesh (mainly thigh) and a lot more lingerie than is quite planned, caught in poses, usually comic, with an almost audible "ooh!" of surprise.

CMU '05 gets to show its more conventionally cozy side in another holiday production, "Holiday Songs 2005," a CD of 14 songs by musical theater students.

"It really shows what artistic entrepreneurship and collaboration can create," the proud Bradley says of the calendar. She is particularly pleased that the whole project involved not just performers but also students of design and directing.

According to design student Kristen Merlino, there were more volunteers for the calendar than months in the year, even expanding it to 13 (two Januaries, which are probably the sexiest poses, as a mark of favor to that glum month).

Merlino, design student Matt Russell and directing student Juliet Brown, who is also one of the models, sat down to describe the project. It began at a brainstorming session with the whole class tossing around fund-raising ideas. There is no handbook of suggestions handed down, class to class: "It's all myth and voodoo," says Merlino. But as Russell says, the seniors had been around for three years and had a good idea what works.

Many of '05's fund-raising projects are traditional: monthly Final Friday cabaret shows, benefit Tuesday performances of each main stage show, CDs and baked goods and coffee sold at intermissions. But the calendar answered their search for something special.

Russell and Merlino did a directing project last year using 1950s shoebox graphics, actors, costumes and props, and that formed a sort of template. With CMU thoroughness, Russell compiled masses of research on the painted pinup calendars of the '40s through late '50s ("Playboy" readers will recognize the name Vargas).

Ultimately, there was a packet of materials for each month, with subjects, props and costumes tied to time of year. The result is that all 13 poses on the calendar re-create period calendar paintings, though some combine several and, of course, the models added ideas, too. The guiding idea was to pay homage to the comic value of the old pinups and their ability to find glamour in everyday situations; but lingerie also gets good play.

Grad costume designer Jacob Climer took the lead in setting hair, makeup and costumes, working with Kristen Bogue and others. The CMU costume and props stock got a thorough going over. After four years, the students know each other pretty well, so it was easy to pair certain models with certain months and situations. Shooting took two days. Russell did the photography and John Martofel did some digital cleanup.

They originally thought of doing a paired calendar of men or a mixed calendar, but they didn't have time to duplicate their effort, and they reasoned this one would sell better.

The result is glossily produced. "2005 Pin-Up Calendar" is the only title, and the models are not identified by name, following a university policy about protecting student identity.

The CD is less secretive, naming the 10 performers. The songs include such sacred and secular Christmas favorites as "Carol of the Bells," "I'll Be Home for Christmas" and "O Holy Night," and one Hanukkah song.

There also are two specialty numbers -- a delicious duet on "Baby It's Cold Outside" and a funny "Miracle for Christmas" ("I have but to medicate and I don't feel a thing, thanks to Santa's gift of Prozac this year"), sung by Rebecca Stanley, who led the CD project. Will Reynolds arranged the music and provides piano accompaniment and Noah Mitz and Milo Train did the recording and editing.

The CMU senior class actually makes two audition trips. That to New York City has long been funded by the school itself, but in 1996, the students arranged an L.A. audition as well. Now, CMU still pays for the New York trip and makes some L.A. arrangements, but it falls to the students to pay for L.A. transportation, housing and food.

Some classes are good at fund raising and have actually left a surplus to the next class; some classes have just squeaked by. Bradley hopes these seniors will sell lots of pinup calendars and holiday CDs, so they won't have to take too much time away from school work to raise funds.