On Thursday, April 17, the theater department hosted its first-ever Staff and Student Talent Show, a unique and lively evening aimed at raising funds for the department’s upcoming trip to the International Thespian Festival which will take students to the Indiana University in Bloomington. The troupe will leave for the festival this June. (Read more) The event was filled with performances ranging from live music to comedy and spoken word.
The idea behind the event was to spotlight the hidden talents of staff members across the school while bringing the community together in support of student performers. Faculty members from various departments were invited to take the stage and showcase their skills, with each act given a designated time slot to perform. The show had acts such as a Vocal preformance, a Dramatic Monologue, and even a taekwondo performance. Despite enthusiastic participation from faculty, there weren’t quite enough staff acts to fill the evening’s lineup. To round out the program, Theater director Brooke Phillips invited a selection of student performers—many of whom had recently placed in the school’s “Best of West” talent competition—to contribute to the night’s entertainment.
“I wanted to pad out the show with a few student acts to show that we’re supporting the students here,” Phillips said. “Since ‘Best of West’ concluded, I decided to reach out to some of the winners to see if they wanted to come on.”
One of those students was junior Kawin Elanchezhiyan who, along with his group of instrumentalists, performed an impressive saxophone ensemble that drew enthusiastic applause from the audience.
“When we got the email from Phillips we were ecstatic,” Elanchezhiyan said. ”We had our own guy who composes our songs. So he decided we should do a saxophone ensemble for the talent show.”
Another crowd favorite was the final act of the night, featuring art teacher Nick Pella and two fellow members of their indie rock band, The Mudpuddles. The trio performed a set that included songs from their original albums, ‘Con Man’ and ‘Stick Around’, bringing an energetic close to the evening.
“I started the band with some of my friends from high school,” Pella said. ”We just recently got back together, so when Phillips sent out that email, I decided why not perform. For the talent show, we decided to play some of our remastered songs because they were more focused on the acoustics, which would be easier to get set up.”
Unfortunately, the show faced a major hurdle—a strong storm front was moving into the area that evening, forcing organizers to push the start time up an hour from 7:00 to 6:00 p.m. in hopes of encouraging earlier attendance. The adjustment, while necessary for safety, significantly impacted turnout.
“We were expecting to raise around $1,500, but we ended up only raising about $500,” Phillips said. “The weather really penalized our earnings. There could have easily been two or three times more people if the conditions had been better.”
Despite the financial shortfall, the event was hailed by students and staff alike as a creative and community-driven success. Many in attendance expressed interest in seeing the talent show become a regular event on the school calendar.
Plans are already being discussed for a yearly talent show, with hopes of expanding the event and incorporating even more diverse acts in the future.
