Collegian Gatsby's Cabaret T he Cameron University
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Monday, November 20, 2023
Volume 109 Issue 9
Sigma Tau Delta hosts open mic night Photos by Brittney Payette
Brittney Payette Managing Editor At 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 14 in the McCasland Ballroom in the McMahon Centennial Complex, Sigma Tau Delta hosted an open mic night titled “Gatsby’s Cabaret.” The open mic night started with a performance by Ryan Shows, a senior English Education major at Cameron. “I really like open mics,” he said. “I like seeing what people come up with, and I just think they’re really fun ‘cause you never know what’s gonna happen.” He played his guitar and sang a song from his EP, which is available on platforms such as YouTube and Spotify under the name Ry Shows. The EP is titled “Green as Can Be.” “It’s just five songs I’ve written between 2020 and 2022,” Shows said. “They’re just about, about me basically. There’s one song that’s about my grandmother … they kind of revolve around religion in a roundabout way.” Shows said he really liked watching Angel perform and Dr. John Morris’s
performance. English professor Dr. John Morris said he attended the event because he wanted to support Sigma Tau Delta since he is a member and because he used to be the faculty advisor for the organization. He said this is not the only Sigma Tau Delta event he participates in. “There is a community reading,” Morris said, “also nominally sponsored by Sigma Tau Delta, once a month (every third Saturday) at the Unitarian Universalist Church, at which I serve as emcee and have for nearly twentyeight years.” Additionally, he said that Sigma Tau Delta also hosts an open mic night on the first Friday of every month in Nance Boyer room 2005. Morris said he enjoys seeing students perform and participate in events outside of the classroom. “Ryn Swinson and Kaley Muse, two of the Sigma Tau Delta students who put on the Gatsby's Cabaret the other night, are members and officers of the Writer's Studio and both have served as emcees at that reading,” he said. “One of my current students, Gina Welborn,
attended the event the other night and read her work.” He said he always feels some degree of nervousness before performing on stage. “One of my former students,” Morris said, “who attended my reading at the Scissortail Writers Festival in Ada in April 2022, came up to me afterwards and said she was surprised that I seemed nervous, and I told her I'm always nervous even though I enjoy reading my poems; it's the same with any other performance, including teaching: if I don't feel nervous beforehand, my performance is likely to be flat.” Morris said he hopes that Sigma Tau Delta will sponsor this event again, or do another similar event with a different theme. “I enjoyed the decorations and the 1920s period costumes that many wore,” he said. “I didn't have such clothing and just wore what I wore that day, but I enjoyed seeing many of the attendees having fun with the costumes.” Another performer was senior Strategic Communications major Gina Welbourn, who said that in class, the students are encouraged to attend poetry meetings and read aloud. “Poetry isn’t just about writing,” she said. “It’s about reading it because poetry is to be read, but it is also to be heard. This is a good opportunity to read poetry aloud.” Welbourn said she wished more people had attended the event because she really enjoyed it. “It doesn’t matter as much (about) the number of people there,” she said. “It’s who’s there and are you having fun.” Welbourn also said that she thinks that some degree of nervousness is common when performing. “Instead of looking at it as ‘I have to do this and I don’t want to do it,’” she said, “it’s like, ‘okay, I want to do this.’ … That kind of changes that mental
focus.” Senior English education major Scotlyn Koehler said that Sigma Tau Delta is a prestigious international honors society for English majors. “You have to have so many requirements to join,” Koehler said. “Like a 3.0 GPA and you have to have at least two English credit courses to join as well.” She said that the chapter at Cameron likes to do a lot of different activities on campus. “We never want to exclude anyone,” Koehler said. “We try to do things that get everyone’s attention.” One of these activities on campus was their open mic night. “We kind of wanted that speakeasy vibe,” she said. “We kind of wanted that chill, fun, inviting, welcoming party atmosphere. So, we decided to come up with the roaring twenties because, I guess, Gatsby’s Cabaret was kind of like a fun name that someone threw out. So that’s kind of how we came up with the theme.” Koehler said they also wanted to encourage people to dress up and have fun. She said that Sigma Tau Delta worked closely with the Office of Student Life to put together the event. “We came in today (at) about 2 o’clock to set up,” she said. “It took several hours to get everything set up and prepared, but luckily, it was just a lot of teamwork and hands-on (work) within the members of the organization to kind of show up, help orchestrate it, as well as contribute cost wise.” Koehler said she loved to see the participation that attendees had at the open mic night. “It’s really refreshing to see people have the confidence to go up on stage and just kind of showcase their talents,” she said. “Hopefully, we provided a comfortable space for people to get up there and express their talents. I just loved seeing the creativity and the different, like, aspects that people brought to the open mic. From 3-10 p.m. on Nov. 29 at Texas Roadhouse, Sigma Tau Delta will host a dine and donate fundraiser to help raise money so they can host future events. For more information about future events go to Sigma Tau Delta’s Facebook page https://www.facebook. com/profile.php?id=61551603766454.
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