The Spectator ● March 10, 2017
Page 21
SING! Humor SING! Hate Mail By Amanda Piasecki Dear SING! Directors (Dictators), Your ruthless organization has utterly ruined my life—seriously. I can’t take the endless passive aggressive messages about missing practice any longer. First, you tell me that I’m missing practice too much and that I might as well not be a part of SING!. The next thing you know, another director is messaging me, telling me that I’m an indispensable member of SING!. I can’t even go to my locker because I get “point deductions” for being on someone else’s floor. Well guess what? I’ve gotten real point deductions on my average! My 99.3 has gone down to a mere 99.1! How am I supposed to get into college now? All thanks to SING!, I might be a struggling props maker for the rest of my life.
Dear corrupt SING! Slate, I can’t believe that you all have the audacity to reject me! I spent a full 10 minutes on my application and an entire 15-minute train ride humming the audition part. I put down really terrific improvement ideas, including having no rehearsals—after all, why do we need to practice when we’re all so talented? Even if you didn’t like my application, I should have been automatically accepted anyways. Why would you even read your best friend’s application and make them audition? SING! is supposed to be showing the glory of nepotism—not of talent! Don’t you all know that?
Dear Coordinator (I can’t remember your name), Sorry, but I can’t make it to rehearsal today, or ever. I know that I put that I had no time commitments on my application, but it turns out that I have a really important nap every single day from 4 p.m. to 6 a.m. I really can’t miss it, and unfortunately I can’t reschedule it.
Dear Art Crew,
Dear SING! Coordinators,
We’re really sorry about running over your canvas. Is there a “control Z” with paint or any way that you can do damage control on the 53 footprints all over the backdrop?
What’s SING? I haven’t heard about this strange event until I got an e-mail selling tickets for it. Is this a new concert? Or is it a vocal competition?
I just needed to put something on my otherwise blank college application. Thanks for accepting me though—it really means a lot to me! I might be able to show up to the crew dinner!
On the other hand, it was totally worth seeing the expression of shock on your faces—half of you were crying, and the rest of you were ready to assault Mr. Choubaralian and Dr. Markova with paint brushes and paint cans. Be sure to check us out tomorrow, when we ravage SophFrosh SING!’s backdrop!
See you not very soon F. Lake
Much love, Boys’ Track
I heard Soph-Frosh won this SING! thing with their 1920’s theme. Why would there be a singing Sour Patch in the 1920’s? Sincerely, Half of Stuy
From, S. Alty
Sincerely, S. Collar
Catherine Joh/ The Spectator
The Unsung Heroes of SING! 2017 By Kenny Lin and Gilvir Gill 5. Costumes, Soph-Frosh Soph-Frosh SING! had one of its strongest showings in years. The acting was surprisingly excellent and was only enhanced by the costumes and character choice. There were no better examples of this than Tootsie Roll, who was a candy version of the movie depiction of the early 2000’s internet sensation Fred, and whatever sophomore Freddie Minzberg was supposed to be. It was not made clear whether Minzberg was meant to represent a gumdrop, a Koffing from Pokemon Red, or a new grape flavored type of gatorade. Either way, the creative choice was a great win for candy diversity, as none of them had previously been seen in candy stores around the world. While the Junior and Senior costumes for crews were visually appealing, they were somewhat over the top. That’s why SophFrosh went for a much simpler design, with the hip-hop crew in simple colored T-shirts containing small logos of various brands. However, I was somewhat disappointed in the lack of diversity, as literally all of them were either skittles or cringey depictions of Junior and Senior producers. 4. Slaying the Dragon, Seniors Every good medieval play has to feature slaying a dragon or else it has failed worse than that scene in Soph-Frosh SING! where the junior and senior coordinators tried to go to the party the candy people were hosting and got kicked out for being lame. The seniors made sure not to mess this up and wisely integrated it into their flow performance. In fact,
they turned it up a notch and created a dragon with not only raw power but with metaphysical power as well; the dragon was so powerful that it was able to convince the audience that it was not a physical entity, but rather just some floating red and yellow lights, up until the point it was heroically slain, allegedly, with a disarming spell. The dragon’s ability to play mind games o n l y made it stronger and showed that the m o s t dangerous enemy of all was the one that you couldn’t see, foreshadowing a key plot element later in the performance in which the nephew of the royal family stabbed the heir to the throne with a plastic sword, which unsurprisingly didn’t actually kill him seeing as it was made of plastic. 3. Tech and Props, Soph-Frosh When the lights turned off for the first time during Soph-Frosh SING!, the audience eagerly held their breath for the much awaited appearance of the tech crew. And when the black outlines of various bodies became clear, the entire audi-
ence shouted in jubilation. The entire theater felt alive with vibrant energy as we all cheered the tech crew on. And, when the lights turned on, the work they had left behind simply blew everyone away. The amazing simplicity of Soph-Frosh SING!’s set, a pile of various sized boxes, was truly a masterpiece. Compared to
Courtney Chiu/ The Spectator
the Senior’s fabulous joker box, or even the Junior’s furnace, I could not believe that Soph-Frosh outdid them all. The boxes presented their true importance later, however, when they provided a
hiding spot for Tootsie Roll. Without such an amazing set, such an interaction would never have been possible. While critics may say that the lack of literally anything other than boxes detracted from the total impression, I have to say that the minimalistic outlook really makes the SophFrosh set stand out. 2. Polazzo’s Intermission SING! is a three-hour long performance, and while the audience may be fully captivated by all the beautifully done costumes of Soph-Frosh or by the professional quality of the microphones, they still need a break to fund the SU through purchases of overpriced snacks, in addition, to using the facilities. Between the performances of Senior and Soph-Frosh SING!, unfortunately, intermission wasn’t announced, leaving the audience rooted to their seats. The highlight of the Friday performance was when Mr. Polazzo took the stage and saved the day, along with the SU budget, by announcing intermission. While extremely brief, Mr. Polozzo’s announcement, “Ladies and gentlemen, there is now a 15-minute intermission,” received a mass reaction from the audience. Everyone stood up in awe of the announcement and unanimously exited the theater
in appreciation. Time and time again, Mr. Polazzo repeated this extraordinary feat and made sure that the audience could properly spend its money. Indeed not a single break occurred when intermission wasn’t announced, averting crisis. Though perhaps this might get overlooked compared to other highlights such as the wonderful synergy of senior chorus, Mr. Polazzo served a fundamental role in during the show. Without it, perhaps the audience would still be in their seats to this day, wondering when intermission would be announced. 1. Bodyguard, Juniors Despite this year’s SophFrosh performance being considered the best one in years, Junior SING! still bested them by almost 100 points, largely due to the efforts of cast member Rigneyla. For what he lacks in a last name, he made up for in his stunning performance as as the confident, altruistic bodyguard. Not only was his body language on point, with his eloquent and meticulous technique for taking off his glasses just to put them back on whilst adjusting his nonexistent earpiece, but he legitimately delivered the best musical performance of all three shows when he sang about his tie for 30 seconds. When he wasn’t performing, Rigneyla could still be seen in the corner of the stage, facing the audience with his arms folded calmly across his chest, establishing himself not only as the king of the cast and chorus, but also as an amazing prop. This was nothing short of genius, and according to the judges, singlehandedly resulted in a 20 point increase in Junior SING!’s overall score for sets.