Last Friday night, Green Level students took the stage in the second annual talent show. There was a wide range of acts showcasing singing, dancing, magic, and more. The auditorium seats quickly filled up as the audience nearly quadrupled in size from last year. With around 260 audience members, the crowd was full of life. Credit is due to the participants and the student body government for making this event such a resounding success.
Planning and executing a talent show is not what meets the eye. There are many steps to the process that took place over the course of the past few months. The first step is to organize and promote auditions. Sophia Liu, Sophomore class president, alongside the rest of the student government, put up posters and advertisements around campus advertising auditions and a $100 prize.
“We were in charge of picking the prize and we went through a bunch of options. But I think $100 is a great incentive.” Liu said.
Once auditions were finished and they made cuts, it was time for a dress rehearsal. Student government partnered with tech theatre and its director, Mr. Turski, to put the production together. Tech theatre offered their expertise in lighting, sound, and extra features which was a big help make the show come to life. Finally, it was time to shift the target of their advertisements towards audience members. Because of the incredible showing, it is safe to say that their promotions must have been influential.
Student body president, Amelia Wu, served as a host for the show. Her role was to keep the crowd engaged and the show organized as she spoke in between each act.
Wu said, “It was a great experience to be able to introduce every act and have a little say afterwards. It was good to help relax all the people who are in the acts, kind of just easing all the nerves for them.”
Another improvement to the talent show this year was an increase in the diversity of acts. There was a wide variety of talents like dancing, singing, a band, magic, and even a skit put on by the student government. Wu expresses a dream to continue to increase the amount of participation next year.
“Our plan for the talent show is to make it an annual event. And I think we can have even more acts,” Wu said. “The audition was only 2 days, so maybe some people were not as able to audition as much as we would like.”
Another confounding variable that may have impacted the turnout of participants, was about the timing. The student government started preparations for the talent show in the last week of September, in the midst of major homecoming planning.
“The student government was really focused on homecoming during September. So during that last week of September when we started actually talking about the talent show, we realized that we only had two weeks for the auditioners to prepare something to audition.” Said Liu.
This lack of preparation time for auditioners may have turned some away out of fear they didn’t have enough time to perfect their act.
Nevertheless, all the pieces fell into place and the talent show was smooth and successful. Another method the student government used to keep the crowd entertained was to have members in the audience to make sure that before and after each performance, there was cheering. Wu called it their own “hype squad”.
But one performance stood out among all the rest, Josh Coleman’s magic trick act. It was a unique visual display of magic tricks that left the crowd amazed.
“We don’t have a lot of magicians so that was our only one we had in the entire talent show. His tricks were really cool and it was something the audience wasn’t used to.” Said Wu.
That performance won him first place and he took home the $100 prize!
Overall, this year’s talent show was a night to remember. With a variety of new acts and incredible talent, the contestants blew it out of the water! There is high anticipation as we await to see what Green Level has in store for next year’s talent show. Until then, congratulations to all those who participated!
