While most students were going home for Thanksgiving break, the class of 2010 was coming to see the class of 2011’s Senior Variety Show.
Beginning ten minutes late, the Senior Variety Show left the audience drowning in a pool of confusion. What happened? The jokes were there, the talent was there, even the music was there, but the flawlessness of last year’s Senior Variety Show was missing.
The show began with Allison Siegel singing a witty “Welcome to JC,” accompanied by Andrew Russell on piano. The song might have been flawless if it wasn’t for the microphone. The sound, which kept fading in and out, caused the audience to miss some of the funny lyrics.
“Welcome to JC” was followed by another musical number. Casey Knell sang and played piano to “The Debt” by Julia Nunes, accompanied by Brooke Basta on the acoustic guitar and Russell on the bass. Unfortunately, the talent of the performance was overshadowed by the murmuring of the audience that was still trying to figure out the jokes in the opening song.
Ashley Markley sang “Vienna” by Billy Joel for the third act of the show. She too was accompanied by Russell, who played piano. By this point, the audience was able to keep silent and actually appreciate the talent of the senior class.
The Senior Variety Show then transitioned into its classic comedic form in the fourth act, “JC Jeopardy – Teacher Edition.” The skit’s “contestants” were history teacher James Fendryk (played by Brett Prochazka), English teacher Eric Sutton (Ryan Lina), and former math teacher Fran Houston (Vinny Clough). The funniest part of the whole skit was when an old photograph of math teacher Joseph Iacchei was shown and the contestants were asked to guess who it was.
The next three skits “Bon Qui Qui,” “Garth and Kat on JC TV News,” and “Guidance: the Importance of College Applications” were spot-on. The first skit came from “Mad TV,” the second was inspired by “Saturday Night Live,” and the third was written by senior Mollyann Pais. These skits had the entire audience laughing.
After these three hilarious skits, the audience was actually excited for “You Know You Go to JC When…,” which was next on the set list. However, it was somewhat of a disappointment. Comments that the class of ’10 yelled out produced more laughs from the audience than the ones in the script. The seniors in the skit suggested that they cared more about boasting their Powderpuff wins than actually entertaining the audience.
Next, “You and I” by Ingrid Michaelson was performed flawlessly by Liz Johnson and Andrew Russell. The following skit, “Fashion Show,” was more harsh than funny.
After multiple comical skits and musical numbers, the Senior Variety Show finally showed its best with the skit “Flight Announcement.” Taylor Schafer and Casey Knell were a riot as clueless flight attendants on a plane that was about to crash.
As the Variety Show came to an end, the audience was entertained by Emily Heller’s and Liz Johnson’s choreographed dance to “Barbie Girl” by Aqua and the comical “Single Ladies” skit starring Kristen Leppert as Beyoncé and Luke Hinder, DJ Owens and Trent Shaw as her back-up dancers.
However, the Variety Show‘s final skit “Welcome to my Homepage” seemed to be a cheap knock-off of the class of 2010’s Variety Show skit about Facebook. The traditional senior dance lacked music and also didn’t come close to the senior dance of 2010’s Variety Show.
The finale, lasting only a minute, may have been the most confusing part of the whole show. It was outshined by commotion in the audience.
The show had its good moments with entertaining skits like “Flight Announcement” and Nicole Trombetta and David Scharfe’s cheerleading performance. However, the show also had its share of skits that were confusing and sometimes downright harsh. More than once, the audience reacted toward dull jokes with silence, leading to awkward pauses in the show. The pauses were filled with wisecracks from the class of ’10, which seemed to have a better sense of humor than the class onstage at times. Overall, the class of 2011’s Senior Variety Show just did not live up to the standards of past variety shows.
Eva Bialobrzeski can be reached for comment at [email protected]