Principal Madelyn Ball, senior class moderators, and senior class officers have changed the date of the senior Variety Show from Nov. 22-23 to Saturday, Jan. 7.

The show has traditionally been scheduled on the Tuesday and Wednesday evenings before Thanksgiving Break. Instead, there will be an afternoon matinee and an evening show both on Saturday.

To ensure tickets sales for this year, an incentive is being offered to the student body. If 90 percent of the student body purchases tickets to the show, then the students will receive a day off. “It’s raising the bar on many levels, and we are going to double, maybe even triple, the funds that we would have originally made,” Senior Class Moderator Larry Hensley said.

According to the other Senior Class Moderator Sue Greig, Ball was tasked with the responsibility of altering Variety Show or eliminating it altogether.

“I personally have been charged this year with number one, making sure that there is nothing mean-spirited in the show. In other words, it’s one thing to make light of things, but it is another thing to target someone and make fun of them,” Ball said.

In previous years, the Variety Show has been plagued with controversial skits that target alumni and current students, provocative dance numbers, and drug and alcohol use references.

“It’s a good opportunity to change it from a show full of mean, poorly written jokes to a show that’s well-planned and funny,” senior Variety Show participant Hayley Boyle said.

Variety Show has had a history of alumni being denied admittance or thrown out of the audience because they appeared to be under the influence of alcohol and refused to blow into a breathalyzer.

“We want to increase a more positive audience base coming and supporting our performers, as opposed to screaming and attacking performers,”  Hensley said. “We would have performances where we would have grandparents, little old grandmoms, sitting with screaming, intoxicated previous graduates . . . Do we want that to be what the John Carroll Variety Show is about?  I don’t,” Hensley said.

Ball also hopes to improve the quality of the show for prospective students and their families.  “There have been definite reports of adults who said ‘I will never send my child to this school,’ because of the behavior at the Variety Show,” Ball said. “Every time somebody says something like that, the school loses 14,000 dollars.  Or, if they have multiple children, we could have lost 30, 40, 50 thousand dollars.”

The change of date has sparked negative reactions among the senior class. “Variety Show isn’t Open House,” senior Variety Show participant Christie Macdonald said.

Another reason for changing the date was to give seniors more time to prepare the show. “The seniors and their moderators discovered that at this point they didn’t have anything,” Ball said.

Ball said she doesn’t have any plans yet about making the date change a new tradition. “We’re just going to see how it goes this year,” Ball said.

“It’s our goal that many years from now, people will still be talking about the Class of 2012’s Variety Show.  Moving the date to Jan. 7 will help us make that a reality. Having extra time to create and polish skits, freeing up other members of our class to participate, and growing our income from the Variety Show are three huge benefits that are achieved by moving the date,” senior class Vice President Nick Henninger said.

“I like the fact that more people are able to participate, but I don’t like that it is so late and so close exams. It’s kind of ruining the tradition,” senior Kelsey LeBuhn said.

The senior variety show has been scheduled in November for as long as math teacher and previous Senior Class Moderator George Appleby can remember. “I’m not in the administration, so I don’t make that decision [about the date change].  I’d rather see it at Thanksgiving as it has been,” Appleby said.

The idea to make a change to the Variety Show was suggested three years ago by the Board of Trustees, and Ball decided that changing the date would be the best course of action, according to Greig.

“We’re not getting rid of the tradition.  I never want to get rid of the tradition. But for this year, because we’re not ready, we’ll go to Jan. 7 to give everybody a chance to get all of this done,” Ball said.

“John Carroll used to have a catch phrase: tradition, pride, and excellence, but now that’s [the date of the variety show] another tradition gone by the wayside,” Appleby said.

Brianna Glase and Emily Clarke are Managing Editors for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.