By Madison Boboltz, Staff Writer
On Sept. 19 at the conclusion of Sing!, a series of short musicals performed by student organizations throughout homecoming weekend, Kappa Phi Omega and Alpha Iota Omega won outstanding creativity, outstanding choreography, outstanding vocals and overall first place—a clean sweep.
Senior history and psychology double major Madison Wommack and senior biblical studies major Evan McGrew directed their award-winning show. Wommack focused mostly on choreography, while McGrew functioned as the organizations’ Sing! chair.
The two groups started planning and collaborating ideas for the show in May, at the end of the spring semester. In August, they got together to finalize the script and figure out the music. They started rehearsals the second week of September and practiced from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Both Wommack and McGrew described their wins as “shocking.” Initially, they were unsure whether or not their show would be received well at all. “When we were writing the script, we thought, ‘What in the world are we writing?’ It was a super weird concept. These friends drink a bunch of coffee, so they are super caffeinated and they essentially ride out their caffeine high as if they are on a fever trip. We were wondering if it was going to be okay. We thought it might have been a little too far out there,” McGrew said.
The show revolved around four main characters. After finishing their 27 cup of coffee in order to stay awake, they began to experience vivid hallucinations of cartoon characters coming to life, such as The Flintstones, reimagined in the show as The Limestones, as well as Scooby and Shaggy, who volunteered to help the friends find their missing couch. The characters got agitated and started to fight with one another, but then they reconciled. Then, they sang and danced to the theme songs for The Brady Bunch and Full House. It ended on a comedic note when one of the characters recommended they celebrate by drinking more coffee, a suggestion which the rest of the cast vehemently shut down.
Wommack and McGrew said the scope of their victory was surprising, but also rewarding. “I expected that we would maybe win outstanding creativity. We got the judge’s score Friday night, and they really liked the concept of our show, so I thought maybe we could win that. And then when we won the whole thing it became clear that they really liked all of it. I was especially flattered that they enjoyed my choreography,” Wommack said.
“I knew we had a good show because we had worked so hard, but I didn’t think we were going to win every single thing. But then they called our name, and we were like ‘What just happened?’ It was crazy. For me, this was my third and last sing show, so it was nice to go out winning,” McGrew said.
Though they were pleased with the win, both agreed that the most important thing to them was that they put together a memorable show that those involved had fun creating. “One night at the end of rehearsal, we sat everyone down. We said it would be nice to win, but I said that I didn’t care about winning. I cared about creating a memorable show and a memorable experience that we could look back on 15 years from now. We wanted to be the show that everyone remembers,” McGrew said.
“The most important thing for us was the show was good, and we purposefully made it good and tried our best with it, but we also made sure that everyone had fun in the process. We didn’t want to stress anyone out while creating a show and practicing a show. The whole point was to think of a fun way for people to get to know more people, interact with one another and have a good time,” Wommack said.
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