North has had a recent addition to its arts performances. Just last year the first Kaleidoscope showcase was performed, making this only the second annual performance for Kaleidoscope ever.
Unlike the usual process of auditions and cuts, Kaleidoscope is a no-cut student-led show where any students at North can audition to perform. Students can perform songs, scenes, or parts of plays that they enjoy in a sort of cabaret-type style. Students performed a vast diversity of performances at the annual show this year. Students sang songs from plays, performed scenes from plays or movies, wrote scenes or telenovelas, choreographed, and created their own showcase.
“It’s new. We started it last year; it’s basically a theatrical review. It’s a bunch of different scenes and monologues and then scenes from musicals that we normally cannot go out on our stage with whether it’s because we don’t have a large enough population to support it or it’s because content-wise we can’t do the whole show, but we can do a song,” said Cher Schwartz, the director of the show.
Recently students from Green Room collaborated and created a board to help make decisions for the show. Senior Sean McNicholas was part of this board.
“This year I had some students from the Green Room who were kind of like leaders, and they decided to make a board that would help me kind of organize it all,” Schwartz said.
Senior Rory Dwyer was the assistant director of Kaleidoscope. She worked on the set with Schwartz and had a helping hand in setting up and executing this show.
“I would go around to the different groups of people and just help them through voice practice or help them with acting. I was just doing whatever I could to organize or help the actors,” Dwyer said.
Rory has been involved in North’s theater previously and got a chance to take the lead for the show this year. Her position allowed her to assist all the groups who were preparing for the show.
“I’ve been in theater at North since the beginning of my sophomore year since I did the show ‘Stealing Home’ for the fall play,” Dwyer said.
The board and members of Kaleidoscope were given three weeks to prepare for the show. The beginning of the school year August-September is the general range of time Kaleidoscope practices and performs. This was a one-night only event that sold out both years it ran.
“We only had three weeks to do it. It was tight. We did it. It was stressful, but we did it,” Schwartz said.
Although it was hard work and stressful to execute, this program is beneficial for students interested in theater.
“It gives them the opportunity to be on stage, have that experience and know that while maybe the fall play isn’t going to be a place where they have time on the stage, we still have the musical later. They still get the chance to get to know us as a program,” Schwartz said.
“It’s a really good opportunity to get involved in theater at the beginning of the year and get to know new freshmen because that’s when most people join. It’s a good show for meeting new people,” Dwyer said.
They began their process for the show over the summer as their performance was scheduled for right at the beginning of the year.
“Over the summer we met and we talked about our theme which was going to be about rainbow connection, celebrating the different gender and sexuality identities and making sure that people know that theater is a home, a safe space for that,” Schwartz said.
Students were given the opportunity to go in and audition for this show and showcase their talent(s).
“Once we had auditions we had the hard part of who could do what and kind of what our show would look like,” Schwartz said.
Although staff had a hand in some of the work, overall this show was student-led and student-created. Students worked hard to blend their different talents to make one show, showcasing their abilities.
“The really cool part was that because the kids kind of knew what we were doing now, the board members took it over and they decided, ‘I’m going to direct this song’, ‘I want to choreograph this number’,” Schwartz said.
Kaleidoscope is a show that the students in the Green Room and outside of it got together not only to showcase their talents but also is an introduction to theater. It is a good opportunity for students to try out something new and test the waters with a new activity.
