Choir is Finally Moving Out of The Gym!

The day has finally come folks! After all the hurdles and setbacks, the auditorium (that has been in the works for 2 years) is opened this past Monday! Along with the Grand opening came Lotus’s first Performing Arts Night. After a struggling time to get the class off the ground, the audience couldn’t wait to see what Ms. Grunzke and the class had in store for them!

DRAMA 

These past 2 days were very stressful time for Ms. Grunzke and her class as they had to cram a week’s worth of preparation! They could not use the auditorium before the 27th due to the grand opening. Additionally, many of the drama students are first time performers. 

Even though there has been a lot of pressure and stress this week, Ms. Grunzke was hopeful and excited for the concert as it was the first opportunity for her to showcase her students’ talent! Some spectacular performances included Ryan Okolie, Gieneyvieve Sanchez, Juan Covarrubias, and Cristopher Millan.

Ryan Okolie, a semi-new actor, performed a monologue by Pulitzer from the musical “Newsies”. He was very excited for his performance as it was a way for him to show people his acting and singing abilities. A struggle that he self identified was stage fright but when he went on stage he was able to overcome that struggle and deliver a raving performance. As he says, “Even though you might not feel like you are that character once you get on stage you feel that rush of having all these people looking at you it’s easy to impersonate that character and that person’s abilities”.

A piece of advice Ryan gave in an interview is that, “For anyone that is starting now and might be afraid to mess up, I think the best thing to do is go towards the middle, more specifically the middle end. Cause you’re not the first act nor the last act that people remember but you’re not that middle act that will bring everyone’s attention back to the play”. All in all his performance certainly got a stir from the crowd! Thank you Ryan for that spectacular monologue. 

Another moving performance last night was by Geineyvieve Sanchez who performed a handwritten poem. This poem was about some personal events that has happened in her life and gave a way for her to somewhat anonymously vent. This piece brought some people to tears with how much life Geineyvieve gave it. Even Though this was an emotional performance she felt happy being able to go on the stage and perform her poem flawlessly.  With her passion in writing this poem came easy to her.

CHOIR – 

Both teacher shared the stresses of setting up the successful performance night. Ms. McG had to learn lights and sound systems in about 3 days! She also taught it to students so that she could hand off the controls to them so she could direct her choir and keep the performance going.  

With that race against time a minor mistake was made with the planning of the concert that caused a minor hiccup in the setup of the performances. This mistake was fixed onsite and did not cause too much of a problem overall. 

Ms. McG was very excited for the new auditorium as it had many more technological upgrades than the old one, “It has a lot of technology that will enhance our performances in the future and opens up a lot of opportunities for students to learn about video, audio, and lighting.” She exclaimed that the acoustics and sound system was 10x better now than in the past. 

HS choir’s performance was one performance that Ms.McG was very excited for, “the growth that they had throughout this year really showed with that set list. They accomplished everything that they set out to do and just dedicated themselves.” She is also planning more performances with and without drama. Some she said were piano recitals, solo nights, and an end of year talent show.

Two HS boys, Juan Covarrubias and Cristopher Millan performed for both drama and choir. They acted out a scene from the musical “Newsies”, performed skits between the acts, and sang for the HS choir. Both boys agreed that these concert songs were mid and not the best songs but in the end they turned out great along with the whole concert, “ Best concert Lotus had in a while. Definitely.”

One of the solos that performed that night was by Hereyah McCowan. She performed a solo of her singing “ talking to the moon” by Bruno Mars. She performed this song because, in her own words, “I feel like it will make a lot of connections and ties to the audience”. This is the second time she will be performing as she has sung in front of her family, bringing some of them to tears before. This was a somewhat  personal performance as this song was in memory of a late family member. Singing this song was a form of therapy and expression for her from this tragic event. 

This was a not to miss night for Lotus! One of the best in a long time. Thank you to all the performers and an extra thank to the teachers who put it on! We are looking forward to more drama and choir collabs.