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The Spectator ● March 21, 2022
SING! Humor These articles are works of fiction. All quotes are libel and slander.
SING! Reviews SophFrosh SING! is… Good? What?! Clowning on Junior Sing! By OLIVER HOLLMANN
By OLIVER HOLLMANN and ERICA CHEN
Okay, okay, hear me out—I know that many readers may have already gone into a fit of passionate rage after taking nay but an errant glance at the title of this article, but for those who have not yet taken a leap out the window, hear my words! The degenerate losers known to many as “sophomores” and their little orphan hatchling “freshmen” somehow managed, against the will of nature itself, to throw together a decently adequate performance. Did that sentence give you a stroke? Don’t worry, you’re not alone—the SophFrosh SING! Thursday show caused an immediate commotion amongst the eight audience members who had not yet left after Senior SING!. One disgruntled junior, after doing five laps around the theater in a bout of confusion, blurted, “I DIDN’T want to commit a murder-suicide after watching this? How? Why is this NOT terrible?” After being asked if he had any flaws to point out, a furious senior remarked: “Do I have any criticisms? Like, the set was super bland and the plot ran a bit thin at the end, but that’s LEAGUES BETTER THAN NORMAL!” The question I’m sure many are asking is: how the heck were these tiny a** people able to staple together a show that didn’t make anyone bleed internally? Fear not, for your question shall be answered! A lone Spectator reporter braved the depraved depths of the Sophomore Bar (wearing full hazmat gear) to talk to one of the show’s cast directors, Brandon Phillips. The sophomore explained that Ms. Maggio, a faculty advisor of the production, had “fashioned a medieval-style torture device to assure that no underclassmen stepped out of line.” The freshman beside him added that “no performance-enhancing drugs were used in the making of our show.” She then got up and did a triple-cartwheel into the East stairwell.
Junior SING! 2022 really put the “hat” in “yeah, I guess that was a show?” That is to say, they sucked lol. No, I kid, I kid. Junior SING!’s production went against the odds, with the script going through 300 rounds of half-hour cuts only eight minutes before the Thursday show. A scriptwriter on the crew asserted that “the original script involved Lianne Ohayon in an elephant costume. We actually planned on cutting the elephant part, but Lianne said that she would ‘literally murder’ all of us if
Senior SING! Steals the Show! By ERICA CHEN and OLIVER HOLLMANN Prepare for your heart to be moved, your mind to be excited, and your eardrums to be ruptured by feedback, because it’s time for Senior SING!. The seniors, to the dismay of many audience members, failed to fix their microphones in time for the production. This shortcoming meant that many lines were kept a secret, and members of the audience were left wondering what was happening. What was going on with the wieners? Why were they talking about STDs? WHAT WAS HAPPENING? North’s song about Montana’s death would have had us bawling—if not for the terrible mic screeches. We were too busy crying from the pain of our broken eardrums to be worrying about what was going on in the performance, not to mention empathizing with a character’s death. If anything, Senior SING! should have been a rom-com instead. The cheesy lines had us all cringing so bad! Many revealed in an anonymous Google Form that they had wished to jump into the Hudson River to forget they had heard anything. ‘My puckering pineapple’? ‘My sweetest, most promising pomegranate’? What’s with all the nicknames?? The seniors also had some really interesting character names. I certainly wouldn’t want any of them to name my child. Like, North Dakota South? That’s enough to give anyone an identity crisis. The lead actress, Cynthia Tan, later admitted in an interview that she had multiple breakdowns during rehearsals: “So… am I North, or am I South? Why is this so confusing??” Though the show had an interesting array of screeching tech, cringy lines, and confusing names, the seniors did a pretty decent job—as decent as they could in a high school show, anyway. They won because they deserved it… right?
she didn’t go on stage. In the end, she only murdered half of us.” Oh yeah, the plot! The circus workers do their best to put on the “big show” that will save their circus from something that only writers from a school with a 50 percent poverty rate would think of: an eviction notice. Among the cast of Junior SING! were an array of wacky characters, including a ringleader, psychic, clown, and normal guy in flannel and boots. Speaking of characters, Junior SING! starred ringleader Berry Ongan and stressed-out Stuyvesant student Zach, whose megalomania was shrouded by the trance–inducing nature of their vocal talents. Emily Young-Squire played Opal, a psychic whose powers operate on a “does the plot need me?” basis. There was also Max Hesse as Sean, a ventriloquist whose mouth is covered by a mask, and Zoe Buff as the character whose name and circus role I do not remember. I do recall that there was something about rampant elephants… They should have really brought in some live animals. I’m sure all of us would have enjoyed it! Besides, the animal actors would have kept the juniors too occupied to make so many roasts toward the SophFrosh and Senior SING!s, something that I’m sure all of us would have enjoyed. I like my jokes how I like my steak—not dry. So 0.5/5 stars for Junior SING! on that aspect. Although the Spectator has received reports that there was a chorus for Junior SING!, the auditory evidence is undeniable: it simply did not exist.
