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SING! Humor
These articles are works of fiction. All quotes are libel and slander. SING! Reviews
SophFrosh SING! is… Good? What?!
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By OLIVER HOLLMANN
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.
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?
Clowning on Junior Sing!
By OLIVER HOLLMANN and ERICA CHEN
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
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.
By MICHELLE HUANG
Stuyvesant’s SING! is a unique musical event with a history of excellence, but behind that prestigious reputation lies a world of corruption. SING! whistleblowers stole documents detailing SING! 2022’s expenses, which revealed a pattern of SING! directors abusing funds for personal gain. We tried to dig up receipts from previous years but came to a dead end when an anonymous informant told us that the receipts were ritually burned at the end of every SING! season. However, we used our connections with SophFrosh SING!’s assistant Costumes director Michelle Huang (who, by the way, is super hot and funny and deserves all your money) to save a few receipts to publish.
Note: To clarify, “Toddlers” refers to SophFrosh, “Old Clowns” refers to Juniors, and “The STD Sages” refers to Seniors. The insulting nicknames describing the other grades imply that these records were curated by Senior scriptwriters, who couldn’t think of any jokes besides those insulting their competitors.
2/11/2022 Toddlers: two
yards of black fabric for emo/ punk rock Eros, $40 2/11/2022 Toddlers: one gallon of gasoline, $150 2/11/2022 Toddlers: fivepack of lighters, $30 2/12/2022 Toddlers: six olive trees, $90 2/12/2022 Old Clowns: one mannequin with incredibly unrealistic proportions, $80 2/12/2022 Old Clowns: three clown noses, $9 2/12/2022 Old Clowns: four yards of red fabric for swaggy ringmaster’s coat, $28 2/13/2022 The STD
Sages: three gallons of cream white paint for their excellent set, $60 2/17/2022 The STD Sages: six cups of coffee, $36 2/17/2022 The STD Sages: 5,000,000,000 masquerade masks, $5 2/18/2022 Old Clowns: one Among Us poster, $69
An Exposé Into SING! Expenses
spending from the directors. Seniors spending $6 per cup of coffee? What kind of desperation drives them to such madness? And what kind of fabric
It’s only the first week, yet we already see ridiculous did SophFrosh buy to warrant spending $20 a yard? But the crimes do not stop there. Let’s examine the records from the days leading up to the show, which is when the expenses truly get out of hand.
3/1/2022 Toddlers: 40 “Clout Goggles,” $520 3/1/2022 The STD Sages: six-pack of 5-Hour Energy, $20
3/2/2022 Old Clowns: two tigers, $2,000 3/2/2022 Old Clowns: two elephants, $40,000 3/3/2022 The STD Sages: one 2021 Rolls-Royce Dawn, $360,000 3/4/2022 Old Clowns: How To Get Women by Chad Brodude, $14 3/5/2022 Toddlers: 36 pack of juice boxes, $24 3/5/2022 Old Clowns: 12pack of sparkling grape juice, $48 3/5/2022 The STD Sages: 12-pack of champagne, $200
The only useful purchase made in the last few days of SING! was How to Get Women, since the Juniors seriously needed to fix their sad romance side plot. However, this was the exception, not the rule; overall, most transactions were unnecessary and extravagant, costing Stuyvesant valuable money and time. We can only hope that with enough public outcry, this financial dishonesty will soon be stopped, restoring SING! to its former glory.
Top Fives
BEST MISTAKES
1. Thursday: I’m Yours Acapella
(David Jiang, soph-frosh)
As Olive and Irene seek out Hephaestus’s knowledge on the whereabouts of Psyche, Apollo (David Jiang) cuts in with a solo of “I’m Yours” acapella accompanied by the soph-frosh band. However, within the first few seconds of his vocal performance during the Thursday show, the musicians abruptly cut out. In a turn of events, Jiang admirably was able to improvise his execution of the song, with an accompaniment of claps reverberating from the audience in support. Thus, an unexpected miscoordination between the band and the cast proved to accentuate SophFrosh SING!, with Jiang receiving praise for his quick thinking and ability to rile the audience.
top?” (seniors)
Throughout the opening night, the microphones stayed on backstage, blessing the audience with an earful of whispers. While these audio issues largely distracted from the performances, a few errors broadcasted funny quips to the audience. Of these, the most memorable occurred when Candy South (Leah D’Silva) stood on stage, waiting for her fellow thespians to walk out, while they were still figuring out the placement of their blue shawl. “Do you think it’d look better if I put the blue shawl on top?” roused some well-needed laughs from the audience, and added comedic relief to a milieu of technical errors.
3. Thursday: Leah Standing Alone
(seniors)
While Thursday shows are notorious for being less polished than their weekend counterparts, Senior SING!’s technical errors gave way to a wonderful mistake. As she waited for her co-actors alone on stage, D’Silva improvised by talking to the audience and cueing her co-actors to hurry up. Her confidence on the stage was appreciated and at least somewhat compensated for the awkward situation. More than just D’Silva, the cheers and claps from the audience added camaraderie to the SING! show that was sorely missed in 2021. 4. Friday: Flow Fling (seniors)
Flow lights are spun with such ferocity that you can barely see them individually. They form lines of multicolored LEDs, circles of flashing lights, and imperceptible formations; so when a dancer loses grip of a light revolving at 100 RPMs, things end badly. If you were sitting in the front rows on Friday, you may have just narrowly avoided a yo-yo to the head.
5. Friday: Mic Issue “What’s my
line again?” (soph-frosh)
It’s been mentioned that Thursday shows lack some polish, but the same goes for the first show the following night. Despite SophFrosh SING!’s domination on Thursday night, leaving the Stuyvesant building past 11:00 p.m. does not do one’s sleep cycle any favors. The lack of rest and overconsumption of caffeine wore away the memories of some participants, leaving one of the actors clueless about their next line, which was revealed through a technical error. At least the mistake was off stage.
