By: Cheney Hurley –
Students of Southeast showcased their talent in front of their peers, teachers, and members of the community in the Jennifer L. Dorsey-Howley Performing Arts Center on Jan. 26, 28, and 29. This year, there were 19 acts in the variety show, Night of Knights, all organized by a total of 60 performers.
There were five MC’s this year: Laura Ebers, Meredith Enersen, Abby Johnson, Aaron Sorilla, and Abram Turner. They acted as the hosts of the show and performed small skits to cleverly introduce each act.
Senior Elijah Herbel performed a magical act entitled The Wizarding World of Elijah Herbel. He started by having someone in the audience hold on to a sealed envelope. Then, he asked for a ten dollar bill from a volunteer and had them cut it up. Before continuing by swallowing the pieces of the dollar bill, he wrote the serial number on a large notepad for everyone to see and read it aloud a few times to ensure he and the audience had the accurate serial number. When Herbel finished swallowing the pieces, he gave his volunteer the sealed envelope to open and the ten dollar bill was in there with the exact same serial number.
“I hadn’t tried [the trick] in front of people before and I was scared that someone was going to figure it out,” said Herbel.
Fortunately for Herbel, his act was successful. Herbel had never done magic prior to this act and was actually inspired by a Youtube video. This was Herbel’s last performance in Night of Knights for his high school career.
Herbel said, “I was happy with how [the performance] went and I thought Saturday night had a good crowd. It was a good way to go out, senior year.”
For students interested in auditioning in the future, Herbel says to not be afraid to go out of your comfort zone. “Don’t be scared to go out and perform what you want to do,” said Herbel.
The majority of the other acts in the show were musically focused. One of the bigger vocal groups sang acapella using solely their voices and bodies to create all of the sounds and beats for their performance. Tressa and Ella Little sang a duet where they had a slideshow of photos projected behind them as they sang. Another act, an improvisational group, used random phrases that the audience had written and incorporated them into their skit without reading them prior to performing. Some solo acts included Dana Clements playing The Maple Leaf Rag on piano and Alyssa Johnson performing a dance routine to the song Say Something.
The next upcoming theatrical event for the Performing Arts Department is the spring musical, Cinderella, which will be held at the start of May.