Two For The Show (Choir)

(From the Janesville Messenger, 2-15-09)

January means one thing in the households of many high schoolers.

It’s Show Choir Season.

To the students, it means most Saturdays are spent on the bus to a Midwest high school to perform a show that has been carefully, meticulously choreographed and rehearsed. To the parents, it means most Saturdays are spent driving to said high schools to watch the performance.

I am always amazed when I see the talent the high schoolers demonstrate in these shows. It’s a lot of hard work; I know because I’ve been in musical theater and what these kids do is much more difficult than anything I’ve personally witnessed. The show is about 20 minutes of choral singing, choreographed dance movements, emotive facial expressions and rapid costume changes. I don’t know how these young people do it; when I was that age, I was so dorky and uncoordinated I could barely walk without my oversized feet tripping me up.

Show choir is a relatively recent phenomenon. When I was at Milton High School in the late 1970’s, our first show choir (then called “swing choir”) was formed under the direction of music teacher Bill Schrank. Over 30 years later, Mr. Schrank is still at MHS directing the show choir, and my daughter Corinne now plays trombone in the show choir band.

Every year, I’m amazed at what old hard rock or heavy metal songs make their way into the show choir world. For example, Van Halen’s “Panama” is part of the Janesville Craig Spotlighters show this year. Imagine Eddie Van Halen and David Lee Roth in 1984, laying this track down in a haze-filled studio and thinking to themselves, “I hope someday this is sung by a show choir.” Though if Van Halen songs are ripe for show choirs now, I’m still guessing that “Hot For Teacher” won’t make the cut.

One of the shows I caught recently was at Monona Grove High School. I only watched one performance other than Milton’s, and while the high school from western Wisconsin that I witnessed had extremely talented kids, its program selections left something to be desired. Actually, from an unintentional humor standpoint, I hit the jackpot. In a classic case of “What Were They Thinking???,” this particular high school pulled off the Show Choir Trifecta of Wretchedness.

1) Their opening song was "MacArthur Park.” As you may know, “MacArthur Park” is often cited as the worst song of the last 50 years, particularly in its overdramatic 1968 Richard Harris version. The lyrical metaphor that gets everyone laughing is the immortal, “Someone left the cake out in the rain/And I don’t think that I can take it/’Cause it took so long to bake it/And I’ll never have that recipe agaaaaaaain!” It was amazingly surreal to see these kids dramatically singing this song with serious looks on their faces. Frankly, teaching this song to teenagers should be considered felony child abuse.

2) They did a stripper number. Well, maybe not a stripper number per se, but a routine where all the guys are ogling a female dancer using suggestive moves that were...not unlike those of a stripper. In fact, the audience member next to me said, "All she needs is a pole.” I felt like I was watching the talent show competition from "Little Miss Sunshine," except with a postpubescent girl.

3) The guy's costumes for the final numbers were hip-hop style - complete with baseball caps cocked to the side and flashing those funky hand motions first popularized by Run-DMC and imitated by every rapper since. Keep in mind that this was a predominantly white teenage show choir from western Wisconsin. If you want to get urban teenagers to change their style of dress, show them this routine. They will run screaming from the auditorium and drive to the nearest K-Mart for a makeover, only to emerge from the store looking like Urkel from “Family Matters.”

Fortunately, shows like that are the exception, not the rule. Although I’m hardly unbiased, I have to say that I think both Milton’s and Craig’s programs are exceptionally strong this year. If you enjoy watching talented young people perform, you would enjoy their shows.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to work on the walking thing.