Periscope

Issue date: 2/20/09 Section: Art & Entertainment

It is a Friday night and bubbly music begins to play on a piano. Students begin to enter from the left, right and then from the back. "Fresh out of bed your life is so crazy and you stare dead ahead and now the world's facing you, seems at times they're practically chasing you, everywhere another door," is what comes out of senior Doront'e Evans' mouth.

Welcome to Black Tie Affair 2.

This is how Friday, Feb. 17 in Brookes Chapel sounded. They were the sounds of the second annual Black Tie Affair getting underway. The chapel is packed out with parents and students a-like to hear the musical talents of these Shorter College students. All of the music performed was from a variety of 16 different musicals sung by 14 different performers ranging from music education, vocal performance, musical theatre, theatre and piano performance majors.

The Black Tie Affair is a musical concert, and soon to be organization, performed by students from the School of Arts who are part of the black community at Shorter. They are given a chance to participate in something they have never done, and more than likely will never get to do.

These students are given the opportunity to be in a production that showcases their talents unlike they normally are. It gives the vocal performance and music education majors the opportunity to sing musical theatre songs which they rarely sing.

Shows like Ragtime and Porgy and Bess are shows which require an almost all-black cast, which are the type of shows Shorter never puts on. However, Black Tie Affair allows these students to produce a show which features an all-black ensemble. The cast performs songs ranging from those musicals they would always be cast in, like "I Am Changing" from Dreamgirls, along with shows that they typically would never be cast in, like "Close Every Door" from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

This gives the students a chance to show the faculty and students the versatility of their talents. Through performing a mixture of comedic songs and slow, serious and emotional songs the students find a perfect balance to entertain their audience.

Of all the songs there were a few performances that made the show memorable. Some of the best performances of the night were: "Woman" from Smokey Joe's Café performed by the female ensemble; "I Want It All" from Baby performed by junior Lauren Irving, senior Ramielle Moorer and sophomore Jasmine Habersham; "Til We Reach That Day" from Ragtime and "Sunday" from Sunday in the Park with George both performed by the entire ensemble; and "Role of a Lifetime" from B.A.R.E performed by Doront'e Evans.

As an encore the Black Tie Affair 2 will be performing again Sunday, Feb. 22 at 7:30 p.m. in Brookes Chapel. Also look for them in April to finish out the Celebrate Shorter festivities.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools