Junior SING!: A Spunky, Show-Stopping Spectacle

Every March, hundreds of Stuyvesant students are left devastated by an epidemic of PSD, with symptoms including spontaneous bursts into nostalgic song and fits of utter despair and emptiness over not having to go to rehearsal. To the many who have never participated in SING!, it’s hard to comprehend the annual phenomenon of Post-SING! Depression, but this year’s Junior SING! set out on a mission to highlight what SING! is really about—the experience of making a show.

Coordinated by Ruby Gary and produced by Julia Arancio, Eli Economou, and Elena Sapelyuk, Junior SING!’s risky and unusual theme this year promised a unique story. Rather than focusing on a romance or relying on the common SING! trope of a treacherous journey with many trials, Junior SING! instead decided to give viewers insight into the production process and celebrate the work of each and every crew.

The show opens with Kim (Xinyue Nam), the coordinator for SING!, rising from her bed in a flashy gold blazer and performing an uplifting adaptation of “Good Morning Baltimore.” As she belts out a peppy “Good morning Junior SING!,” a semi-transparent gray screen lifts up to reveal the set of Junior SING!—an incomplete stage with chorus dressed in SING! shirts joining in the melody and step dressed in construction worker outfits immediately setting out to work on building the stage in a clever homage to Tech.

As the opening number comes to a close, we are introduced to best friends Will (Adam Elsayed) and Phoebe (Jessica Gruboy). While Phoebe is interested in becoming Props Director, Will finds SING! to be corrupt and a waste of time—mostly because he did not receive a position as producer the year before.

So, when Kim does make Will a producer due to a lack of applications, he vows to make the show crash and burn from the inside out in his passionate rendition of “Dream On” by Aerosmith. Elsayed’s vigor was exhilarating to watch, as he flung papers all over the stage and hit powerful notes, matching the band’s energy and resulting in an intense and thrilling performance.

But while Junior SING! had plenty of talented vocalists like Elsayed, many of them were not given an opportunity to display their talents. Out of over 20 songs, only five of them were actually sung by the cast, resulting in several members being overlooked and rendered unmemorable.

Adding to this detriment was the lack of significance of many of the characters, mostly in part due to the script mainly revolving around Will’s misdeeds. For instance, along with the other SING!s this year, Junior SING! chose to embrace homosexuality with a very passionate lesbian couple, Alyssa (Alexa Kong) and Celeste (Meredith Silfen). While Kong and Silfen undeniably stayed true to their characters, and the chemistry and romance between the two did not seemed forced at all, the two side characters were given little screen time and ultimately just seemed to lack purpose.

Though some of the characters felt a bit stereotypical and undeveloped, the cast’s commendable strong portrayals still made them enjoyable to watch. The audience was truly able to sympathize with the naïve and adorkable understudy Toby (Daniel Schraeter) with his dreams of acting in SING!, and despite his lack of lines, we could always laugh at Cast Director Cosmo’s (Box Wu’s) hilariously exaggerated facial expressions and excessively high standards.

Two standout performances of the diverse cast of characters were those of Dylan Mak (Floyd) and Nam. Mak’s portrayal of hippie-scriptwriter Floyd was spot-on, infusing his nonchalance and carefree manner into each of his lines. His apathy and carefreeness make it even more surprising when it’s him who decides to encourage his fellow SING! members to continue working on the show in his rendition of Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros’s “Home.” Mak’s whistling accompanied by his soft strumming of his guitar made his casual cover much more heartwarming, as he manages to make his friends smile.

Similar to Mak, Nam seemed to be perfectly casted into the role of Kim. While Kim initially seems to be just an optimistic girl who loves SING!, her overzealousness for the show is quickly shown, as a scene suddenly shifts to her parodying Gordon Ramsay, putting her hands over a kneeling girl’s ears, and yelling, “What are you?!” (“An idiot producer!”).

As the show progresses, her cheery façade quickly falls apart due to Will’s sabotage of the show, ordering and screaming at many of the crews (while simultaneously giving them well-deserved shout-outs) such as the lights and sounds crew when the lights flicker out into a total blackout and the costumes crew due to a shoddy job. Her character arc eventually culminates in a total breakdown as she amusingly cuts off the band in an angry rant, rushing off the stage without singing her planned solo of “Before He Cheats.”

Despite a very strong cast, Junior SING! was let down by a drastic lack of participants this year, in part because of the decision of scheduling the Saturday SING! show on the same date as the March SAT. This issue was especially notable in traditionally large crews such as art and costumes, which were significantly smaller than usual. Chorus was hurt by this in particular, as their few voices were often drowned out by the loud band and orchestra, making it difficult to hear the lyrics to which several of the crews danced.

Despite this, many dance crews were still able to express their technical abilities, and unlike in many previous SING!s, were cleverly integrated into the script. Tap, dressed in simple blue skirts and white shirts spelling out “JR SING” from the back, represented the writing process of a SING! script and pulled off a cheery and well-synchronized performance, using giant pencils as canes. Their choreography was further enhanced by Floyd, who comically followed the dancers’ moves. In spite of being one of the largest groups, step, amusingly chanting “Junior SING!, can we win it? Junior SING!, yes we can!” to the tune of the theme song of “Bob the Builder,” was also one of the most coordinated with their enthusiastic and complex steps making for a fresh, original sight. And during the blackout, when a slightly unstable Kim comedically screamed, “Somebody, get me a flashlight,” Flow rushed into the darkness and illuminated the stage, their brightly colored lights providing a mesmerizing sight while actually serving an innovative role.

Belly stood out as one of the most pleasing dance crews to watch in particular with their alluring and fluid movements. And while the majority of Junior SING!’s costumes were rather lackluster (especially those of the main cast, who simply wore typical student outfits), belly’s shimmering blue outfits resembling mermaids were dazzling, especially when surrounded by the fog tinted by the sea-green and aqua lights shining down.

Junior SING!’s script was also filled with plenty of clever disses, such as when Will snarkily declares, “White? Check. Popular? Check. Passed the coordinator homework last week? Congratulations! You’re a director!” A notable one toward Soph-Frosh involved Will forcing a hesitant Cosmo to use his poorly-written script. The scene later shifts to Celeste and Alyssa reading their lines as a mother-daughter duo. Alyssa, wearing a banana costume, melodramatically confides to Celeste, “I want to be a historian!”

Despite these moments of humor, Junior SING! was able to reach a dramatic climax when Phoebe, who was indeed given the role of Props Director, figures out that Will was the one who was ruining their show. While Will doesn’t understand why she cares so deeply for the show, thinking she only wanted to do SING! to spend time with the props boys, Phoebe blames him for not doing something to help change SING!’s problems. Their heated duet of Adele’s “Chasing Pavements” showcased Elsayed’s and Gruboy’s vocal abilities exceptionally well, with the duo’s voices connecting in a powerful melody.

Unfortunately, Junior SING!’s happy ending seemed rather cliché, with the cast making up quickly (while never finding out Will was the reason why their show was doing so poorly) and deciding to continue the show. The ending also felt rushed, with the final scene revealing that the SING! the characters put on was of them taking the SAT with tap’s giant pencils, feeling anticlimactic and just seeming like another one of Junior SING!’s many SAT jokes.

Still, despite their loss to Soph-Frosh SING!, Junior SING! should be commended for trying to show us what Phoebe and, eventually, Will learned: SING! shouldn’t be about winning or losing, but instead, about having fun making a show with friends. In the “groovy” words of Floyd, “C’mon guys. Soon, we’ll be seniors… we gotta make this show count.”