One of Pepperdine’s greatest traditional productions since 1973, Songfest, is just around the corner and calling for all students interested in participating as it is expected to be better than ever this year.
Known for being an exceptional show that combines music, theater and dance, Songfest allows groups of Pepperdine students come together and compete to win the highly coveted Songfest Sweepstakes Award.
Each participating group is required to perform an originally scripted 12-minute-long show based on a theme that will be revealed to all participants at the kickoff meeting in Elkins Auditorium on Thursday, February 16, 2012.
Groups will be independently judged in five different categories: music, choreography, set and costumes, theme, and enthusiasm. The group that ends up with the most acquired points based on each criteria will be the 2012 winner.
All students who are interested in participating in Songfest 2012 should come to the kickoff meeting to receive basic information. Immediately following the initial assembly, groups will split off to their designated practice locations and begin their two weeks of 10pm to midnight practices broken up by Seaver College’s spring break amidst the two weeks.
For the 2012 production of Songfest, Sam Parmelee will be the Director and Executive Producer of the show. This will be Parmelee’s eleventh songfest on staff, not including the three years of Songfest he was a part of as a student. Brittany Chin-Lee is the show’s Producer, and this is her first year on the staff after being in the show for three years as a student.
A key year-round staff member is Chris Stivers. Stivers is the Musical Director and this will be his thirty-eighth production of the show. Also, for the 2012 show there are two student Production Assistants, Nicole Duyao and Lucy Li.
Parmelee corresponded in an e-mail writing, “Songfest is just so much fun. It’s built that way. The whole point is to put people together in close community, working hard together in close community, working hard together on these silly-yet-totally-entertaining songs and dances, and to really turn that effort into something special to be shared with the public.”
Songfest is open to any and all who would like to participate and it has been that way since the beginning. The groups are not decided by the Songfest staff or the program itself, rather groups determine their partnering on their own and enter the competition with a cap of 85 people per group.
Student hosts are selected through an audition process in the fall for the purpose of performing in-between the group performances. This years hosts are: Annie Block-Weiss, Devin Darnell, Craig Kneply, Haeley Moore, Tim O’Reilly, Kate Pauley, Lindsay Sullivan and Sarah Waltz.
The hosts are responsible for supporting the groups, the show and keeping the audience entertained between each group performance.
Performances will be in Smothers Theater starting Tuesday March 13, 2012 through March 17, 2012 with a full technical production, crew and 18-musician pit orchestra. All shows will be held at 7:30pm with an addition 2 o’clock matinee on Saturday.
For those who are not planning to participate in the performance, tickets will be available for purchase on February 6 in the Smothers Box Office or through Ticketmaster for $20 or $10 for students.
Parmelee tallied that for the 2011 Songfest production there were 483 participants. He wrote, “That doesn’t include staff, or the musicians or the technical crew. So we were well over 500 when you factor in all of those folks in too. We’ve just been huge in recent years. We love the enthusiasm, but we’re practically bursting at the seams logisitically!”
Songfest is looking for anyone for any and all students to participate this year. There is no better time than now to get involved in one of Pepperdine’s greatest traditions!
For more information please visit http://seaver.pepperdine.edu/studentactivities/specialevents/songfest.htm or contact Student Activities at 310-506-4201 or songfest@pepperdine.edu.
