Blue Valley Southwest is a school overflowing with talent. From athletes to academics, this wolf pack is full of stars. One showcase of the musical talent of Southwest students is Wolfgong, which will be held on Nov. 17 at 7:30 p.m. in the PAC.
“Wolfgong is a talent show that is based primarily off of The Gong Show,” choir director Susan Scheibler said. “It also includes aspects of American Idol and America’s Got Talent.”
This is the second annual Wolfgong, following a successful first year. Last year’s performances brought Southwest’s talent to life, and gave students a chance to show what they could do.
“Wolfgong was good last year, but we had just opened, so it was a little rough around the edges,” senior Mitch Appelbaum said. “I hope it will go much better this year, now that we’ve been open for a year.”
Appelbaum performed in last year’s Wolfgong and has fond memories of it.
“It was very different than a normal choir event,” Appelbaum said. “I was nervous at first, but everyone there was so supportive and awesome.”
The ‘contestants’ in the show perform solos and in small groups, which is different from the traditional choir format. They also perform songs of their choice, which tend to be from musical theater, or modern songs.
There are only a few changes planned for this year’s show. In general it will be on a larger scale, with a bigger variety of acts for the audience to enjoy.
“It’s just the same show, but with different acts,” Scheibler said. “We plan on having more group acts, and bigger groups. We’ll also have a good number of solos.”
The performers are looking forward to seeing the results of the revamped Wolfgong as well as their performances.
“I’m excited for more people to join, more comical events, and a bigger audience,” Appelbaum said. “We’ve been working on new acts and we can’t wait to see the audience’s reactions.”
Centered around singers and musicians, all acts will be student-produced and performed. They will also be reviewed by a panel of faculty judges.
“We had a really fun group of teachers last year to judge,” Scheibler said. “We should have almost the same group this year.”
Scheibler also has high hopes for this year’s performances. Yet, she will have to be selective in choosing the musicians.
“Only the best of the best will make it,” Scheibler said. “We’d love to include everyone, but it’s only one night and we can only take the best.”
In the original television program, “The Gong Show,” contestants were judged on their performance and their fate was announced by the gong. If they heard the sound of the gong, they knew they were ‘out.’ Southwest plans on taking a more fair approach.
“We won’t bang the gong for any of the students,” Scheibler said. “They are all talented and deserve to be on stage. But the teacher performances are supposed to be bad. They’re the ones we will gong.”
Students, families, faculty and friends are all invited to attend this year’s Wolfgong. Choir students will be selling tickets the week of the show for $5 each.
“You definitely need to come if you want to see your favorite teachers doing funny acts and your friends performing their favorite songs,” Appelbaum said.
