CENTENNIAL HIGH SCHOOL- Many events have popped up this last month to display our Titans’ talents- one of them is the talent show. Let’s go backstage for some more details on what went on behind the scenes in the talent show. In order to have gone to the talent show, tickets were necessary to attend on Thursday, September 8. Tickets for students were five dollars and ten dollars for adults. 

Mr. La Rocca is the choir director. The choir program is in charge of the talent show since the talent show is a fundraiser for the choir. 

According to Isha Goel, the middle school outreach officer in choir, “He’s in charge of running the talent show and making sure it runs smoothly.”

Since the show was only from seven to eight p.m., the amount of performances were limited. There was an audition process that needed to be completed to become a participant. 

Goel explained the process as “you submit a video of your performance or you can schedule an in-person performance. Then, they are either accepted or rejected.” 

While performances are the main part of the show, everything that goes on behind the scenes is equally important for things to go smoothly. The people who helped with the talent show are all the officers and Mr. La Rocca. 

“I work[ed] backstage to make sure everyone [was] in their right place for the performances. I also t[ook] and put the equipment back on stage for each performance.” 

In addition, Goel mentioned, “The other officers help[ed] with managing the projector.”  Mr. La Rocca handled the lighting and sound in the booth in the back of the auditorium. Vae Harris was the co-host that helped announce the names and talked during transitions between performances with Caitlin Varghese (the host). 

Most of the performances were singing and/or playing an instrument while two displayed other talents. One was a video of Coach White weightlifting 250 pounds. The coach explained she couldn’t weightlift on stage since they couldn’t bring a weightrack up there in the video. The other was Ms. Caballero who performed a dance from a Mexican state in traditional clothing. 

One of the performers, sophomore Astha Sharma, displayed her taekwondo skills on stage. 

“There’s two forms of taekwondo: Koryo and Kumgang that I’m performing. I might add a tornado kick in the middle,” Sharma disclosed. 

Before the show, she said, “I’m feeling nervous, but I’d like to deny that. I’m going third. I hugged my friends a lot because I’m scared.” 

For why she wanted to be in the talent show, she explained that “[she] likes performing and [she] like[s] taekwondo a lot, and [she] want[s] it to be out there. [She] wants to inspire people to do taekwondo and [she] also teach[es] taekwondo, so [she] want[s] more people to join.” 

Another performance was by a ninth grader named Manas Mandapau who played the acoustic-electric guitar to play “Willow” by Taylor Swift. For why he wanted to be part of the talent show, he said, “I wanted to show what I can play on the guitar.” He plays a lot of instruments: acoustic guitar, electric guitar, acoustic-electric guitar, bass guitar, piano, and violin. He described his mood as “very excited” before the show. 

Two winners were decided in the talent show to get 200 dollar gift cards: one from the student performers and one from the teacher performers. Ms. Caballero got the teacher’s award while Ariana Gibson got the student award for her performance of “Never Enough”.  

Overall, it was a great show. Thank you to all the people who worked hard to display their talent on stage and the people who came out to support the Titan teachers and students.