On Thursday, the Philharmonic orchestra started off the night with a piece by Florence and the Machine. This piece was promptly followed by a rap battle in which Mr. Larson, played by MC Eli Martin and Ted Sorensen, played by MC Ryan Ostrander left it all on the stage. Anya Ahmed made our stage light up with her dancing. And after Ahmed’s beautiful piece, MCs Henry Alvarez, Simon Brockmier, and Maddie Scholl made us all decide that the possibility of an ‘Artificial Intelligence Hall Pass’ in replacement of our current E-Hall Pass system is not one to look forward to. After this mind boggling skit, Brian Goodbrake, a social studies teacher here at LHS, and Abigail Praznik-Lodge, a senior at LHS performed a song, with both participants singing and playing guitar. After their performance, a paper airplane contest was held, in which contestants made paper airplanes, and in the end, the winner got an amazing prize, a paper airplane! After this heated competition, Oliver Brassil blew the audience away with his incredible juggling skills.
Oliver’s amazing juggling was followed up by a skit that isn’t unfamiliar to us all at LHS, the skit depicted a class taking a test, but not being able to finish because of many factors, including but not limited to; having to move buildings, having a faulty fire alarm go off, and construction noises. This skit was followed by Allie Works’ performance of ‘Taylor the Latte Boy’ which did not bring us java, but did bring us a lot of joy. After Allie’s beautiful singing, we got some not so amazing singing, brought to us by LHS teachers Andrew Bargen and Lindsey Herting. In the end, the audience declared that Herting was overall the better singer. To follow this interesting performance by the two teachers, the crowd participated in an LHS ‘connections’ game based off of the New York Times’ game, “Connections.”
After this tricky game and intermission, Shako performed two songs. Shako is made up of 3 LHS students, Jackson Semrad on lead guitar and vocals, Kasten Pierce on drums, and Becca Rice on bass. After this performance, Lucy Coke wowed us all with her performance of ‘Piano Man’ by Billy Joel. Lucy’s singing and piano playing was stunning, and while the audience was in the mood for a melody, Lucy definitely got us all feeling better than alright. After Lucy’s wondrous performance, MCs Raquey Robertsen and Winter Porto performed a rendition of the ‘toxic gossip train,’ which went viral as an apology video last year. This rendition had some interesting takes on the electronic hall pass system. After this ‘apology’ by the emcees, Sons of pitches, Lincoln High’s barbershop group, performed a rendition of a classic barbershop piece. After this harmonious performance, A limbo contest was held, in which many students, and siblings of students participated in. After this impromptu competition, Anya Ahmed and Tatum Lambert performed ‘Killing Me Softly With His Song’ by Roberta Flack. This performance was beautifully sung by Lambert, and skilfully played by Ahmed on piano.
This performance was followed by a skit that is probably very near and dear to many of our teacher’s hearts, centering around the new cell phone policy that was introduced at the beginning of the school year. In this skit, emcee Maddie Scholl was leading a riveting discussion about iambic pentameter and how Shakespeare uses it in his Sonnet 12. During this discussion Laney Cowins pulled out her phone, however, Scholl found her out and made her put the phone in the pocket. Cowins then pulled out a plethora of other items, including a gameboy, a desktop monitor, and a George Foreman grill. This made Cowins land a spot in the principal’s office. After this skit, the LHS jazz band performed a piece. This piece was followed by a fan favorite activity at Joy Night, ‘Teachers Read Mean Tweets.’’ This event makes many of our teachers question their life choices and ask “Why did I choose this profession?” The Mummers followed this activity with their sleepover scene, in which 2 ghost hunters hoaxed some teenage girls at a sleepover. To follow this scene, the hit band “Iron Pyrite Rage” played 3 songs and offered to bring up the audience on stage for their last song. Thursday night’s performances made us all excited for Friday.
On Friday night, Sinfonia started off the night strong with a performance of “Tank” by Cowboy Bebop. This performance left us all jamming. After Sinfonia’s wonderful performance, D&E Latino Team danced their hearts away, and left it all on the stage. To follow this wonderful performance, Ellie Hill sang a piece that she wrote herself. This performance was mind boggling, with Hill singing and playing guitar. After Hill’s performance, Brassil went on for the second night in a row, which left us all to juggle our excitement for the next act, which was Allie Works, who brought us even more joy on the second night than on the first. After Allie’s serenading, LHS AP Human Geography teachers had a sing-off to discover who was the better teacher. This competition was heart wrenching, from Chris Turley bringing up his daughter on stage to sing the hit song “Let it Go” with her, to Annaliese Saathoff bringing up MCs Ostrander and Martin to reenact the titanic scene in which Saathoff sang “My Heart Will Go On” during the first part of the competition, there was a tie, but in the end, Saathoff was declared the better singer by the audience. After these tear jerking performances, LHS percussion went on and blew us all away with their wonderful act.
After intermission, Accidentology, made up of Sophomores Sam Maser on vocals and rhythm guitar, Ellis Bass on lead guitar, Forrest Wamstad-Evans on Bass, and Junior Ghostt Snyder on drums and background vocals. After their fantastic performance of 2 original songs, Starfish DC left us all in awe with their awesome dance skills. After their groovy moves, Sons of pitches went on for the second night in a row. After this spectacular acapella performance by Senior Chris Dickson, who sang lead, Junior Ghostt Snyder, who sang tenor, and Sopohmores Calvin Farber who sang bass, and Alex Ganshert who sang Baritone, Ahmed and Lambert blew us all away for the second night in a row with their rendition of “Killing me Softly With his Song.” To follow up their beautiful musicality, the LHS Jazz Big Band performed for another night, with many students in this performance, the LHS Jazz Band left us all in awe. The mummers performed their sleepover skit again, which left everyone chuckling. At the end of both the nights, Iron Pyrite Rage performed again.
All in all, Joy Night was a success, with lots of talent from LHS. Students and staff alike appreciate all of the students and teachers that made it happen, from the social studies teachers, to the audience. This year’s Joy Night really brought everyone through the eras of Lincoln High, and had something for everyone.
