At its worst, Lagniappe pokes fun at mundane and overdone behavior of students. At its best, Lagniappe satirizes the relevant and current trends of student life. “Knock Knock” Lagniappe Potpourri 2015 was relatable to all students, making it hilarious, provoking lots of laughter in the crowd.
Although this year’s Lagniappe doesn’t have a strict storyline, the show’s more general theme spoke to opportunity “knocking.”
The first scene tackled life at New Trier and its vast array of activities, which is so large that you may meet a new person on graduation day. For the rest of the show, the characters go back in time for a second chance at high school.
After speaking with the creator of the show’s theme, senior Talia Levy, I was told that the gist of the show questioned, “What would New Trier be like if students actually got involved in the awesome opportunities that school has to offer?” The answer: an awesome four years, as seen throughout the musical.
The show’s relevance in “Literally A Scene” was spot on. A few actors played 8th grade girls, who use the word “literally” literally after every other word. It was incredibly accurate, basically placing all of my younger brother’s friends on stage.
The girls realized that they were misusing “literally” after the older sister literally does run after them with a knife literally trying to kill them.
There were a lot of one-liners throughout the show that not only made me giggle, but full on snort in laughter. Senior Jack Oldfield’s scene where he dresses as a Hogwarts student, senior Kevin Slowey’s line in the rap where he references Evanston as E-town, the intercom voice mentioning the swim unit and how boys can’t use menstruation as an excuse, and a 37 ACT were all very relatable to a NT student’s life and ,therefore hilarious.
The second half hit each joke out of the park. A very unique scene had a fashion show for finals outfits. The idea was so linked to New Trier students, and it made for one of the funniest scenes. Senior Julia Levin, acted as a fashion show reporter and used the phrase “TI-Inspiring.” This joke had me laughing almost for too long after the joke was made. Netflix Anonymous was another distinct topic for Lagniappe of 2015 to cover.
One of the most celebrated scenes, Country Thunder vs. Lollapalooza vs. Spring Awakening, made me laugh the whole time. Especially when senior Nathan Reiff came out with a blanket and candle, mentioning “Ravinia is pretty nice too…”
The complete cast dance numbers started off with a scandalous dance to the forever popular Partition by Beyonce in glamorous, sequined jerseys. Five boys played the band members of N’sync and sang ‘Bye Bye Bye” mimicking the dance style of the band. The last dance, which included the entire cast, had me dancing in my seat. It was to ‘Rather Be,’ the song of the summer. One of the dances, however, was to a song by Madonna and Justin Timberlake called “4 minutes” from 2008. This song played for a majority of the dance number and was boring and outdated.
Another outdated scene “NT Confesssions” caught me off guard because it didn’t fit with the rest of the show’s up-to-date jokes. At first, I couldn’t tell what it was about, and had a hard time understanding the lyrics to the song. I perceived this to be about how obsessed with phones teenagers are which is incredibly overdone and obvious to a point that it isn’t even funny anymore.
During Lagniappe the pit band plays unaccompanied by the actors after intermission. The conductor, senior Adam Wrobel, and head composer senior Will Finnegan, were both very animated during their solos, and then invited the rest of the musicians to the stage to join in a fun rendition of “Sir Duke” by Stevie Wonder. Bands in the past have been less than seamless, and this year’s made up for it.
The film portion of the show by Brian Weaver and Gray Schiller brings the audience into the New Trier English department. The entire film was funny and took on a “The Office-style” filming. While the style of filming gave me a headache, the film itself did a great job of making light of the seriousness that surrounds seniors while completing college applications.
In the short film, we watch a student thank a teacher with a gift for a college rec, and when the student leaves the scene it closes up on the teacher who implies she doesn’t even remember who he is.
The set design was a lot less theatrical as it has been in the past. It was very much just a backdrop for the actors to come alive on, which was good and bad at the same time. As the big grandiose backdrops can add an element to the shows excitement, but from the actors.
The sound designer a junior, Jack Bender, made sure the whole cast was heard as opposed to years past when there have been some miscommunication with the microphones on stage.
The plot made a full circle at the end when the two characters in the beginning had been friends since their first day at high school, answering the musicals question “what if opportunity knocked twice?” As the chorus of the last song says, “change begins with you.”