UPDATED: 4/10/16 4:40pm

“Incredible Student Performances”

Social Media is on fire this morning as people tweet and post memorable moments from last night’s variety show, ‘Alden’s Got Talent’. The wide range of student performances included Senora Hazen’s Spanish 4 class’ lip dub, Brooke Meyer blowing us away with an acoustic performance, The Evolution of Hip-Hop with Paige Rzepka and Brooke Strausbaugh, and many more.

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Senora Hazen's Spanish 4 class performs their lip sync routine to open the show

“Hilarious Teacher Skits”

A large addition to the new format of ‘Alden’s Got Talent’ was that there would be a teacher skit as a transition in between each performance. Many of the teachers who performed in these skits would make a reappearance (well, sort of) in the large teacher dance later. However, Mr. Domino, Mr. Simon, and Mr. Kern joined in on the live fun as well. The skits were all improv skits that they had no prior knowledge of. Gucinski (host) would call the teams out on stage for each skit and read scenarios to them at random. A majority of the skits were concepts borrowed from “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”, “Hollywood Game Night”, and “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon”. The skits varied from “Infomerical” [VIDEO] to “Helping Hands” [VIDEO] and more!

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Mr. Domino and Mr. Edward perform in the first Teacher improv skit, "Infomerical".

“Surprises Around Every Corner”

Surprises are something you sort of expect when you implement improv skits and rely on a team of student writers. The surprises didn’t just happen in skits however. The night began as a surprise when an overwhelming number of people packed the house. Traditionally, these sort of performances draw a very small crowd, but approximately 350 people filed in just before 7pm.

Perhaps the most admirable moment of  the night included Ian Johnson who courageously “prom-posed” [VIDEO] to Mallory Ronan in front of the large audience following his duet performance with Everett Gilbert. Johnson had assistance from Paige Rzepka who displayed the sign reading “Mallory, Prom?” and was rewarded with Ronan, thankfully, saying “yes” and running on stage.

Towards the end of the show Max Gucinski announced that there will not be an ‘Alden’s
Got Talent’ show in the 2016-17 school year. He shared with the audience a bit of a larger surprise, however. Before sharing the news, he asked Mrs. Gramza to come on stage to join him as he announced that instead of the show, WACS News would be once again teaming up with Donate Life Club to bring back the Vitality Fashion show.  The fundraising event for UNYTS & Andrew’s Army has been on a hiatus for two years reportedly due to its complexity and the time that is needed to invest into the production. Sources tell WACS News that Vitality 3.0 is slated for March 18th, 2017 and that Mr. Matt Masci will coordinate the event alongside Alden alumni Naomi Skarupinski as they work hand in hand with Mrs. Delzer (Donate Life Club Advisor) and Mrs. Gramza (Andrew’s Army).

“Gucinski Carries The Show With Laughter “

WACS News Anchor, Max Gucinski, ran out at the start of the show to the theme from the former hilarious classic “The Late Show with David Letterman” which would prove to be a perfect mood setter for the rest of the night.  After working hard with Mr. Masci, Mr. Currin, Kelsey Crawford, and the rest of our production team there was emphasis on keeping the show moving quickly while also keeping the mood light-hearted. Gucinski has been working to script his show with co-writers like Matt Lamb, Ryan DesJardins, Mr. Currin, and Mr. Masci. He made an appearance for transitional purposes in between each act with witty one liners, both planned and unplanned.

The Alden High School Senior’s presence on stage was comfortable for both him and the
audience who is used to seeing Gucinski in the spotlight. The audience definitely saw a looser and more comedic version of the performer, however, on Friday night. He would open the show “all business” explaining how it would work, but didn’t stray from making witty puns. He was also blunt about expressing the teacher skits were “seen before on live TV and (they’re) completely ripping them off” and wasn’t afraid to not hold back jokes about Mr. MacCowan and the school cafeteria renovations. Guests leaving the performance told producers that they “didn’t stop laughing all night”. Gucinski would also play a big part in Ian Johnson’s prom-posal and regularly joked with stage crew members as they worked to quickly transition in between skits. Its most fitting that he would end his last moment in the spotlight with firing off what was perhaps the funniest joke of the night in his sign-off skit with Carl Aldinger, “Thank You Notes” [VIDEO].

WACS News is proud to have been part of such an incredible night. While they weren’t planning to release the full video to the public, a full video recording of the performance is now available HERE. We apologize for the intermittent audio issues. However, we thought that the pros definitely outweighed the cons here.

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