Jonathan Alder High Society Show Choir hosted their annual Friends and Family night on January 31, 2018. Friends and Family night is a performance open to the Plain City community of the Show Choir’s competition show. According to director Mr. Mayes, the group has 25 minutes to set up their elaborate set (including instruments, costumes, and members), perform, and clean up.

This event acts as a dress rehearsal before their competition seasons goes into full swing. Senior and President of Show Choir, Emily Haskins, said, “We have Friends and Family Night so that we can have the atmosphere of an audience to perform to, and just so that we can show off a little before our competitions.”

This year’s show was “Enter the Cosmos,” a space-themed show unlike any show performed by Show Choir thus far. According to Mr. Mayes, “[Show Choir] is embarking on a journey to the depths of the universe: from the magnificence of the stars to the destructive powers of black holes.”

The choir begins their performance by singing, “Space Oddity/Major Tom” by David Bowie and Peter Schilling followed by “Starlight” by MUSE, which leads into “Rocket Man” by Elton John. The men of the choir then sing “Fly Me to the Moon” by Frank Sinatra, which is followed by the women of the choir singing “Cosmic Love” by Florence and the Machine. The show ends on an epic and mysterious note with the song “Supermassive Black Hole” by MUSE.

“This is the first show where we started entirely from scratch, the music was composed by [Mr. Mayes] and each dance was entirely choreographed by Scott Jones,” said Mr. Mayes, “the show this year is very ambitious and harder than anything we’ve done before. I like this show because it’s something we all can relate to…looking up at the stars, wondering what’s out there,” Mr. Mayes said.

The choir began preparing for the intensity of the show in August, a couple weeks before classes began. Haskins said, “This year the dancing was a lot more challenging than in past years. And even though we started working beforehand, we still had to take advantage of every single minute of every single rehearsal.”

If you want to see the Jonathan Alder High Society Show Choir in competition, they will be in attendance at Hamilton High School on February 16th, 2019 and Twinsburg High School on February 23rd, 2019.