By Ethan Epstein
Have you ever dreamt of spending your Saturday night with all of your wonderful teachers? If you answered yes, then you would have loved attending the faculty and staff talent show, which took place last Saturday night.
The show had many highlights, including the emceeing of history teacher Jamie Rinaldi and English teacher David Weintraub; the father-daughter vocal duet of science teacher Patrick McFarland and his daughter; and the “1776 snow day” skit of instructional technology and business teacher Brian Hammel.
First, Rinaldi’s and Weintraub’s emceeing– it was just hilarious! Out of the entire night, one of my personal favorite jokes that they made was the joke about rejected MCAS prompts. They said that they worked for the Massachusetts Board of Education and they wanted to share certain rejected MCAS prompts.
Some of them included identifying characters in works of literature that suffered from Irritable Bowel Syndrome, that had names, that could fly, or, my personal favorite: “Often in works of literature students are forced to take high stakes test during school hours when they could be learning the curriculum. Name and identify one student in your class who takes high stakes test and explain what they would rather do.”
Another part of their emceeing was the intro, which included a video chat (and later an appearance!) from former history teacher Sean Turley. Turley used to emcee the show along with Rinaldi and Weintraub, but he retired last year.
Even being in Mr. Rinaldi’s history class, I was surprised by just how funny everything was; indeed, it was truly laugh-out-loud funny.
The intro started off with Rinaldi and Weintraub singing a cover of Justin Timberlake’s new song “Suit & Tie.” Turley then came onto the projector screen and said that it was too ‘weird’ for him. They continued to play an electronic song and then — surprise — Turley appeared onstage.
top: Mr. Weintraub and Mr. Rinaldi emceeing
(Photos by Alyssa Erspamer)
Now onto the father-daughter duet with McFarland and his daughter. They sang ‘Defying Gravity’ from Wicked and, apart from being one of the cutest acts ever performed, his nine-year-old daughter managed to sing better than many students at Newton South. McFarland said he was unsure at first whether taking his daughter would be allowed, but I think the standing ovation from the audience might have smoothed that out.
Last but not least, my third highlight of the event was Hammel’s skit about snow days, which supposedly took place in 1776, and also featured English teacher Alan Reinstein. Hammel acted as the superintendent writing a letter to students about the snow day.
Instead of calling the students, he wrote out letters for each pupil an hour before school began. Dressed in a wig and old-fashioned outfit, he spoke in a slightly British accent as he talked about the snow day with many outdated words. At the end, he and Reinstein threw an Angry Birds stuffed animal to the other side of the stage, pretending they were sending a pigeon out to disperse the letters.
All in all, the Faculty and Staff Talent Show was a huge success (as it was last year) and I recommend that everyone goes out and sees it next year. Even if it means seeing your teachers six days a week.
