Youth Talent Showcase!

Each year the youth in our church ward (kids ages 12-18) embark on some sort of fundraiser to help finance their summer activities. This year the kids decided to hold a talent showcase with a Hollywood theme:

Awesome entry way, courtesy of the decorations committee.

Chuck oversees the Young Men in our ward, so he was pretty involved - although there was a big emphasis on the youth doing as much of the work as possible, which was really great to see. They were in charge of the majority of the planning and execution, which led to some really great achievements and also some really important learning moments :).

The day before the real thing was busy - we hosted the food committee (aka the McCall boys, who were superstar hard workers) at our house to pop and package a gazillion bags of popcorn and then headed to the church for a dress rehearsal.

Friday night was showtime! Oh, did I mention I got to co-host the evening with my good friend Kara? Here are a few of my favorite shots of us: Kara going old school and apparently telling me to 'talk to the hand', our dubious expressions when we introduced 'Napoleon Dynamite' and 'Kip' came out instead, and us hanging out on the staircase offstage before we realized we could definitely be seen by half the audience in that spot - we quickly hightailed it outta there!

We have such incredibly talented youth in our ward; it was so fun to see all of the different acts they put together. Here are some of the song/dance numbers: a sister trio singing, a YW song/dance with help from some primary girls, a song duet, another YW number (from Frozen!), and a dance routine.

I've referenced before how many of our youth are involved in drama at school, and we were psyched to see their fantastic acting on display. Here are some of the skits and comedy bits, including (but not limited to) an amazing monologue, an amazing pantomime, two Studio C skits, and Bishop Fleshman telling hilarious family stories: 

And a few more: Jared and Raquel on the top left leading off the show with some audience-participation, the Deacons on the top right doing a billy goats gruff adaptation, on the bottom left Kara and I led the whole audience in singing Happy Birthday to Annina, who was turning 18 that day and who was one of the driving forces behind the whole evening. 

The bottom right picture still makes me laugh - Kara and I came up with a gag where as I introduced the Bishop, I encouraged the audience to really ham up their reactions to his comedy/storytelling. He had mentioned the previous Sunday in church that other times he's been onstage have been flops, so I conspiratorially declared that we would ensure tonight would be different. As I was doing so, Bishop came out and interrupted me - not something that had been planned or rehearsed, so that was extra funny :). 

[We also did a follow-up later in the evening where Kara and I chastised the audience for taking it too far, saying that the Bishop had gotten a bit of an ego from their standing ovation and was hurriedly putting together an encore backstage.]

Kara and I had so much fun co-hosting -- right, Kara? You were just joking about never ever doing it again, weren't you?? One of my favorite things was starting out the evening really dolled up (because who doesn't want to stuff their pregnant self into their junior year homecoming dress??) and then slowly getting more and more comfy throughout the evening. At one point we referenced trading our heels for slippers and Crocs, but from then on, we'd just come out every now and then wearing new pieces of sleepwear:

And please enjoy the awesome shots on the left that Kiki took as we were eating our dinner and getting ready before the show - poor Kara found out how ridiculous the process is to make me look cute, what with my extreme fears of curling irons/eyelash curlers/etc :).

Chuck and I were both backstage/onstage so we weren't able to be out there taking pictures or video, so I'm extra grateful for everyone who did and let me steal from them! Including the McCalls, who got a lot of video footage, including this bit. Kara came up with having me insist that I was a participant in the talent show, going as far as sneaking out on stage for my musical number - banging together pot lids at random intervals during the "Where's the Beef?" song before our fantastic stage director Sister Waldron comes to escort me off:

And Kara is, of course, hilarious as she continues the running selfie gag (at various points kids would run out to take pictures with audience members and Kara and I kept reassuring ourselves as to why we hadn't been yet selected to be the pictures) and recovers when she can't find the dang opening in the curtain. That was the most ridiculous part of the night, we had to awkwardly feel around for it every.single.time, haha.

And finally, here are some more shots from the night, Chuck and Dan's 'selfie' is obviously my favorite:

I'm so, so proud of and impressed with the kids in our ward who worked so hard to make all of this happen - and the incredible leaders and adults who guided them and volunteered so much of their own time and talents. It was a great night, and the audience-contributed donations will allow these kids to have a great time at Girls' Camp and Scout Camp this summer, wooo!