Evening of the Arts was a two-day showcase of student talent from Cypress High Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) programs. On September 19 and 20, the show in the Theatre followed a dinner service in the media center provided by the Cypress Culinary program. Each performance was based on different musical theatre and television show. Participants included CHS Theatre, CHS Advanced Dance, High Voltage, Pink Thunder, Voltage Unlimited, and Sound in Motion.
Culinary students spent two days cooking, kneading, and mixing various dishes for the families of VAPA students. During dinner, Cypress Theatre students provided entertainment by improvising scenes on the spot with requests from the audience. After families finished eating, they made their way to the Theatre to watch multiple performances, each inspired by films and movies. Mrs. Karapoulios, Advanced Culinary teacher, recalled, “Since this is only our second year doing Evening of the Arts, I am proud of how my students did. I think it went really smoothly, and now we knew what was expected after the first year.”
Sophomore Shourya (Cheerio) Chaurasia reenacted a well-known monologue from the Spiderman movies, and committed to the role by dressing the part. Chaurasia originally meant this monologue to be part of his audition for a play called “Little Women,” but his teacher saw potential in his performance. “There are a lot of spidermen out there, so instead of being a spiderman, why can’t I just be my own?” Chaurasia explained. “I wanted to do something with more emotion; something harder, because if it’s not hard, it’s not fun.”
Cypress Advanced Dance faced many struggles in preparation for this two-night performance, one struggle being the small amount of space between the stage and the crowd. The dancers made a last-minute decision to split their class into two sections in order to accommodate the choir risers on stage. Genesis Rivera, Junior in Advanced Dance, found that “remembering the new moves and cuts from our choreography was hard, but thankfully Ms. Fenton drilled it into our heads, so we ended up being okay.”
Vice President of Advanced Choir Lizzy Burke had many mixed emotions about Evening of the Arts being her “last first show.” Performing with an entirely new team and finding that chemistry isn’t easy, but Burke found that “working with the other VAPA programs managed to bring [us] closer.
