Behind the scenes of Spring Sing

Photo by: Nick Conley

 

Psi Epsilon: an underdog’s rise to the top four in Spring Sing

Written by: Brent Pedersen

In 2008, a new club was established. This club was not very big, and thus for their first year of Spring Sing they would need to team with another club. They attempted cavemen, dinosaurs and “Top Gun,” but nothing was successful. It wasn’t until 2011 that the club known as Psi Epsilon ventured out and had their own show, working with childhood-favorite characters: Power Rangers.

The show was cute, got rave reviews and the audience’s attention, but it wasn’t enough.

Then the next year came, the year of the League of Legends.

They studied long and hard to decide what would be most appealing to the audience, easy for the club to work with and overall make a great show.

Their decision? The legendary team of brothers, Mario and Luigi.

They were given flack because this had been a past show of Kappa Sigma Tau – how would they pull it off and be different?

They watched show after show of past Spring Sings, only to realize the most successful shows had three things in common: witty lyrics with fantastic volume and harmony, partially difficult moves that came across well on stage and a whole lot of energy expression. And with that, a new Psi Spring Sing was born.

They worked night and day making sure the booms and pops were correct, their clearly audible vocals sounded pleasing to the ear and it looked like the Mario Brothers had jumped off the screen.

They were excited to show the other clubs their new moves – the moves that Psi was never predicted to do – and nervous about the reactions of the other clubs. They stepped on that stage, and the audience adored them. The cheers of excitement and surprise flooded the stage. The boys were ecstatic and grinning from ear to ear. With each night that followed, the excitement grew and grew.

The audience gave the guys a feeling unlike any Spring Sing show they had performed in the past.

They began to feel extremely confident about their show and felt they had real potential.

Then came the most crucial aspect of Spring Sing: awards night.

The awards were read one after the other, but none of them read the name Psi Epsilon. As the main awards were announced, the men were downtrodden, feeling any chance of winning slipping through their fingers.

The fourth name was announced and the words resonated. PSI EPSILON! A flood of emotions came over the men! What they had been working for and looked forward to since their establishment was finally coming true. The founders and seniors of Psi Epsilon were satisfied and ready to pass the club onto the remaining members, and the remaining members were ready to bring another show with the same passion as this.

So as this Spring Sing year approaches, the men of Psi Epsilon continue to work with the same fervor as the year before and hope to bring the same results, if not better, to the Spring Sing stage.

 

Iota costumes are fitted for Spring Sing

Written by: Lauren Bygland

It all started back in October, when Spring Sing weekend seemed so far away.  We – Sarah, Kalee, Jamie and I – poured over countless patterns trying to find “the one.” It really was like trying to find a wedding dress. The costume had to set the tone for our theme, Mary Poppins, and look flattering on everyone while still looking cute.

After consulting a tailor, we finally decided on a knee-length overcoat and a color scheme of red and black.October blurred into November and the hunt was on for everything else. Our goal of getting costumes done over Christmas break fell to the wayside as we studied for finals and tried to keep up with everything. We decided on the umbrellas, fabric and gloves over break. Once we got back to campus, we put in the orders for everything. It was now officially “Spring Sing Season.”

Everything was going really well and we felt like things were falling into place. That is, until we realized that we were going to be significantly over our Spring Sing budget.

The shipping alone on 200 yards of fabric we ordered was astronomically high. After this blunder came the busting of a majority of the umbrellas. Even a lecture by Sarah to “treat our umbrellas like our 80-year-old grandmas” during practice couldn’t prevent the breaking of the umbrellas. We had to reorder all new ones. At the end of January, we finally had everything to start cutting out the costumes.

We slowly started sewing the costumes at this point, too, and realized that each costume was going to take in the range of 6-8 hours to sew. Take that times 30 costumes and we were looking at a minimum of 180 hours worth of work on costumes to fit into a four week time period since costumes were due by final approval.

We finally got costumes all cut out seven days before final approval.

We distributed half of the costumes out to moms and aunts and members who knew how to sew, because we were starting to run short on time.  During our Hardeman lock-in, we set up a sewing station, and moms sewed during the lock-in.  We’ve had so many moms and past members willing to help out. We’re grateful for their help, but there’s still a lot to do before the show!

We vow that we will finish the costumes by Spring Sing, but for final approval, our costumes may have unfinished hems and be held together in the front with safety pins.