Day 9: Talent Show

After the immense success of last year’s first talent night, we decided to bring the event back this year and give our participants a chance to relax and get to know each other in a non-business environment. With over 20 student acts, almost every student participated in one of the funniest two hours event in Accelerator history.

Eric Bilbrey, one of our coaches, kicked off the evening with a rewritten patter song that named every participant, coach, and staff member in the program and followed that up with a country classic. During the course of the show, we also had comedic acts from Vince Nord, Fark Tari, and Eppa Rixey. As well as vocal stylings by CoCo Chalfant, one of our staff members, and spoof songs about the program written and performed by Thomas Bernstein, Brad Cayer, AJ Axelrod, Ethan Dunham, and Greg Harvey (aka “The Non-Coaches”).

The night really started to get going when Westley Taylor performed a snapping feat (difficult to explain but memorizing to watch) and came in third play overall! Rachel Sullivan wowed and surprised us all with a belly dancing number. Charlie Boyd and Geoff Miller serenaded one of our coaches, Macee Bumpus, with the classic Righteous Brothers hit “You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling”. In another high light of the night, Prisiclla Arellano and Raul Perez-Gurdian came in second with their steamy Salsa routine. Fred Tang made us laugh by making farting noises with his stomach and our Communications Professor, John English, got the crowded clapping and on their feet by singing and playing the harmonica to a Ray Charles classic. The night was Tommy Crespo and Erin Steigerwald’s though. The duet played a medley current and past hits with Tommy on Bassoon and Erin on the keyboard and was the overall winner of the night.

In addition to our individual acts, we had a team competition as well with the prize being an extra hour of sleep during the upcoming week and our students went all out. Team 5 started up the night with girls dancing to “Macho Men”, dressed in basketball shorts, t-shirts, and ties and the guys dancing to “Pretty Woman” wearing phenomenal dresses. I have to give Westley Taylor, Tanner Rice, David Jogwe, and Ryan Stutler particular praise for wearing the dresses, lipstick, and heels so well. Team 3 serenaded our Marketing Professor, Cherrie Clark, and got her dancing with a performance of Enrique Iglesias’s “Hero”. In honor of their newly-wed coach, Jeff Freude, Team 6 chanced the lyrics of “Jesse’s Girl” and sang what will surely be an instant hit, “Jeffrey’s Girl” while Team 1 went the more traditional route by singing another classic song, Bonne Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart”. Team 7 got creative and re-enacted Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” with flash lights. While all of the team acts were amazing, Team 2 was the big winner of the night with their comedic skit spoofing all of the core faculty and professors.

We knew our participants are extremely bright, dynamic, and driven; however, we were all taken aback by their creativity and wide range of talents. It was an incredibly fun night filled with some priceless moments and a great way for everyone to learn more about each other. A special thanks to all of our participants who were brave enough to take our stage, Eric Bilbrey and Eppa Rixey for loaning us their personal sound equipment, our fantastic judges, and Erin Anderson and CoCo Chalfant for coordinating the evening’s event.

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Michael Burcham
Faculty Director, Accelerator 2009