Somers High School Variety Show All in Good Fun

From the opening scene parody of The Lion King’s Circle of Life, aptly telling kids to “go to class,” the 2011 Senor Variety Show at Somers High School delivered a lot of laughs.

As one student held high the student handbook (aka Baby Simba) and the other students, obediently, knelt in reverence, the audience knew it was going to be a fun and funny night.

“Fun was actually banned at Somers High School,” joked Masters of Ceremony Mike Benoit, Matt Benoit, Taylor Geas and Kristen Conley during the Friday, April 1 show.

But, indeed, the night was all about fun, as skit after skit parodied, made light of and, at times, exaggerated the people, rules and goings on at SHS. From rules about no outside wear in class and no cell phones to not being allowed in the hallway without a hall pass, nothing was left sacred.

The teachers were by far hardest hit. The students roasted the principal and assistant principal, math and history teachers and even the school nurse; no one was safe.

In a prerecorded skit, called The Law of Kapner, student Matt Traceski played the roll of Asst. Principal Robert Kapner who busted students without the appropriate credentials walking in the hallway by tackling them, of course. The number one rule students said: NO singing at Somers High.

From a teacher falling off of his roof while shoveling snow to a lost substitute being found playing a video game in the “lost stairwell” to endless jokes about Kapner and Principal Gary Cotzin, the show was written, performed and produced entirely by the students.

In the style of Saturday Night Live, the show was a mixture of live and prerecorded segments. All of the teachers portrayed gave their permission, and art teacher Mary Curran acted as advisor.

“The teachers have to be good sports and give their approval to being portrayed,” said Curran, who gave a lot of credit to the students who put the night together, from performing and stage crew to props, lights and sound.

The proceeds from the show this year will benefit the Parent Teacher Student Association, and will fund scholarships and the Somers High School SafeGrad event.

Senior Madison Zachary, who portrayed school nurse Edna Smith, said the skits and the jokes allow the students and teachers to not take the rules so seriously for one night.

“It lets teachers loosen up, and brings them and us out of the classroom,” she said.

Written by students, primarily senior Georgia Burke, the show has been in production since February.

When asked how she got her inspiration, Burke said, “[The teachers] pretty much give us the material every day in class.”

While the skits are meant to be over-the-top, it’s mostly all based off of real events, real school rules, and the actions and statements of school staff.

“Some of its exaggerated, but a lot of it’s not,” Zachary said.

“We just took a lot of what they say all the time and put it in a way that’s even funnier,” Burke said.

The variety show mostly is a chance for the students to let out steam about the rules they find strict or their teachers, in a safe environment. All the students and teachers, even the ones being portrayed, agree that it’s all in good fun.

“It makes the most frustrating things about our school funny,” senior Andrew Thomas said. “It allows us to laugh everything off.”

While someone who has never spent a day inside the school might not understand some of the jokes and parodies, many pop culture references, particularly music, were added to the skits to make them more generally amusing.

In one particularly funny moment before intermission, Justin Liquori and Matt Traceski, who played Cotzin and Kapner, respectively, came out on stage dancing and performing the song “Kapner Cotzin,” a parody remix of the popular rap song “Black and Yellow,” by rapper Wiz Khalifa.

“Everything they do yeah they do it big. Always screaming hey stop running!” the song says. “Bald head, big waist, them freshmen scared of them but seniors ain’t. Kapner Cotzin, Kapner Cotzin, Kapner Cotzin, Kapner Cotzin. Got a call from my super, this just in, the parents happy cuz we messin’ with their kids heads. I’m the mean one, he the softie though. Good cop, bad cop yeah we make the truth flow.”

Mike Mayo, an SHS teacher and one of the founders of the variety show in 1994, attended Friday’s show and endured several jokes at his expense.

“The fat jokes were about me,” Mayo said, laughing. “I get a kick out of it. It’s a lot of fun every year.”

Mayo said he and another teacher started the show after a student was killed in a car accident in 1994. The show was performed in her memory. Over the years, the show became a fundraiser for the PTSA to benefit SafeGrad.

While he wasn’t targeted last year, this year, he said, the kids showed no mercy.

“I’m open season this year,” he laughed.

The show is a great way for the students to bond with the staff in a way they can’t during the regular school day, Mayo said.

“They realize we’re just normal, everyday people,” he said. “The show does a lot to build a relationship between the students and staff. And it gives them a chance to get back at us, turn the tables a bit. But it’s all in good fun and never mean spirited.”

In fact, many of the scenes depicted the staff as the students imagined them to be when students are not around. From a scene in the teacher’s lounge, to Kapner alone in his office listening to the students’ confiscated iPods, a combination of what the students know about the staff and their own imaginations made each skit a barrel of laughs.

For the purposes of the show, the students created Facebook pages for some of the teachers. On nurse Edna Smith’s page, one very old looking picture shows what appears to be a nurse caring for two wounded soldiers.

Below the picture, the caption reads: “Just me on the job at the Battle of Gettysburg.”

In a prerecorded tour of the parking lot – filmed National Geographic documentary style – after seeing some students drive off at a high rate of speed, one student tells Kapner that it’s sad there are no cameras in the parking lot.

“We don’t need cameras - I see everything,” said Matt Traceski as Kapner. Meanwhile, in the background, a man is seen running away behind them with two stolen purses, smiling sneakily as he passes by the camera, the assistant principal completely unaware.

“It’s just another day at the Somers Institute of Corrections,” the students declare.