Drexel student organizations continued their homecoming competitions at the Variety Show Wednesday night. Approximately 140 students gathered into the George D. Behrakis Grand Hall to watch their peers perform a wide range of skits and songs, along with some comedic commentary from the show’s MC.
First place was awarded to Jonathan Morency, who performed a dance to dubstep-esque music. The audience seemed pretty engaged by his unique style of robotic dance. Morency received $1,000 in DragonCard Dollars for placing first.
Second place went to the Drexel Quidditch club, who performed “Take Me Home Country Roads,” by John Denver on the trumpet. This act got the whole room singing along to the chorus, in between the instrumental trumpet harmonies. The club received $500 to spend at the bookstore.
In a surprising turn of events, CAB came in third place, despite the hard to follow Scooby-Doo skit they performed. The third-place prize was commemorative t-shirts for the entire team.
The audience enjoyed the Society of Women Engineer’s performance of “Stand by Me,” by Ben E. King, garnering the most audience participation out of all the acts, taking their phone flashlights out and singing along. The group gathered on stage as if they were sitting around a campfire and performed the song on the ukulele. The rest of SWE was in the audience, waving “SWE,” signs from their chairs. They finished the last chorus by changing the lyrics to “Stand by SWE!”
Other notable acts were Jay from North 3 West, who sang “If I Ain’t Got You,” by Alicia Keys. Jay received a standing ovation for her engaging performance.
The Drexel Jedi club provided an informational introduction before two fight scenes that kept things exciting.
A group that went by the Ginga Ninjas had three members who performed Miley Cyrus’s, “The Hoedown Throwdown.” Unsurprisingly, a portion of the audience stood up and danced as well.
“DNSA” was a spoken word/song duo, with a spoken word poem about the identity struggles related to being an Indian muslim woman. This was followed by a cover of “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi.
The Weekend Warriors performed a helpful skit about wilderness safety and how to handle injuries. The group relied on a scripted segment as well as improvisation, which led to confusing but comical dialogue.
The DAC Pack also included a “Jeopardy!” skit, where two members of the DAC Pack answered Drexel Sports trivia. The audience occasionally played along, yelling out answers to the questions that were asked.
The USGA’s performance received the biggest laugh, when they walked off stage of their eight second performance which included one line of dialogue: “Is this a USGA meeting?”
During the five minute intermission, a large chunk of the audience left. The MC commented on how disrespectful this was to the rest of the acts who were performing.
It seemed as though most clubs enjoyed themselves on stage, despite some of the ill rehearsed acts that were put on. The Homecoming Variety Show was based more on school spirit, and less on being a talent competition. All clubs involved are banking on their placement in this event to further advance them in spirit week competitions.