In the spirit of Halloween, this month’s Open Mic Night at Dos Pueblos High School was “spooky” themed and encouraged attendants to come in costume. On Thursday, DPHS’s theater company hosted this monthly event in the Elings Performing Arts Center.

Open Mic Night included a variety of student performances, and allowed any and all students to sign up to participate.

“Open Mic Night is our way of having a miniature showcase of talent throughout the school year,” said Theater Advisory Board president Cam Middleton (12). “It’s a great way to bring the theater community together and invite more people into the theater community.”

The different acts included several songs, a few pieces played on piano, a stand-up act, choreography to a song, a light saber trick, and a performance by a local student-run theater camp.

One of the songs performed was “Sunflower Soul,” which was an original song by TAB Vice President Biz Fletcher (12). Fletcher makes an effort to perform at the Open Mic Nights even though she finds it to be a little “nerve racking.”

“I like to perform as much as I can at Open Mic Night, especially because I’m the vice president,” Fletcher said. “I’ve learned that it helps others feel more comfortable when there’s someone who’s just willing to get up and do it and not be scared.”

Aside from encouraging others to participate, Fletcher also finds the event to be a welcoming space for sharing her music.

“It’s fun to get to share my music,” Fletcher said. “I don’t have a lot of platforms where I get to do that, so it’s just a very low key place where I get to share stuff I write and compose.”

Some of the other songs performed at the event included Aislinn Wilson’s (12) on-theme rendition of “Dead Mom” from the Broadway musical Beetlejuice, Kirby Widger’s (9) cover of “Part of Your World” from “The Little Mermaid,” and Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire” sung as a duet by TAB Secretary Nicola Bailey (11) and Ashleigh Coulter (12).

“I really liked Biz’s song, and I think Kirby also did a great job with ‘Part of Your World,’” Bailey said. “I also really liked Audrey Messer and Ashleigh Coulter’s version of the Beabadoobee song.”

Students from the Tomato Theatre Company, a student-run program for youth founded by Adora Bricher (12), also did a musical number to one of their own songs.

“I thought the best one, in my opinion, was the Tomato Theatre Company’s goblin dance that they did,” Middleton said. “Which was a song written by Adora Bricher for her own … theater company, which I think is really cool. They choreographed and wrote the song and produced it.”

Open Mic Night is organized during the weekly meetings of the TAB, the theater’s student leadership group. At these meetings, they make decisions regarding the scheduling, theme, and stage.

“For this kind of event, we have TAB meetings,” Bailey said. “We go through every single day that we’re considering for Open Mic Night, and we go, ‘Okay, is there a … choir concert on this day? Is there a band concert? Is there any other conflict that means that we cannot use the space?’ and we basically have to make sure that there are no conflicts and then we can lock in potential dates.”

In preparation for the event, the Stagecraft crew and Tech crew are both involved in the set up that goes on beforehand. Fletcher and Middleton both described the process of “reforming the stage” that must be done in order for the theater company to hold Open Mic Nights.

“First we have to clear the stage and get an idea for what we want the stage to look like, because every Open Mic Night we do is on the stage [where] everyone is on stage sitting in chairs with the main curtain closed,” Middleton said.

This “spooky” Open Mic Night featured various halloween decorations and had a small raised stage at the center of the main stage.

“It’s very rare that an Open Mic Night stage looks like the one before, because we’re always constantly working with new set pieces,” Fletcher said.

Middleton explained that October is a “very busy month for the stage,” which is why their Halloween-themed Open Mic Night took place earlier in the month. Despite the scheduling conflicts, Open Mic Night is an important aspect of the theater community, so it is something that they make an effort to host.

“You would expect us to get a lot of chances to perform, but we really don’t,” Fletcher said. “We have a fall play and we have a spring musical, so outside of that, this is really our main chance to get to perform and share the things that we’ve been working on and learning.”

One of the theater program’s biggest goals is expanding the outreach of Open Mic Night.

“I just want more people to come because they’re super fun,” Middleton said. “You don’t have to be part of the theater company, you don’t have to do an act, if you show up, you just show up for fun, and I think they’re a great way to meet people [and] just have a good laugh after a long day.”

While Open Mic Night is an essential part of the theater community, the TAB hopes to integrate this event into the DPHS community as well.

“Our goal is actually to make [Open Mic Night] not a theater event and make it a DP event,” Fletcher said. “I mean, there’s so many people not in theater that are talented … and can sing … and our goal is that those people feel comfortable so that they want to come perform with us.”