This year’s Newcomers Showcase, titled “All the World’s a Stage”, was a success. Performed by the Department of Theater ‘ Film in collaboration with the College of Musical Arts on Oct. 26-29, the audience witnessed a variety of humorous theatrical scenes and musical numbers.

The performance could be classified as a revue, which is a form of variety theater that uses a cast to incorporate skits, songs, dance numbers, etc. into a show based around a central theme. In this case, the overall theme of “All the World’s a Stage” was the behind-the-scenes creation of a play as seen throughout five rounds: the writing of the play, the audition, preparation, the rehearsal and opening night.

After the grand opening of a Show Biz Medley consisting of four songs, the show would rotate between acting scenes and musical numbers.

Every theatrical scene was very comical, and kept the energetic audience smiling and laughing continuously. There were funny inter textual references such as ‘See no evil, Hear no evil, Speak no evil’, and satirical choreographed dance moves that poked fun at typical musical mannerisms.

The musical pieces were also comical and entertaining, with every single individual embodying a voice to be envious of.

The performers consisted of both freshmen and transfer students.

Literally being new to the scene can be a nerve-wracking experience for the students, especially when performing in front of an audience that has veteran performers in it.

Freshman film major, Brent Winzek, who played the role of Barrymore in the ‘I Hate Hamlet’ scene, originally felt uptight about the whole experience, but soon became comfortable in his surroundings.

“It’s kind of intimidating because you’re a freshman,” he said. “Even though they don’t put you on a lower level, you kind of put yourself on a lower level almost out of respect, and it’s kind of hard to break that.”

In the end though, his experience was the most rewarding aspect of being a cast member.

“My learning experience was the auditions and the rehearsals – everything leading up to opening night,” he said. “Then opening night you get to learn what the audience likes, what the audience dislikes, what you should emphasize and what you shouldn’t.”

Winzek’s character was a challenging role to play, but he put his own spin on it.

It was apparent that his passion for acting helped fuel the development of the character, and the audience definitely seemed to approve of the life that he brought to the scene.

One unique aspect of the performance was that the only form of musical accompaniment came solely from a single piano player.

Damian Stout, a freelance piano accompanist and vocal coach for the past seven years, was the man behind the ivory keys throughout every performance.

Although he knew what was to take place on stage, he frequently found himself catching new aspects of every performance as if he were in the audience himself.

“The audience got a rainbow of different flavors of what theater is about, especially with this type of review because it was about theatre itself” he said. “It was both about the ins and outs of the theater experience. It gave variation for the audience so they didn’t have to hear just straight singing or straight acting. The back and forth gave it that variance of energy levels. It kept it more intriguing.”

Overall, the smiling faces, beautiful voices and theatrical one liners combined to make “All the World’s a Stage” a great performance in my eyes.

These newcomer actors show great potential to offer to the theater and musical departments, and their performances are something that they should definitely be proud of.