Group effort goes into preparations for event

By Suneal Kolluri
Daily Bruin Contributor

While most UCLA students are busy going to class, prepping for
upcoming midterms and writing papers, one group of students is
forgoing many of these standard college activities to build stages,
set up lights and, above all, sing.

In preparation for this year’s Spring Sing, hundreds of
students are taking on the daunting task of promoting, organizing
and setting up the huge show, while at the same time attempting to
stay on top of their schoolwork.

“Everyone’s got midterms ““ that’s
usually people’s biggest gripe,” said the show’s
technical director, Josh Silberman, a fourth-year theater student.
“I say that if you’ve got to run out for a class, go
for it, but if you can skip it, skip it.”

A UCLA musical tradition that dates back to the ’40s,
Spring Sing consists of numerous musical groups made up of UCLA
students, competing against one another in front of thousands of
spectators.

Year after year, hundreds of UCLA students put many hours into
preparing for the event.

“We have a couple hundred students involved in the
show,” said executive producer Albert Gonzalez, a fourth-year
communication studies student. “The whole show is put on by
students. It’s a monster show.”

Preparation for Spring Sing began during fall quarter with
informational meetings about the show and in February, the Spring
Sing Company held four nights of auditions to select the acts.

“Around 75 different acts tried out for the show and we
could only choose 17,” Gonzalez said. “It was a really
hard process. There were so many good acts that tried out. “¦
We had a selection meeting that went until three in the morning
after the last night of auditions.”

After they determined which acts would perform in the show, they
sent the selected acts out to Bruin Walk to promote it.

“That’s been one of my goals this whole year; to
make sure everyone knows that everyone has to contribute. Without
everyone, it can’t go on,” Gonzalez said.

Those performing in Spring Sing are responsible for much of the
promotion of the show.

“We’re having a lot of performers table for us on
Bruin Walk,” Gonzalez said. “For two weeks straight
we’ve had people on Bruin Walk passing out flyers, and
it’s the talent that’s doing it.”

Along with promoting the show, the performers have been
polishing their acts over the past quarter in preparation for the
big night.

“Every Tuesday night of weeks one through four in spring
quarter we’ve ran through the whole show up at Bradley or at
the Tennis Center. So we’ve seen every act all quarter and
they’ve gotten a lot better,” Gonzalez said.

The committee also has to line up celebrity judges to evaluate
the musical performances. This year, they were able to get
singer/songwriter Weird Al Yankovic, actor Alexis Thorpe from
“The Young and the Restless,” and many other
celebrities to judge the competition.

“We have three judges and awards directors on the
committee,” Gonzalez said. “They’ve just been
going crazy talking to agents and publicists for the last three
months trying to get names that would be cool for a college-aged
audience.”

The comic relief provided by company members between acts has
also been continually refined over the past months.

“We’ve just been working on the timing of things and
making sure that the right words are emphasized so that the
audience doesn’t have to think too much, so it’s nice,
relaxing and funny for them,” said company director Kelly
Casselman, a fourth-year anthropology and French student.

The Wednesday before the event, the students begin work on the
technical aspects of the show. They begin to set up the stage at 6
a.m. that same day.

“Another thing that everyone has to do is help build the
stage on Wednesday,” Casselman said. “It takes about
four or five hours to build the stage. It takes a lot of time and
you get a lot of splinters “¦ but we require everyone involved
with the show to at least put in a couple hours.”

Along with the stage, the lights and video screen must also be
set up. A stage crew helps with the process. Nonetheless, the
company members and crew are pressed for time during the setup of
the stage and lights.

“We’re not able to rent the Tennis Center until
Wednesday. The tennis team needs it and UCLA owns it so they try
and give us as little time as possible, which is
understandable,” Silberman said.

Once everything is set up, the performers and the crews run
through various aspects of the show.

“There’s a run-through for both lights and
sound,” Silberman said. “You’ve got to be ready
for anything to happen so we try to get as much practice in as we
possibly can.”

Silberman understands, however, that no matter how much they
prepare, there will always be surprises to keep the crew and
performers on their toes.

“Last year we blew a transformer (and) in year’s
past we’ve had judges not show. There’s always
something fun,” Silberman said. “It keeps it
interesting until that moment when you tear down the stage again on
Saturday morning.”