On Feb. 27, at 7:00 p.m., the annual talent show will be held in the blackbox theatre. Drama director Ben Cossitor will be in charge of the talent show, and teachers not part of the fine arts department will be judging.
“It’s nice to see all the people that come out, especially people who maybe aren’t in band, choir, orchestra or drama, that have talents, but for whatever reason, they aren’t able to be part of our school program.” Cossitor said. “ They get their chance now, with this event to show it off to the school.”
This show has been a tradition at Altoona since the early 90s.
“We’ve been really pleased with how it’s been going since we moved into the new building and the new black box space,” Cossitor said. “ I’d love to have it go as smoothly as it’s been and continue to be successful, and a great night out for our audience.”
The talent show will be open to the public with each ticket being $5. Participating students have an opportunity to win prize money from the talent show.
“They’ll be scored by the judges, they’ll get a ranking that they can then use almost like feedback, if they get ranked really high obviously that’s kind of a validation of what they’re doing,” Cossitor said “If they get a lower rank, they can take that as feedback so that they can get better.”
In the past years the talent show has been popular and has had many memorable acts from contestants.
“We’ve had comedy acts,” Cossitor said “Or they call themselves comedy acts, they don’t necessarily win, but a couple years ago, someone did the Animaniacs country song, which was really funny and entertaining. Someone else did a mash up of pop music, and they had one of those cash guns that they came in with. So a lot of times when, when people do more of a comedy actor or something a little more out of the box, that tends to be more memorable.”
Senior Gabrielle Beldin has been singing since fifth grade and she has been singing in the talent show with her friend, Senior Camille Krug, for the last two years.
“I always like getting up and singing in front of people, because it’s something I’m passionate about,” Beldin said. “To share that passion with others has always been something that interests me. The talent show is one way of doing that.”
Freshman Hailey Hamilton is competing in the talent show. Hamilton will be signing for her act.
“I’ve always loved performing and I think that the talent show was a good opportunity to get that experience,” Hamilton said. “I want to have that experience, I want it to be a fun opportunity, so then maybe in later years, it could be more focused on placement but for now, I want to do it for fun.”
