It’s all lights, camera and lip syncing for West High’s drama department in the 2016-2017 school year. Wicked West Productions put on their annual Lip Sync Showcase on January 12 and 13 with students performing a multitude of different songs to lip sync along to. Every act performed seven shows for each of the two days and gave up many hours and hard-work to put it on.  Ranging from K-Pop hits to the reunion of the Jonas Brothers to the intermissions of “arguing” hosts, the performers had captivated their audiences from the moment the lights went down.

Senior Britney Reineman’s favorite part of doing the lip sync was being a part of the family they had created and doing it together. “Performing onstage was obviously fun,” she said. To put the show on, timing was everything to the performers to ensure a smooth show. “Each step was so critical and [each step] was so important that you had to get it down.” She further explained the slight difficulty of getting the act to perfection for the stage. Reineman, personally, is not involved in the drama department, but suggests toward other students to “do it, if you have any thought about doing it [then] do it… it’s so much fun and it takes a lot of energy, but it’s greatly exhausting.” She advised future potential performers that no matter who they are, it is still going to be fun. “You have the support of the school and everyone will cheer you on no matter what.”

Senior Isaiah Mahoney is part of the drama department and was drawn to do the show once during his senior year and regrets not doing it in previous years. “Hosting was really fun, but I [have to] say that doing the 5SOS song was my favorite part… especially during the last show, we did that final jump and the crowd went wild. It was great.” His biggest difficulty was simply remembering the order of the acts and what to say in between and to get the audience hyped up. When asked about his overall experience, Mahoney expressed how it was great and he is sad about not being able to do it again and leaving this year.

Mahoney advised “If you want to do the lip sync, do it. Don’t care about what anyone else says. Just do it and have a blast.”