Trinity University’s second annual Open Mic Night featured a wide variety of performers and a huge audience turnout. If this keeps up, Open Mic Night might become a permanent fixture here at Trinity.
Last Saturday, performances ranged from poetry readings to musical performances, skits to improv comedy and drag performances to choreographed dance numbers. The participants consisted of both experienced performers and students showcasing their hobbies onstage.
While this year’s Open Mic Night was much of the same formula as last year’s, the number of performances and attendees set this year’s show apart. Performers created new, original work or reprised old performances. A few performers repeated from last year, including Jay Burdine* performing as his drag persona, “The Hungry Deep.”
As the number of performances grows, the organizers of Open Mic Night are streamlining the planning process to make putting this on easier for future showrunners.
Zsa Zsa Dubose, junior business analytics and technology major, organized Open Mic Night this year and last year along with Elena Guajardo, junior human communication major. As hosts, they introduce the acts, interact with the audience and keep the energy flowing as Open Mic Night goes on.
Between the last Open Mic Night and this one, Dubose and Guajardo strived to improve the organizational process.
“Having been one of the primary architects of the last Open Mic Night, I definitely learned to be more intentional about the planning and to screen the acts beforehand,” Dubose said.
A lot of performers brought something unique to the stage. Casey Huffman, junior computer science and theatre double-major, performed in a comedic skit similar to the one he did last year.
“It was a really silly thing,” Huffman said. “It was low commitment, but it felt like a good payoff because we made people laugh. And so I wanted to do that again this year.”
Huffman also said that comedy is not a usual act in an open mic night. Although open mic nights have a wide variety of performances, a rehearsed skit is rare because of the spontaneity of an event like this.
“We know that a lot of times when it comes to open mic, there’s a lot of singing and musical performances,” Huffman said. “So we thought it also might be a little fresh addition to the roster.”
Other students also branched out to different kinds of performances other than what’s to be expected at an open mic night. Gabriella Stein, senior theatre and ancient Mediterranean studies double-major, recited some poetry that she had written. Her poems focused on her personal developments since she started college and her sense of identity as a neurodivergent Jewish person.
“Yes, it’s a part of me, and yes, it’s a piece of me and a couple of people [after the show] said ‘Thank you for sharing something so personal,’” Stein said. “I feel very comfortable sharing it because I’m proud of it.”
*Jay Burdine is an illustrator for the Trinitonian.
