Senior Show Director Ben Chen:

What skit did you write?
[Senior] Garrett [Spooner] and I both worked on the Captains Meeting skit.

How did your skit connect to our experience in high school?
The skit was very intertwined with our actual lives last year, since the skit took place in 2020. When it was announced that sports would still take place even with [COVID-19] going on, everyone was kind of in a panic, and some people even had their seasons canceled. I think that there was lots of anxiety and mystery surrounding the topic of sports during COVID-19, and I felt like we portrayed it pretty well in our skit.

What were your expectations going into the skit?
My expectations going into the skit were pretty high, since we were working with a good amount of captains and also a bunch of other awesome kids in our class. I already knew it was going to be a blast doing it.

How well were they fulfilled?
I think they were fully fulfilled. Although it was pretty stressful, especially for Garrett and I, the cast managed to pull it off and got a bunch of laughs and applause during the actual show. I know that getting to that point was pretty crazy and stressful, but I’d say that my expectations for the skit were reached and even exceeded.

What was it like working with the professional on your skit?
It was nice to be able to work with someone who knew what they were doing, especially since Garrett and I aren’t really writing many scripts in our free time. I felt like our professional, Matt, was a pretty big factor in helping us find the funny in our skit.

What was it like directing the skit?
Directing the skit, as I said before, was more stressful than I initially expected. Obviously it was pulled together in a matter of a week and a half, and we all live pretty busy lives so it was no easy task. Everyone had things going on so it was tough for everyone to have all the lines memorized during rehearsals, but when the rubber hit the road, everyone did their job and got it done.

Anything else you would like to add?
Thank you to everyone involved in the skit and also to my co-writer Garrett Spooner. Couldn’t have done it without y’all and your hard work. And also thank you to the audience for laughing, really appreciate that.

Senior Show Director Devin Howe:

What skit did you write?
[Seniors] Sidney [O’Rourke], Marie [Popov], Skylar [Gould] and I wrote the Water Battle skit.

How did your skit connect to our experience in high school?
Well, mainly, we tried to satirize the idea of this fight for water bottles because they keep running out at the bathrooms and no one can get any water in other ways that easily, so we’re all hoarding it as a common commodity.

What were your expectations going into the skit?
It got a very good response from a lot of people even before watching the skit in action. Which was very helpful because we spent a lot of time writing it, and we appreciate hearing the feedback. I really strove for the best I could, and I hoped it reflected in the actual show.

How well were they fulfilled?
It went pretty well, a lot of people were telling me how it was their favorite skit in the show.

What was it like working with the professional on your skit?
We got together to talk about jokes that we would like to add to the story, and how the story would go. He offered some specific jokes. It was nice, and I definitely think it was useful. I would’ve liked to meet with him more, but we had some very limited time.

What was it like directing the skit?
Because of the tight time frame and the amount of homework assigned at the time, it was difficult to make time. I would’ve liked a lot more time, but throughout the process I found that it was pretty fun. We kind of only had time to read through the scripts, but I’m pretty happy with how it turned out and the actor’s performances.

Anything else you would like to add?
I just hope that everyone had as good of a time as I did, and that most people caught the subtleties of the skit. There were a lot of jokes that had to be cut that I had written because of them probably being approved, but I’m really thankful that administration is letting us perform as much as we already are.

Senior Show Writer Taylor Hsu:

What skit did you write?
I helped initially write the Wayland Update skit.

How did your skit connect to our experience in high school?
What I wanted to do with the skit was to share funny news about what our school experienced in the past year and the upcoming events.

What were your expectations going into the skit?
I worked on it with [senior] Phoebe [Greenaway], and we created something that we thought was going to be super funny and relatable.

How well were they fulfilled?
Unfortunately, many of our drafts were turned away, for they were not [politically correct] enough.

What was it like working with the professional on your skit?
Working with a professional surprisingly helped us get more ideas and logistics into our script.

What was it like directing the skit?
Eventually I was replaced on the skit because I was emceeing the show, and they need to give roles to people. That’s when Phoebe took complete control and she worked really hard on it. Her scripts kept getting stood up and criticized, but she pulled through and was able to produce one of the best skits in the show.

Senior Show Director Sophia Ellenbogen:

What skit did you write?
I wrote the lunch tables script.

How did your skit connect to our experience in high school?
Our skit connected to our experience in the commons. We demonstrated the longing for the old commons, when there was music Fridays, pizza Thursdays and all grades ate lunch together rather than everyone leaving campus these days.

What were your expectations going into the skit?
I think our skit was more of a filler than a real attention-grabber. We didn’t have much to work with, just a bunch of locations with minimal jokes.

How well were they fulfilled?
The skit actually exceeded my expectations. It ended up being a lot funnier than I thought, and the audience thought it was pretty funny too.

What was it like working with the professional on your skit?
To be honest, the professionals didn’t help us that much. I think we just had different ideas of the shows we wanted, and they thought of it as more of a play.

What was it like directing the skit?
[Senior] Garrett [Spooner] did the filming, but it was really fun acting with the other students.

Senior Show Director Andrew Zhao:

What skit did you write?
[Senior] Brasen [Chi] and I wrote the Wall of Rejection Song.

How did your skit connect to our experience in high school?
The Wall of Rejection is pretty much a kind of tradition at WHS, where students can just put up their rejection letters if they want to. It’s there every year for seniors, so we thought might as well spotlight it for the senior show.

What were your expectations going into the skit?
Brasen and I were pretty surprised to be getting a song. We also weren’t quite that prepared entering the last week of the show as we weren’t quite sure if it was going to be live or filmed. Also, because we wrote a song, we didn’t really have a script. A lot of it was made up on the spot during our “practices” or “filming” times, depending on the lyrics we had.

How well were they fulfilled?
It went surprisingly well. Our main goal was to not be the worst, and I think that we did end up getting some decent shots in the video. Not only that, but thanks to [senior] Isabelle [Ma’s] vocals, the final product was better than expected.

What was it like working with the professional on your skit?
The professional was really helpful. Originally, the lyrics weren’t that different from the actual song. She gave us many ideas to replace paragraphs and helped brainstorm ideas for the kind of video and vibe we were going for.

What was it like directing the skit?
Directing the skit was pretty difficult. We didn’t really have a lot of direction going into the recording parts, only vague ideas. Thankfully, the actors were super open and even chimed in to give us some other potential ideas that we ended up using, like throwing the plant. The recording process was pretty fun because of that, and we even decided to keep some parts like kicking over the trash can even though it wasn’t scripted.

And finally, anything else you would like to add?
We just wanted to thank everyone for being a part of the show as well as the actors and Isabelle for putting up with the disorganized process. It was fun being a part of the entire production, and I hope that the audience had fun watching the show too.