On October 12th at 7pm, the PAC was filled to the brim with an anxious crowd awaiting the start of New Berlin West’s annual talent show. The show kicked off with emcees Nirali Patel and Corine Stanger telling some hilariously spooky jokes, hence the name “A Spooktacular Show.” For act two, Jimmy Karolek and Rae Fodor-Law took over entertaining the audience as the new emcees.

A lot of preparation goes into the process of this show, including auditions, which were held on September 20th. This year, the show almost didn’t get off the ground due to the small number of students trying out.

“The first night of auditions a lot of kids were sick and couldn’t audition or a lot of kids  couldn’t make it”, said talent show coordinator Lindsay Kircher. Thankfully, due to a second audition day being created, the show was able to go on. After this, the students who were chosen only got one rehearsal as a whole group to pull the show altogether.

This year’s judges consisted of David Cotey, the coordinator of communications in the New Berlin School district, Jayme Dawicki, a New Berlin West alumni and also a professional musician in the Milwaukee area, and Joe Garza, the current superintendent of the School District of New Berlin. Garza is also a former music teacher and respected performer.

Fifteen acts took the stage to present their talents to the judges and the audience. While the fidgety crowd awaited the results of the show, a few of West’s very own teachers took the stage and showed off their talents as well. Sara Lemon, NBW’s choir teacher, played the piano and sang a song from the hit musical Waitress. The audience also had the pleasure of seeing Pat Benatar, played by West’s very own Becky Perrault, sing “Hit Me With Your Best Shot,” which was quite entertaining.

With the results in, it was juniors Karlee Anderson and Hunter Leathers who won first place in this year’s talent show with their beautiful duet of the song “I Won’t Give Up” by Jason Mraz. First place earned a generous $100 prize.

“They were like, ‘In first place, Hunter…’ and I just hugged him, that was the only thing I could do,” Anderson shared. “This finally payed off; we did it, finally, after how many years of doing this.” The school board was so impressed with Anderson and Leathers’ performance that they wanted to hear it for themselves. Anderson and Leathers both noted how they were very excited yet quite nervous to perform for the school board due to little interaction between students and school board members.

Carter Smith performed a rocking electric guitar solo of the song “Crazy Train” by Ozzy Osbourne and Randy Rhoads, granting him second place. The NBW Drumline, consisting of Jimmy Karolek, Zach Bohte, Jason Schmidt, Ben Johnson, Austin Alexander, Tyler Brunette, Nick Radish, Joey Radish, and Kevin Walbrun, took the stage as well and owned it with their performance of “Series 2” by UW-Madison Drumline, thus receiving third place.

Overall, all of the acts put on an impressive show, which helped the event to run smoothly and leave the audience thoroughly pleased.