It’s the most wonderful time of the year; with the weather getting colder, the food getting warmer, and freshmen dressing in tights, everyone knows it’s time for the Madrigal Dinner.
“The Madrigal Dinner has served a variety of purposes,” choir director Ben Silvermintz said. “First, it allowed our students to perform a winter concert without a Christmas-specific focus. Second, it offered the choir program an opportunity to fund-raise without washing cars or selling chocolate and third, but perhaps most importantly, it brought together the entire choir program for one large-scale production.”
Having a performance of this size can be tricky to organize because there are so many different components coming together.
“You have to work with the confines of the commons, which is not setup for an acoustic performance,” senior Adam Cohen said. “One challenge is that they already installed a preset sound system that is very poor quality, so we have to override everything.”
In addition to the technical struggle, it can be troublesome to get everyone on the same page. Until everyone is able to do a run through, it is hard to predict how the performance will go.
“Coordination and logistics are the primary challenges of bringing groups together,” Silvermintz said. “We can rehearse our songs for hours and talk about the pacing and spacing of the show, but until we put it together on Thursday, it’s still just words. Then, we add in the food element of the actual dinner the variables become even greater.”
Even with the struggles of making everything perfect for show time, the dinner is still something students look forward to every year.
“It’s fun to get together and make this huge performance and set up the commons,” senior Ashley Wilson said. “I’m excited for the last one, it’s always a struggle, but it pays off.”
The dinner always focuses around a general theme. It usually includes a king and queen sitting on the stage at their table with different performances happening before them. However the students do have to audition for their role, unless you’re a freshman then you’re a server.
“The audition process varies,” Silvermintz said. “Some years, we have had lengthy auditions before school or during academic lab. With this year’s smaller cast, we simply asked students to read a few excerpts from the script and interact with others who were auditioning. It usually becomes pretty clear who will have good on-stage chemistry.”
Seniors have always been chosen to be the queen and king for the show. This year Ashley Wilson and Josh Rudman were crowned.
“I’ve been in choir every year so I’ve known who the queen was and how important she was,” Wilson said. “So it’s always been a dream of mine.”
Like Wilson, Rudman had seen the show many times and always had the dream to be the main role.
“My brother went here so I’ve been watching it for about 8 years and I’ve always seen the different kings and I never thought that would be me,” senior Josh Rudman said. “I always thought it’d be really cool to be king because that’s the part everyone looks at.”
Madrigal has become a tradition now to some but there has been some speculation going around that this year will be the last Madrigal performance.
“We are always looking for ways to improve our efficacy in two primary areas with this event: curriculum (the musical element) and community involvement (the middle school or elementary school ensembles and audience attendance),” Silvermintz said. “If we think there is a better way to do the Madrigal Dinner that is better for kids, families, and our choir program, we’ll do it. The worst reason to continue traditions is ‘because that’s the way it’s always been done.’ We have myriad considerations including the calendar, time and our ability to really perform at a high level at every concert.”