On Saturday, January 27, Theatre Centreville performed Centreville Night Live (CNL), a night of student written sketch comedy. The performance was inspired by the NBC comedy show Saturday Night Live, including seven distinct sketches, a live band, and a surprise musical guest.

The sketches were written by theatre students, and the process included going through rounds of feedback and editing before ending up at the final versions that were shown during Centreville Night Live.

Along with being student written, six of the seven sketches were directed by students. The sketches were “Bully Advice From a Quirky Counselor” (directed by Em Mullins), “Braving the Light” (directed by Noora Seidou), “Dateline” (directed by Hannah Crawford), “Skimney” (directed by Gabriel Amiryar), “Pile o’ Chips” (directed by theatre teacher Mr. McGee), “Ibunocholorcillin” (directed by Shannon Sidwell), and “Founding Fathers Fanclub” (directed by Maron Meyer).

Hayden Spencer played “good cop” in “Dateline,” a sketch following two cops with very different interrogation techniques. It was his first high school theatre production, not having acted in a school production since elementary school. “Getting advice from our director, Hannah, and the theatre teacher, Mr. McGee was great! They had lots of great insight into character quirks and how to bring your character to life on the stage.”

“The way I got into character was through depictions of my character in other media. I was the stereotypical “good cop” so I would think of all the depictions of those and try to take their attitudes and put it into my performance. I tried to be extra nice and welcoming and look conflicted at the pivotal part where I decide to run away, in love with the criminal.” Spencer hopes to work in law enforcement in the future, which made him very enthusiastic about getting to play this role.

The crew only had two and a half weeks to program lights and sound and block the show. Stage manager Emily Thomas described this performance as “one of the most stressful ones… [but] the reactions to all the sketches definitely made all the stress worth it.”

As the actors and crew switched from sketch to sketch, they were accompanied by a live band. Most of the band’s practice was individual, only coming together to practice all together in the week before the performance. Bassist Katie Powderly typically plays guitar, only having played bass for about a month before the performance, but was able to “transfer those skills easily.”

“My favorite part about working on CNL was the experience on bass and playing with an actual band, as I’ve only ever played with myself or other guitarists, so incorporating drums and two guitars while playing bass was such a wonderful experience to be a part of,” said Powderly.

It was guitarist Ronnie Sanders’ idea to create the band. “He was the one who first pitched the idea to our director, Mr. McGee, and the one who painstakingly chose each piece of music with consideration to the plays coming before and after it in addition to different genres, times, popularity, etc.” said Powderly. He found members of the band, all while learning the music on his own, working as a lighting designer, and coordinating the surprise musical guest.

The presence of a musical guest was not advertised leading up to the show, so when a microphone was set up on the stage and Sanders went up to introduce one, nobody knew what to expect. That was when Principal Lehman walked onstage holding a guitar and played “Wonderwall” by Oasis.

He was asked to play at Centreville Night Live after and singing the song at Centreville’s bonfire event earlier in the year. He has been playing the guitar for about 25 years. 

“I was happy that they asked me to do it because it’s just a way for students to see you in a different light, to see that you have your hobbies too, you’re a person too, you’re not just the principal of the school. And it’s a good way to engage with the students,” said Principal Lehman. 

The surprised reactions were audible as he began singing, though Principal Lehman could not see most of them due to the bright lights on the stage. ”I could really only see a few people in the front and it was mostly parents, but the nice thing was that a lot of the parents in the crowd were closer to my age so they knew the song and I could see them kinda singing along, so that was cool.”

Centreville Night Live was an exciting and funny performance that stands out among Theatre Centreville’s past performances as very unique.