It’s Delusion Day! An event by the Taylor’s Society of Performing Arts <SPART> on the 28th and 29th April with 3 plays and 2 dance performances performed by a cast of some of the finest actors on campus. The 3 plays are “Lights, Camera, Action!”, “The Mix Up” and lastly “Mary had a Little Lamb” whilst the two dance performances are Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen & Thriller by Michael Jackson. Each and every cast and staff member involved put their hearts and souls into this event because they really enjoyed the experience of being on stage, it's so rewarding to see the audiences laugh and cheer at the hard work everyone has to put through. Alright enough with the talking! Let's get started with the first performance of the show.

The first show of the event was Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, directed by Farooq, choreographed by Dhakshu and performed by Dhakshu, Jaycee, Marisa & Alyx. Most of our readers would know that this is a very timeless and iconic song and our dancers pulled it off spectacularly; They’ve spent many weeks at practice sessions perfecting the choreography which was worth it at the end because everyone in the audience was totally into it. 

The first of the 3 plays was “Lights, Camera, Action!”; an original script written by Rose & Teri and Directed by Mituna. The cast involved were Kida who played as a very self-centered director named “Charlie”, Semonty who played as the director’s right hand man as well as a supervisor, “Gabriel”, Faryaal who played as an energy drink addicted mess named “Lena”, Sher Ee who played as a french actress named “Amelia” and lastly Eddie who played as “Andrew the Sign Guy”. The play was presented in a comedic manner and it tells the tale of a very narcissistic and psychotic director who forces his hand on all of his cast and further pushes back the movie production which leads to a downward spiral into a hot mess, consisting of a lot of fights. screaming and funny moments; it ends with Charlie being all alone as everybody leaves him. It is what you want in a show, the drama, comedy and emotion, all in one package. To our readers who did stage play this story is really relatable as we’ve met lots of directors who are exactly like that.

The second play of the bunch is “The Mix Up”; an original script written by Aina and directed by Farooq. The cast were Celeste who played as a dumb, annoying girl named “Emily”, Syed who played as Emily’s delusional boyfriend “Sam”, Eddie who played as sign guy from the last play is now playing  a very shy, clumsy and silly guy named “Andrew” then we have Alyx who played as Andrew’s date and a doctor “Rose”. The play is about two dates that are happening on the same time in the same restaurant with Sam and Emily sitting on one table while Rose and Andrew sat on the next, Emily proceeds to annoy Andrew with her antics while Rose deals with Andrew’s antics as well, one thing led to another which leads to Sam snapping and breaking up with Emily on the spot, he then believes the delusions with Rose are real and falls in love with her, Rose rejects while Andrew tries to fight back which leads to Sam getting back with Emily in the end. This play was really special because it uses the “inner-thoughts” concept as a plot device and it really is not your typical romcom type of story. This performance was by far the best according to audiences with the highest ratings for both days.

Now onto the final play which is a crime comedy thriller play called “Mary had a Little Lamb”, don’t let its nursery rhyme title fool you though. This play was written by Crystal who was inspired by those of the  60s era crime films for this script and is directed by Alyx. This play was casted by Farooq who played as an extremely silly and cocky detective named “Jamie”, Tim who played as an equally silly detective named “Ethan”, Cheng who played as the clueless newbie officer “Robin”, Kenji who played as the typical know-it-all officer as well as Robin’s supervisor “Zach” and lastly we have Eunice who played as Charlie’s sociopathic killer wife “Mary”. The play begins with the detectives Jamie and Ethan finding out a report of Charlie’s death at his home, the police officers Zach and Robin are the first responders on the scene and are not prepared for what's about to happen, Mary drags them in and cries about her husband’s death while the officers scramble to take notes, the detectives arrive and chaos ensues for everyone; the play ends with the murderer being Mary and everyone finding out the murder weapon was nothing other than the lamb that she cooked. This performance caught the audiences by surprise because it's rare to see a comedic thriller and these actors have definitely pulled it off, it has all the qualities of a 60s noir crime movie with a touch of modern hilarity. 

Let's end it off with a certified classic which is a dance performance of “Thriller by Michael Jackson” which was choreographed by Alyssa, Dhakshu, Alyx & Farooq and was also directed by Farooq. The dance was performed by a pretty big group that consisted of 8 people which were Alyssa, Alyx, Dhakshu, Erosha, Jaycee, Marisa, Michael & Fadil. The choreography for this dance was really amazing because they really captured the vibe and movements of the original music video and had the makeup to go along with it too which was done by Ruth, our makeup artist, some of the audience members even got a little freaked out about it! The finishing movie with the hat and all was just cherry on the top for everything. SPART’s dancers don’t get enough credit for their performances because they rarely have dance performances like these.

What's a great show without the backbone that has to do it all? Give it up for our stage manager Teri who was backstage tinkering with the systems for all the performances as well as providing some of the props for the show. Farooq, Alyx & Celeste here were the masterminds of everything, overlooking everything since the auditions up until our showday. He was the best event director you can ever get as he brought all of us together into a team. Lastly, who can forget our beloved directors and scriptwriters who brought the characters to life with their creativity and imagination as well as hard work. Then we have our stage crews Ruth and Adrian who helped us with Makeup and Photography which they had to run around non stop backstage to make sure things were perfect.

Despite us being a small team with a small budget we managed to pull everything off really well, we had some ups and downs during the weeks but we all pulled through to the end. To you, the audience, we really thank you all for supporting us by laughing and cheering along with us. You have shown us that the hard work we put into this was all worth it in the end. Hope to see you all again in our future performances.