erinmcteaguecom

Joey Chaisson

Erin McTeague

December 7, 2018

WILLIMANTIC – With only a week remaining in the academic calendar for Eastern Connecticut State University (ECSU), its time to take in the holiday fever for the annual Drama Society holiday show.

On Friday, December 7, the Drama Society packed the black box theater in ECSU’s state of the ark Fine Arts Building. It was a festive occasion filled with Christmas songs, comedy skits, and dances. For the first time in the show’s history the Drama Society teamed up with the Modern Movement Club. President of the Drama Society, Senior Matt Bassette explained what what the show has to offer as well as what it means to the students involved.

“It’s just a good time. We have a little bit of everything this year; comedy skits, people singing, dances,” Bassette continued. “We get to mingle, and we have snacks too. Just a really good way to end the semester.”

Bassette also mentioned that in this show in particular, he happily took a back seat and handed the reigns to Drama Society members Hannah Garrahy and Erin Wallace. Garrahy, a member of both the Drama Society and Modern Movement Club took on the responsibility of co-hosting the show with Wallace, and discussed what the opportunity meant to her.

Garrahy (left) and Wallace (right) fueled the crowd all night.

“Hosting the show meant so much to me. I’ve always loved watching the show in years past and it looked like so much fun. Being able to create it and be apart of the team making it fun was the best part.” Garrahy went on, “Also, it made me realize how much I love hosting things and I want to continue to do it.”

The night began with Garrahy and Wallace warming up the crowd with some jokes and light hearted jabs at different students in the audience. The first performance of the night came from juniors Mason Bieter and Austin Washington spoofing the classic “The 12 Days of Christmas” song. In total, the show featured eight performances. Before the show, Bieter referenced how thankful he and the rest of the club are for having such quality concert halls at ECSU.

ABOVE: Bieter (left) and Washington (right) performing.

“It’s beautiful. I’ve been to a few other colleges where I thought that their theaters were pretty average for the most part. We’ve got all the toys here and having a great concert hall allows a show to be the best it can be,” Bieter says.

On top of that, sophomore and President of the Modern Movement Club, Hannah Avena, also expressed her appreciation for having the Fine Arts Building at the club’s disposal.

“I’m a music major, but I do a lot of dancing, so I’ve experimented with the different studios and theaters. I think our concert halls are easily the nicest space I’ve ever performed on. We’ve even had professors from Berkeley College come here and tell us that our concert halls are the nicest they’ve ever seen,” Avena says.

Prior to opening of the Fine Arts Building in January of 2016, ECSU had been using Shafer Hall for the fine arts. Now, the new Fine Arts Building is one of the nicest buildings on campus. Actually, Eastern is currently in the process of turning Shafer Hall into a brand new dorm building for freshman.

Both the Drama Society and the Modern Movement Club will return for the spring semester. If you are interested in joining the Drama Society contact Hannah Garrahy at garrahyh@my.easternct.edu. For Modern Movement, contact Hannah Avena at avenah@my.easternct.edu.

Check out Erin McTeague’s Twitter account (@erin_mct) for more pictures and videos of the show: https://twitter.com/erin_mct

Here’s more pictures from the show

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