Fall Muses at Bay is cancelled for the first time in years

By Meagan Pruitt

   The high school's fall talent show, Muses at Bay, was cancelled for the first time.
   Last year, four groups signed up, and in past years, there have been as many as 12 groups. This fall, only two groups volunteered to perform in front of the high school.
   Have the students of the high school lost all talent?
   "Lots of kids maybe didn't realize what it was," Susan Baker, assistant to the upper school director and registrar, said. "Some core performers graduated (Ryan Hunt, Zach Austin, Nicole Chaney, Caitie McDonnell). Also, I didn't promote it for as long beforehand. It really takes about a month of serious reminding and begging!  I really hope we can pull it together as a community for winter and spring. It's been a tradition for years - I remember my brothers performing in Muses at Bay when they were at NCS in the late ’90s / early ’00s. That's why I volunteered to coordinate it. It's a special tradition which could easily fall by the wayside if we don't keep it going."
   When Muses was cancelled, students had an option to either receive extra help from teachers during Thursday activity period or participate in dodge ball in the CAC. While Muses was an utter failure, dodge ball was a success with over half of the male population participating.
   The crowd's favorite band, All Physics, No Chemistry, decided not to sign up for the talent show this fall due to the loss of founders, who are now in college. Without enough people to perform, Kevin Wells, Physics teacher, and Michael Schaefer, English 10 teacher, who are the band's advisors, made the ultimate decision to put off their performance until the winter Muses at Bay. By then they hope to have more band members.
   "To be honest, overall student participation in Muses has been lackluster since Hatcher Worthy graduated in 2011," Wells said. "He was an energetic and charismatic young man who not only emceed Muses and performed himself but recruited many, many students to perform. While various people have filled in as emcee over the years, none have promoted, organized, and recruited to the degree that Hatcher did. Until we have a student decide to step up and lead, we will continue to have low participation levels, and that would be a shame."
   Many who performed in the middle school talent shows are afraid to perform at Muses, afraid that they will embarrass themselves.
   "I didn't sign up because the only cool thing I can do is put my legs behind my head, and that would be a ridiculous thing to do on stage," Morgan Sturm ('17) said. "It's changed over the years because there are less acts, and I think that's because people are afraid of embarrassing themselves."