As the new school year rolls around, so does a new production of SING! Every year, this student-run performance is an anticipated event for students, faculty, and parents alike. The two teams, Freshiors (freshmen and juniors) and Semores (sophomore and seniors), compete against each other with their own original performances.

Each year, the teams are required to follow a certain set of rules and conditions, which typically remain the same.

The ability to incorporate the listed rules and requirements into the performances is a key factor in the judging process, contributing to a point system. In past years, participants of SING! knew that opposing teams would have to create their own plots centered around different stories.

This tradition however, has recently come to an end, and SING! participants face a challenge where both teams will be using the same movies as the foundation for their respective plots.

Initially, many feared that this change would lead to rather lackluster performances, losing the attention of the audience quickly due to the repetition.

However, the fact that both teams are building their shows from the same foundation highlights the quality of the performances themselves. There is more of an emphasis on the details of the writing, singing, acting, dancing, and composing than there is an emphasis on the themes and movies the productions are based upon. Audience bias is limited, for the use of the same movie levels the playing ground.

Unlike in previous years, teams can no longer take into account which movies were more popular and use that to their advantage.

Prior to this year’s production, Semores would (informally) have the privilege of being the first to select which movies they would use for their foundation, and those movies would not be available for use by the Freshiors.

With this advantage, the Semores are likely to pick movies that are crowd favorites, playing at the biases of the audiences.

The Freshiors may have had an idea of their own concerning a movie that the Semores were to use, but those movies would be off limits.

Now that both are allowed to use the same movies this year, the partiality in that respect is eliminated, and we are able to truly test the creative limits of the students involved.

This change, although unpopular among some performers, is a positive twist to the competition’s established judging system.

With the two teams battling it out with all they’ve got, it will be interesting to see just how creative and original a team can be.