Theater Club’s first Cabaret Night offered a completely free and chill event for casual performance on Dec. 2 at the Anderson Student Center.
Cabaret Night “really fits the theme and vibe of St. Thomas,” Abby Elfner, performance director of Theater Club, said.
Elfner transferred to St. Thomas last year and created a new role as the Performance Director of the Theater Club, bringing live theater performances back to St. Thomas for the first time since 2008.
“I always loved being in a show and having people around that also enjoyed being on stage and sharing interest and there just wasn’t a space last year when I was here at St. Thomas,” Elfner said.
A wide range of acts were performed at Cabaret Night. Alejandro Vega, a student performer, performed an original song called “Cynic” for the first time as the closer to the first half. During the second half skits, written by Macalester students, concluded the show.
Last year Elfner went over to Macclaster and participated in performances that they put on. From there, she created relationships with students at Macalester who are in playwriting classes. Four of them agreed to offer up their scripts for student performance at Cabaret Night.
“We have everything from an Adele song someone is singing, to a short story being read about how sock puppets saved her life,” Elfner said.
Sophie Camille, president of the Theater Club, attended Cabaret Night which took place on the stage of ASC Dance.
“It was the perfect intimate setting for cabaret,” Camille said. “The skits were written by Macalester students and it was really cool because one or two of the Macalester students were there to watch the show as well.”
In 2008, St. Thomas eliminated the major and minors offered through the joint Department of Theater between the University of St. Thomas and the College of St. Catherine because there were not enough students interested in majoring in theater.
This led to the old auditorium being torn down, leaving St. Thomas without a performance space. Cabaret Night allowed students to have fun and get excited about live performances again.
“Everyone is just having so much fun and everyone is just so down to do anything and perform and take the role of a character and just make it their own and I love seeing people fill that space,” Elfner said.
As the performance director of Theater Club, Elfner had one-on-one meetings with each act to see them perform and learn a little bit about each piece. One of the meetings was with a vocal student who performed at Cabaret Night.
“She seemed so excited to perform and so excited to just do this fun little thing, that was so different from having to be so perfect and posed all the time and instead just getting to let loose and sing a song she really liked and I really enjoyed that,” Elfner said.
Elfner has more plans for the future of the theater club, with the goal of a spring play next semester.
Theater Club normally uses its budget to see live theater performances. This year the club saw Falsettos and Christmas at the Locals at Theater Latte Da. But club budget cuts made by the Undergraduate Student Government slashed the club’s budget in comparison to recent years.
“Because the budget is shrinking for everybody we want to boost that performance side because we don’t have many opportunities to perform at St.Thomas outside of specific clubs,” said Camille.
Camille is a senior but the rest of the board of the club are sophomores, so she hopes to help with the transition of the club and leave behind a platform where live performance can keep growing.
“Hopefully from there it just keeps growing,” Camille said.
Madeline Mussay can be reached at muss3440@stthomas.edu.