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Newport Harbor High Students Take the Stage in 'Saturday Night Live'-Inspired Show

"Live from Newport Beach, it's Senior Night Live!" runs tonight and Friday.

President Barack Obama, Beyoncé and the cast of Glee look different in person than they do on TV.  

But that's probably because they're Live from Newport Beach, it’s Senior Night Live!

Written, directed and starred in by students, the first senior show at in eight years hits the stage today and Friday.

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“It’s a great show, and it’s not the normal show we put on," said sophomore Cat Boettner, who’s playing the antagonistic cheer coach Sue Sylvester in a skit based on the hit show Glee.

“It also funny. It’s really funny,” Boettner adds.

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And from the short glimpse we caught on Tuesday of Senior Night Live—the student version of the long-running sketch program Saturday Night live—we agree.

Made up of at least eight skits created by seniors, the show includes dancing, music and comedy.  

It’s the first time the senior show will be performed since 2003 when the Robert B. Wentz Theater  was demolished, rebuilt and then  reopened in 2010 with seismic renovations, according to Gail  Brower-Nedler, director of the school's drama program.

Brower-Nedler said the senior show  might date back as far as the 1940s, and was originally a talent show.  It’s certainly been part of the school tradition since 1986 when she joined the drama program as a teacher.

Students have been working on the show for almost two months. The seniors wrote the scripts, directed the skits and selected the cast mostly from students in the school’s drama program.

“It’s something just to be able to see what drama kids are capable of,” said junior Keach Siriani-Madden. “We’re not just puppets on the stage. We can write, we can create and we can construct scenery on our own.”

Siriani plays Jimmy the Bank Robber in a skit called Heist, a skit we’re honestly disappointed we didn’t get to see at the rehearsal.

On Tuesday and Wednesday,  students were still preparing for the big show: getting the props ready, checking the lights and microphones and working on choreography.

Stage manager Tori Harris, a junior, has a tough job corralling all the teens, but she does it masterfully.

“I’m nervous but it’s seems to always pull together, so I shouldn’t be nervous,” said producer and parent Stacia Deiro who along with adults Leslie Rivera, Ryan White, Amy Powell, and Doug Parker are helping the students prepare.

The show gives many kids their “shining spotlight moment” as student Dani McMahan, 17, puts it.

For example, Katie Powell gets a chance to perform as the superstar Beyoncé, Allie Matthews sings as Rachel Berry, the golden-voiced diva from Glee, and Nijel Thames is President Barack Obama.

By the way, Thames does a pitch-perfect Obama impression.

In fact, he opens the show with a speech with the characteristic Obama pauses and inflections.

“You know,” says Thames at a podium with a fake presidential seal on it. “Some people they said … they said … they said … that this day would never come.”

“They said that students would never come together to write direct and perform a show. They said that Newport Harbor’s drama senior class of 2011 could not create a masterpiece, but alas we did it.  And we are finally here.  All of us together on this fine June night."  

“And now I’d like to say, at this defining moment for the first time ever in Newport Harbor History … Live from Newport, it’s Senior Night Live!.

The show is at 7 p.m. today and Friday, and the cost is $5 for students and $10 for adults.

For more information visit the school’s website. 

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