Alpha Psi Omega

First off, thank you to all who came out to see the fantastic show!

Another round of thanks goes to the actors and production peoples who helped make this a smashing success. Many people came up to me to give their reactions on the show. Many laughed. Some cried. But everyone was blown away on how APO’s finest took the script and gave such a human aspect to what is essentially a cartoon.

So, to Ryan, Brian, Nia, Amanda, Ben, Jenn, and Lauren: thank you for being such a stellar cast. It was a fantastic way to end the semester.

Stay classy,

Landon Brody

PS: Hopefully I’ll be able to get some pictures up soon, our Histori Melanie has some on her camera, and should send them soon.

Hello dear readers! Today, APO held our e-board elections. After speeches, deliberations, and quite intense grilling, we have new faces as well as old holding the reigns. President went from Ryan MacPherson to Brandon Muir. Vice President of Production has gone from Brian Hasbrouck to Ryan MacPherson. Vice President of Business went from Christine Malloy to Brandon Lodi. Communications Director was kept by Lauren Brett. Lastly, the Treasurer position has gone from Alyssa Bloomquist to Benjamin Gutwetter.

Congratulations to everyone!

And in other news, it’s only three weeks until Dog Sees God goes live! It’s crunch time people!

Members of Alpha Psi Omega who voted for Assassins as our fall musical will have to be slightly disappointed: because of high demand in the Boston area for the rights to Assassins, we will not be performing the Sondheim musical. Instead we shall be performing [Title of Show].

[Title of Show] is a one act musical, that comprises of four actors, as well as one keyboardist who contributes to the plot of the show. It is a very meta production that leans on the fourth wall quite often, as the plot is driven by the show being submitted into a contest; in other words, it is a musical about itself.

As the fall draws closer, more details shall be added.

Have a lovely evening,

-Landon Brody

Alpha Psi Omega’s spring show, Dog Sees God has begun rehearsals, and everything seems fantastic!

With Alec Harrington directing, the show is set to go on April 19, 20, and 21.

The play is a parody of the famous Peanuts characters, now teenagers dealing with issues common in high school such as drugs, sexuality, eating disorders, popularity, rebellion, and self-identification. The play is filled with nods and sometimes quite subtle references to the material it pays homage to. Keep an eye out for all the Easter eggs! While the subject matter may be serious, this is a comedy one is sure never to forget.

The cast for the show is as follows:

CB - Ryan MacPherson

Matt - Brian Hasbrouck

Beethoven - Brandon Lodi

CB’s Sister - Nia Fogelman

Van - Ben Gutwetter

Van’s Sister - Amanda Perrotti

Tricia - Lauren Brett

Marcy - Jennifer Balacuit

Tonight, on January 25th, we had the first APO meeting of the semester. This was the first meeting with the new members in their newly-elected positions.

We also for this semester will be not be in the Student Center. Our meetings will now be in the “1986 Room,” which is in LaCava.

We cannot wait to have auditions for our spring production, Dog Sees God.

We also have the Arts Festival coming up, which will feature short one act plays and other fun, nifty stuff.

Stay classy, folks.

Aw, aren’t we all so pretty - Phoebe Johnson, member, costume chair, and fashion connoisseur, called it the “best dressed pinning ever.” Many thanks to our former Communications Director, Madhu Narayan, for organizing the event and for making us very pretty ornaments, and to Katrina DeFrancesco, who provided the pictures.

Anastasia Damrau

Webmistress, etc.

After the usual roll-call of officers and standing chairs, we got down to the real business of the meeting: voting!

Our first vote was for a new e-board. After Madhu’s decision to resign, the e-board dissolved last week so that we could reelect. Lauren Brett is our new Communications Director, and the rest of the e-board retains their positions in what, as observed by new member Ben Gutwetter, is quite possibly the fastest e-board election in APO history - none of the elections were contested, so we hand voted on all positions.

We also voted on next year’s musical, and it turned out to be quite a contentious vote. The three candidates were [title of show], Assassins, and Sweeney Todd. There was quite a discussion of the difficulties of either Assassins or Sweeney Todd, in comparison to the relatively easy [title of show].

The first vote unexpectedly came down to a tie between [title of show] and Assassins, with the initial count leaving out Amanda Perrotti’s proxy vote for the latter. Ryan MacPherson was put on the spot to cast the deciding vote and, after mulling the decision over through nominations for next semester’s standing chairs, declared an unprecedented re-vote between all three shows, with resulted in a decision in favor of Assassins. It looks like a great show, and it should be quite an adventure for APO as we continue to stretch ourselves to do more difficult productions.

After over a year of downtime, this website is now officially up and ready for business! (I would be crossing my fingers at this point if I weren’t busy typing.)

Now, on to the news!

This week, we are proud to welcome six new members to the Chi Iota Cast of Alpha Psi Omega. It’s been a long understudy process, especially for them, and we are confident that all six will make valuable contributions to this organization in the future. Now, without futher ado, the six understudies are:

• Ben Gutwetter
• Katie Kradolfer
• Brandon Lodi
• Marina Mirabal
• Melanie Rousseau
• Jade Scangarello

We’re all looking forward to officially welcoming this outstanding group into the organization at pinning this coming Friday.

Before we reach Friday, however, we’ve got some election business to get through at our general meeting this Wednesday. It seems like we just got done with our Constitutional Convention, and before that reelecting several chairs and the executive board, and now we’ve reached the point where we need to do it all over again.

The highlight of the meeting will be the reelection of the executive board due to the resignation of our Communications Director Madhu Narayan. She’s done a great job this semester, and we can only hope that whoever replaces her can do as good a job.

We will also be nominating for all of our standing chairs this week, and it promises to be interesting - at least four standing chairs, currently held by your humble webmistress, props mistress, Constitution chair, etc., are wide open. The other chairs are sure to be interesting as well, with new members competing with older members for coveted positions.

Have a great week, and watch this space for more news!

Anastasia Damrau
Webmistress, etc.