When singer-songwriter Stacey Capoot mistakenly wandered into a
Spring Sing talent meeting last February, it was a good thing she
had something prepared.
“Actually, I didn’t even plan on auditioning. I went
to the meeting because I thought it was a meeting to be on the
committee,” said Capoot, a first-year communication studies
student. “It was actually a talent meeting, so I decided to
audition, and was really surprised that I made it because I’m
just a first-year and there’s a lot of really talented
people.”
For those like Spring Sing director Jennifer Crowe, however, the
journey from October to the event itself, which will be held
tonight at the Los Angeles Tennis Center, has been a more
calculated one. While musicians like Capoot were honing their
material ““ with or without Spring Sing in mind ““ Crowe,
a fourth-year American literature and culture student, began the
first steps of overseeing the event. After filing through Student
Alumni Association applications to put together her 15-person
executive committee, she moved on to spread the word about
auditions, piquing the talent’s interest.
At the same time, production directors such as Sara Sposito, a
fourth-year American literature and culture student, were busy
writing what she refers to as “mini-musicals” to be
performed by fraternity-sorority teams of about 30 people or so.
Pooling their creativity, they auditioned potential performers for
their humorous and UCLA-relevant dialogue and song parodies.
Whether it’s the crowd of 5,000, the allure of publicity,
a serious case of school spirit, or simply confusion about meeting
times, there’s something about Spring Sing that seems
uncannily able to bring UCLA talent out of the woodwork.
Tonight’s show will feature acts in the categories of
solo/duet, band, a cappella and production, but things
haven’t always been so diverse, or so complicated.
In the beginning, Spring Sing used to be just that ““ a
vocal serenade in the season of love, a chance for fraternities to
woo sororities with their vocal stylings. As time passed, things
evolved from an informal competition between Sigma Alpha Epsilon
and Phi Kappa Psi for the title of “Champion Serenaders of
Sorority Row” to a full-blown and officially conducted
competition open to anyone able to pass the audition.
Crowe is inspired by the form Spring Sing has taken and the
diversity of acts it attracts. Transforming raw diversity into a
statement about UCLA talent, however, has proven more complex than
simply opening auditions to anyone confident enough to show.
Working logistics with sponsors, the SAA, marketing ideas, the
ticket office, judges and award recipients, Crowe and her team
literally and figuratively set the stage for the performers.
“We’re interested in showcasing diversity.
It’s just all about displaying the amazing talent that UCLA
has to offer,” Crowe said.
Booking acts, of course, is a start, but “showcasing
diversity” demands much more than screening with auditions.
Self-sufficient solo acts like Capoot’s develop of their own
volition, but the more cluttered Greek productions have a bit of
help from the SAA.
While Crowe irons out logistical obstacles, talent director Dean
Otsuka does what he can to eliminate artistic ones. Working with
the three production teams involved, he brings a new perspective to
further polish the already complete productions.
“When you work on a project by yourself you lose that
outside perspective. I can give the skit a fresher point of
view,” Otsuka said. “The show is done, but there are
things the crowd might not get, so I can give input on what is and
isn’t understood, which really helps them out.”
As a completely student-executed event, one can expect Spring
Sing to exploit UCLA’s musical resources in a successful way,
but the talent the event recognizes includes part of the
professional world as well. Each year, executive committee members
like Crowe and Otsuka come together to nominate an artist to
receive the George and Ira Gershwin Award, which acknowledges a
powerful lifetime in music.
For such a spirit-fueled event, it seems especially appropriate
that the award given to a notable musician is named for the
composers of UCLA’s fight song.
“This year’s recipient is Burt Bacharach. He has
received three Academy Awards and (several) Grammys and produced
over 500 songs within his five decades in the industry,”
Crowe said.
Of course, the writer of “Raindrops Keep Falling on My
Head” and “What the World Needs Now”
doesn’t need the publicity. Student participants, however,
find that the large crowd and accessibility of the event provide
ample opportunities to pursue name recognition or spread a message.
Sposito understands the publicity value of the event as well as its
ability to change some minds.
“It’s definitely positive publicity for our houses,
and I’m very proud to be out there, showing how hard we
worked to accomplish this,” Sposito said. “When people
think of sororities and fraternities, they automatically just think
of partying, but this definitely helps to show we are involved with
other things.”
Some, while acknowledging that name recognition is to be had,
enter the event with more lighthearted motives.
“I hope people start checking me out and listening to my
music, but really I’m not in this for the big time,”
Capoot said. “I’m in it for people to get a kick and
have fun with what I’m writing and enjoy the
performance.”
Watching the final product, as is the tradition for the director
to do, Crowe will certainly have her own motives for her
involvement running through her head.
“The great thing about working on Spring Sing is feeling
the spirit of what it represents. It’s really just about
bringing students and alumni together in celebration of
music,” she said.