Introducing Limelight

By: Ikran Abdi

KCI’s annual student run production is coming up soon. Limelight will take the stage on November 16 & 17, and people are getting excited to watch the show. 

The Edge Team asked a few members of the cast how they are feeling as the show approaches, and this is what they had to say: “I would absolutely rate it a 10/10, I think it’s such a good performance! And it’s completely student run,” Franny Jenkins, an 11th grade student who’s a part of the vocal cast, stated. 

Another member of the vocal cast, Danika Harvey, who is in the 10th grade, had this to say: “It’s a really fun way to see what your school’s doing if you don’t want to be involved.” She added, “it’s a good way to support the school and any organization that we donate to.”

Limelight is made up of four casts: the Drama cast, the Music cast, the Band cast, and the Dance cast. The show will consist of a variety of the four arts, and will include  lots of humour and jokes. It’s one of the school's traditions they put near the beginning of every school year. 

When asked how this year's Limelight would be different from previous years, here's what this year’s Limelight producers, Tessa Day and Alina Vuorinen, had to say. Tessa, who is in  grade 12, stated that while preparing for the show they’ve tried a lot of new things and added various improvements: “more collaborations between the cast and we’ve also gone bigger with all the numbers, so we’ve really pushed ourselves and our cast this year.” 

While other schools in the WRDSB organize school shows, when asked what makes Limelight different from the others, Tessa explained that Limelight is a production, and not a talent show: “Lots of schools can do talent shows and put those on, but Limelight takes a lot of time and commitment as well. So making those big numbers and rehearsing them and rehearsing them and rehearsing them and coming in on Sundays and doing those rehearsals as well, I think it’s what makes it unique to KCI,” she expressed. Alina, Tessa’s co-producer who's currently in the 11th grade continued by saying that the students organize everything “It’s completely student run, we take full initiative on pretty much all the leadership roles and not all schools do that,” she explained. 

The producers also stated some of the challenges they have encountered preparing the show. Alina shared that finding a schedule that works for everyone has become  difficult, particularly for the dance cast: “They are crazy competitive dancers and they have crazy schedules,” she mentioned. Tessa stated the struggles of keeping on top of school work and rehearsals: “Since it’s a student run production, obviously students and teachers have lives outside of school.” She shared that keeping everything balanced takes effort especially with things like exams and homework.

Limelight can be described in a variety of ways depending on who you ask. Franny explained that the cast feels positive stress after each rehearsal, with some anxiety/pressure, but also lots of enthusiasm. "You need to get your stuff together like you need to know what you're doing, but it's really organized and fun to get the performance stage ready."  

With all of the hard work and practice the cast and producers have been working on, they are all very excited to be putting on this year's show. Mr. Graham, KCI’s Drama teacher and the primary staff sponsor for Limelight, shared how much he enjoys watching all the rehearsals, and how has big hopes for the show: “I’ve been super thrilled with everything I’ve seen so far. It’s gonna be good, maybe even one of the best,” he expressed.