The murmurs of hundreds of high school seniors begin to fade as they await the next student performance. It is a Friday night at the Governor’s Scholars Program on Bellarmine University’s campus and Showcase, as it is called, is in full swing.
The lights go down and the crowd perks up as a young lady nervously takes position on the stage. She timidly begins her performance, hesitantly singing the first few bars of a popular tune. Then, horror strikes as this scholar lives every performer’s worst nightmare: she freezes, right on stage in front of all of her peers.
As she stands there nervously, silently, someone whispers from the front, “You can do it.” Then, someone from the back begins humming the tune. Another brave scholar joins the first and soon the whole room is buzzing with the hums of hundreds of teenagers, there, in unison, supporting her.
She finishes her song to the hums of her classmates and friends, and the performance that began as a performer-and-her-audience ends as one community. This is the essence of the Governor’s Scholars Program.
This is Showcase.
Showcase was part of GSP from the very beginning- in 1983, the birth year of the program. It is described to many outsiders as a “talent show,” however anyone who has ever attended Showcase knows it is far more than that.
“Showcase is a venue for scholars to take a risk of showing their talents,” said Aristófanes Cedeño, the Executive Director of the Governor’s Scholars Program and Academic Dean of the Bellarmine Campus, “to take the stage in front of an audience who will not reject you.”
But why is Showcase unlike any other talent show? Isn’t performing in front of any audience a risk? Cedeño suggests it is the audience that makes Showcase a truly unique experience.
Meg Caudill, the director of the Showcase, tells perspective performers, “If you mess u
p, they’ll wait, and in most cases they’ll go along with you wherever you want to take them and when you’re done, they’ll be there to cheer for you.”“Even people who don’t do Showcase take something away from it,” she said.
Where else can you see a ukulele player bring the house down or see a student get up and work the audience with shadow puppets? Another will receive a standing ovation for a Latin dance.
Outside of Showcase, where will six macho guys get up and dance to “Every Time We Touch?”
Unlike Governor’s School for the Arts, the GSP campus focuses on academic classes and activities. But the arts, like music, dance and painting still play a major role in the scholar experience.
The 344 students that make up the 2009 Bellarmine GSP class are encouraged by their teachers, resident hall supervisors (RA’s) and their peers to perform. It is not uncommon to see the faculty and RA’s in showcase, themselves.
Students must apply and be accepted into the GSP program from thousands of applications. The thousand-plus that are chosen are divided on to three campuses across the state of Kentucky.
As well as their academic performance, students are chosen based on community service and involvement in their schools; this can include, and often does, musical talent.
Taking risks in a community of peers who will cheer for your successes and pick you up when you fall, this is the heart of GSP. It is taking these risks that enables every scholar to grow beyond all expectations. This is what makes Showcase, and the Governor’s Scholars Program, an experience of a lifetime.