From smooth, harmonic melodies to heart-stopping rock covers, the 2019 POPS show delivered powerful acts that didn’t cease to amaze the audience. Despite the different genres and styles of acts, from comedy to instrumental acts, the show did provide something that every person would enjoy.

“There is a lot of variety in this year’s POPS, said Senior Wyett Considine. “Oh my gosh, from trombone duets to kind of a new, more techno style of playing music on what’s called launchpads, there’s just everything; singing, dancing, I think this year’s POPS really has it all.”

After facing numerous challenges due to the auditorium reconstruction, the auditorium was open to the annual performance, which is often described as a “talent show on steroids.”

“I think there’s a huge variety of music and there’s a really equal spread between instrumental and vocal numbers,” said choir teacher Janice Vlachos. “I feel like the instrumentalists have even more of a presence this year.”

POPS was scheduled to be shorter this year in comparison with past years. While it has been around 3.5 hours in the past, this year it ran around 1 hour and 45 minutes.

POPS is a unique show due to the responsibility put on the students to create and rehearse their own acts.

“You get to really build it yourself. You take so much ownership over it. [Ms. Vlachos] obviously puts everything together, but all the ideas come from the students,” said Senior Kathryn Kelley.

Due to some last-minute adjustments regarding auditorium construction, there were some challenges in the preparation of the show. Furthermore, the 2019 musical “Sister Act” had only recently finished when the planning for POPS began.

“We had the audition date pushed back two times and there was a good period of time when I was like ‘I just don’t think this is going to happen’ but somehow we were all able to scrape this together coming right out of musical,” said Kelley. “[The] Musical finished and we all just jumped into POPS and we kept that momentum going and I think that the show has a lot of passion.”

Due to these challenges, the Tech crew had to work diligently in order to adhere to the changing schedule.

“I think one of the hardest challenges with this show is Tech because they had to close musical and then turn around and rebuild the set for POPS,” said Vlachos. “I gave them a challenge to see if they could incorporate some of the musical set into the POPS set and they used some of the same exact set pieces but in a totally different way.”

After participating in POPS in previous years, 2019 marked the first time I saw POPS from an audience perspective. It didn’t fail to disappoint. I really enjoyed the unique ability of this year’s production to incorporate elements of technology and comedy, elements I hadn’t really seen in previous years. The show delivered well-known and uplifting acts, such as Rednex’s “Cotton Eye Joe,” as well as powerful ballads, such as Aretha Franklin’s “Natural Woman.”

“The level of production and really the skill and the thought and all of the effort really put into the production of the show is what really makes it a gem of Fairview,” said Considine.