Old School Variety Show: Love

The Old School Variety Show, La Crosse, Wisconsin.  Storytelling, singing, folk tales, jokes, puppeteering, magic, impersonations...variety.   And a collective experience.  Sitting with friends and family, coming together to watch this show, laughing and reacting both individually and as a group, listening and engaging with the performers.  The value and uniqueness of the group experience.  The crowds are bigger now that the show is just on Saturday night. My husband has been hosting this show for about five years now, with a handful of people who are centrally and peripherally involved in most if not all of the shows.  This group is extremely important to the Old School.  And I thought about this as I saw every chair filled in this ballroom.  These friends listened and offered and encouraged the fruits of Mike's labor and helped make this all happen.  And they continue to be involved year after year.  Every chair full, the room bursting with energy, laughter, talking, lines of people at the bar.  Everyone waiting for the show.  Who will be here tonight?  What stories will be told?  I wondered this myself.  There are always surprises and each show is so totally different.  Different performers, different material and a different audience.  And the interplay between these three things determine the success of the Old School Variety Show.  The performers, the material and the audience.  The Grand Hotel is a great venue, a beautiful comfortable place that really seems made for this kind of entertainment.  But you also could throw this show in a park, in a backyard, in a living room and the important factors would still be the performers, the material and the audience...and not necessarily in that order.  Different every time.  I sat with my family and friends and took a deep breath as Mike came out on stage.  And this show about love began.

Mike introduces the show.

Elizabeth Caucutt and friends sing Ingrid Michaelson's "Everybody"

Kit and Kate Mayer 

My videotaping skills need a lot of work.  My tape cut off before any of Kate's lyrics :(

Terry and Ken Visger singing their love song.

Mike and Nancy Caucutt sing This is Us.  They sang this a year and a half ago at our wedding.  Goose bumps. They rock.  In every way.  And they have been a huge part of the variety show, helping launch and conceive of the whole thing.

See everybody in April!