How is BHS’s show choir preparing for their season? As the pressure builds with nationals only a couple of months away, the choir works to get its show together.
Show choir director Chad Strasser has been working at BHS for 12 years and has been a choir director for 16 years. Each year, Strasser and Joe Sato, the choreographer, choose the show that best fits the group.
“A lot of his [Sato’s] show ideas he’s had for several years,” Strasser said. “[We wait for] a very specific group, and we kind of hold off until it fits.”
This year, the girls’ varsity show choir Starlight’s theme is “Insanity.” The show choir competition season starts in late February and ends in March. With the season just around the corner, the choir has some goals to achieve.
“We’re very focused on technique this year,” sophomore Autumn Slider said.
Senior Lillian Neese is going into her final year as a part of the BHS show choirs. As she enters her last year in high school show choir, she has set some of her own personal goals for the 2026 season.
“I just want to know that I really went out there and did everything I could, put on my personal best,” Neese said.
In a show choir as big as Starlight, you meet a lot of people and become close to one another, forming bonds with each other over the course of the school year.
“Not letting experience, [or] grade levels get in the way, but just being all together,” is something Neese tries to do to be successful.
Before the season officially starts, BHS choir hosts Cabaret. This is where the show choirs get to show off their talents to the community before performing for judges. This gives them the opportunity to do the best they can and then get ready for the upcoming competition season.
“My goal is always when they get done with their performance, [that] they feel like that was their 100% there’s not anything they could have done differently,” Strasser said.
The students prepare for the season by having one or two rehearsals, averaging two to three hours per week. During these rehearsals, they learn their music, practice the dance and put it all together to portray their theme. Each judge has their own opinion on how they believe the show went, based on whether they saw the theme and style.
“It’s not like in sports, where you can clearly score more points than the other,” Strasser said.
