SJC staff on parade!

It was a night of laughs in the St Joseph’s Convent auditorium on Saturday March 19 as staff took to the stage to display their talents in what was dubbed the SJC Pappyshow.  Everyone pitched in and even took on multiple roles as stage managers, MC’s, musicians and dancers for this fundraising event.  The school has suffered significant structural damaged from the November 2007 earthquake and has been undergoing renovations.
The teachers opened the show with a choir rendition of Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie’s “We are the World.”  The show began on a soft note and steadily climaxed to the finale.

The first performance was a gospel solo followed by a solo interpretive dance.  Then the teachers took to steel pans and kicked it up a notch.  Seamlessly, as this performance came to an end, a duo performed a comedic poetry piece entitled Dear Lyza.  Forever the comedian, Miss Geraldine Samuel had the whole auditorium erupting with laughter as she portrayed Lyza’s dim-witted husband Henry.

With barely enough time for the audience to wipe their tears, Agnes Alphonse and Michelle James graced the stage for the Chupse Moment, a mimed comedy.  While they were cracking up on stage, the audience had troubling containing their laughter.

A Ronan Kitting and Alison Cross “When you say nothing at all” cover gave the two comics time to catch their breath before they were on stage again with another piece.  The teachers then showcased their acting talents in a skit about the robbery of the Bank of SJC.

Inter-commercial House Calypso King Ronald Francis is now teaching at SJC.  He sang a medley accompanied by one and a half guitarists (Nicolas Louis seemed to be posing on stage with a guitar on his knee).

The teachers’ choir came out once again but this time with a rendition for the students.  The students concocted a song to the 12 Days of Christmas rhythm which went “on the first day of school/sister said to me/don’t step on the holy grass.”  The teachers answered “on the first day of school/ I had to tell a child/don’t walk by the staffroom area.”  Even those who had not heard the student’s version were nearly blown out their seats when Miss Samuel came bouncing through the audience with an SJC uniform complete with two plaits and her belt around her hips.

SJC’s principal Sister, Rufina Donat, gave the audience a treat by showing off her vocals.  It was even more shocking when she came out modeling a brown African print dress complete with an Afro with a flower in it.  Past and present SJC girls were on their feet, screaming and clapping in glee.  She wasn’t done with the audience yet.  She let them have a taste of her acting skills when she took to the stage in the show’s finale playing an obeah woman in a Nigerian movie remake.

The night’s event had patrons asking, “So . . . when’s the next show?”