Curtain Club host annual Presentation Night incorporating student participation

Presenters left to right senior Jason Church, senior Aubrey Burmeister, sophomore Onyx Stone, senior Ellen Klintworth, freshman Caleb Brandon, sophomore Bailey Boshert, sophomore Aiden Toth

Photo credit: Max Fritsche

By Max Fritsche

Curtain Club gave students an opportunity to participate in their annual Presentation Night, where students were allowed to present over any topic they felt like covering.

Senior and president of Curtain Club Jason Church opened the event by greeting the small crowd of about 15 and offering them popcorn and candy before the presentations began.

Seven different students gave presentations on many different creative ideas from “Ten Ways to Brush Your Teeth,” by freshman Caleb Brandon to “Why you should watch Star Wars,” by Church. Senior Ellen Klintworth gave the first presentation of the night, covering a spin on the rules and etiquette of the chemistry lab.

“It was a fun spin on irony and chemistry ideas,” Church said.

Sophomore Onyx Stone gave a presentation titled, “5 Rules to Survive Your Next Dungeon Diving Adventure.” The intent was to remind the audience members of what a review day before a midterm would look like. Senior Grace Marshal was pulled from the audience to participate in the presentation.

“I loved getting to be a part of it,” Marshall said.

Brandon’s presentation titled “Things I’ve Learned: Ten Ways to Brush Your Teeth” began with the simplest way to brush your teeth and eventually spiraled into how to rob a bank for the sake of getting enough money for anything that could possibly work as a toothpaste or toothbrush alternative. Junior Naomi Muehler loved the audience participation and the wild nature of the presentation.

“It was complex and chaotic, and the audience participation made it ten times funnier,” Muehler said. “It felt like a fever dream in the best possible way.”

“It was hysterical! It reminded me of what a weird Al presentation would look like,” Church said.

The next two presentations worked hand in hand. The presenters sophomore Ayden Toth and sophomore Bailey Boschert made a slide show for each other to present to the audience, not knowing what they would be presenting on.

Toth was given a mystery presentation featuring several awards for the members of the curtain club. He had the audience shout out the names of the members they thought were most deserving of the different awards presented.

Boschert was given a presentation concerning art. She gave the audience one simple instruction to name what art is and isn’t. Her presentation also featured a drawing competition where students drew anything and were told to vote on the drawings they liked best.

Both presentations came out to be very creative, and they each received a lot of approval from the audience members. Senior Nathan Sollberger thought it was a unique way to give people a chance to participate.

“This was a very creative way for two people to get involved in this type of event,” Sollberger said. “It’s clear there was a lot of effort put into each presentation. It was brilliant!”

They were great at improvising each other’s ideas,” Marshall said.

Senior Aubrey Burmeister made a presentation on her fiancée senior Jason Church. She spent the entire presentation explaining why her fiancée was so great.

“That presentation was ‘holy peak’ as some of the kids might say,” Sollberger said.

Church gave the final presentation of the night: “Why You Should Watch Star Wars.” The audience was surprised at the amount of times Jason changed the direction of his presentation.

“He changed the topic of his presentation several times. I liked those twists.” Marshall said.

Audience members and presenters were pleased with how the event went. There was opportunity to simply sit back and watch. Some thought the event should be better advertised in the future.

“I was very happy to just sit back, relax and watch the chaos unfold,” Muehler said.

“I love this event every time Curtain Club does it,” Burmeister said. “I think it needs to be better advertised. I think it could always have more people.”

Church was happy with the outcome of the event, even if the turnout was lesser because of other events going on around campus.

“I think it went well. I was worried that other events going on tonight would bring less of an audience for our show.  Many of our officers were absent as well,” Church said. “The last minute presentations made me glad that people were at least willing to put something together.  I also loved the student diversity present at the event.”