With performances that really captivated the imagination and the emotion of the audience, Skyline College’s Theater Club hosted its Fifth Annual “Performing Arts Showcase,” on Saturday, Nov. 23.

The audience witnessed various talents ranging from contemporary dances to opera singing. The theater was packed by parents, friends, and supporters of the club who were very much in awe of the show

Two humongous, fighter planes served as the backdrop of the show and really captured a WWII-esque atmosphere. Professor of dance, Amber Steele and her students worked diligently to contribute to the show.

“We have a lot of really diverse and interesting acts,” said Steele. “Everyone has been working really hard. Some people have been working for 13 hours for the past three days.”

The show featured a lot of tremendously talented students who wowed the audience with their unique acts. The dancers opened the night with “The Joint is Jumpin’” with music from the jazz band and the concert choir.

Poet Chris Lincoln and birimbau instrumentalist Jose Luis Sanchez Sosa shared their unique style of spoken word mixed funky instrumentals to the audience with their original “Love Factors.”

“Me and [Jose] have really good chemistry so we were just jamming,” said Lincoln. “I wrote this poem probably in the beginning of the semester and we started practicing with music a couple of weeks ago. I really just let the music take me and whatever came out came out.”

The two came back to the stage later on with Sosa delivering the spoken word and Lincoln on the bongos. Sosa dedicated his first poem “Angelito” to an earlier poet who was pregnant and took off his shirt for his second poem “Circus Ballet” that got the crowd on its feet as Sosa walked around the stage, tapping on the bongos and really brought the house down.

The crowd awed as they watched the intimate moment being shared between Chris Keller and Ann Deever from the play “All My Sons” who were portrayed by Drama 200 students Stephen Marshall and Lisa Olson.

“It was a touching scene,” Skyline student Jimmy Johns III said. “It felt like I was actually watching a real couple fight and make-up. They were really good actors.”

Margaret Fondbertasse, as well as the older members of the crowd, accompanied Roger Marriucci as he sang the classic song “My Way” made famous by Frank Sinatra. His voice was so smooth that it sounded like Ol’ Blue Eyes himself was up there.

Vocal student Kevin Valera also came out in-between sets to deliver his comedic antics as he served as the night’s emcee. His short bits created light chuckles throughout the crowd and kept the transitions between acts seamless.

The show took a quick 10-minute intermission which allowed the crowd to get up and grab some refreshments that were conveniently stationed right outside of the auditorium. The show; however, continued with just as much energy as it had briefly ended with and continued to showcase the prodigious students.

Arklas and the Marklas performed their rendition of “Night and Day” by Cole Porter and Jawbox’s “Savory” to give the rock-and-roll fans in the audience something to sing along to. Their band consisted of a full set with their electric guitars cranked with some raunchy distortions.

Poet Nick Major tickled the ears of many as he stretched the vocabulary of the crowd with his tongue-twisting and Greek-mythology-referencing composition. Saxophone star Andrew Fenn shared the stage with Major as he riffed through a couple of notes before the spoken word.

The show’s finale consisted of the jazz band, vocal ensemble, and dancers as they performed “Sing Sing Sing” made famous by Louis Prima.

“I felt that the performance was great,” said Valera. “We have been working since the beginning, since its inception. We have been working day in and day out on everything from vocal jazz, from choir songs, and I imagine band has been working since the beginning too. This is where it all comes down to tonight. This is pretty much just a taste of what you’re going to see for the rest of the year.”