Savannah Harrod woke up Monday thinking her day would hold no surprises.
But at the end of it, she had a new scholarship.
On Monday, OSU’s Theatre Council hosted its first donor party and performance since 2020.
The event, which was open to those who donate to the theatre department, students and staff, offered food to its guests before the scholarships were distributed.
“I was just here to enjoy the night,” Harrod said. “I wasn’t part of the extravaganza.”
Harrod said she was just excited to see her friends perform and to mingle. Different people handed out the scholarships, including Lee Brasuell and Sandi DeVore, who worked behind the scenes to make the event happen.
“As the interim head of the department of theatre, I’ve been working with the team, especially Sandi DeVore, to get this done,” Brasuell said. “The theatre circle is even creating a scholarship for the fall of 2023. We’ve got the first funds to deliver this next year to freshmen.”
After the scholarships were handed out, the Evening Extravaganza began. A member of the Theatre Council group took the stage and, with a shaky voice, announced the council would be shutting down because of a copyright issue with a previous play that had been performed this school year. Shortly after, all members of the group jumped out on stage, shouting “April Fools!”
Acts included everything from monologues, bad dating advice, dancing duets, a singing man and muppet, a recycled fashion show and a drag queen performance.
The 2022-23 TCO President Liliana Cudly was in charge of getting the acts to flow together.
“I was basically the executive producer of this,” Cudly said. “I was also in charge of a lot of the communication between all the students and the tech side of things.”
They posted a casting call of sorts on their Instagram account, tco.okstate, asking for people who would like to perform for the donors to try out and sign up.
“We wanted it to be a huge showcase of everything that we are doing in the theatre department,” Cudly said. “Instead of just like a cabaret style where it’s all songs. Before COVID-19, it was formally a thing called ‘The Mistcast,’ where girls would sing guys’ songs or people perform things that they never would have performed in a million years, stuff like that. We wanted to take that and focus it on showcasing the talents that we’ve been honing this past school year.”
The performers worked on their performances on their own time. They started working at the beginning of February and only had a month of rehearsal time before they would perform live on the Vivia Locke stage in the Seretean.