Fall Follies is returning to Belmont for its 25th year, taking students back to high school with this year’s theme of Teen Follies.
Seven writers, director Charlie Allen and producer Luke Sacksteder assembled two hours of comedic sketches, videos and musical numbers to premiere this Thursday at 7:30 p.m..
Calista Ginn, one of the writers for the event, thinks of Follies as a Belmont cult favorite.
“I like to say we kind of take the weird and undefinable cloud of Belmont humor and condense it into show form,” said Ginn.
Ginn believes Follies is consistently successful because of its relatable, weird humor that attracts a versatile audience.
“It’s relatable to every person at Belmont. I feel like looking at the audience and seeing different demographics of athletes, Greek life, theatre people — anyone and everyone is laughing. It’s amazing and so powerful,” said Ginn.
Allen believes this year’s Teen Follies theme has something in it for everyone.
“It’s basically CW, Freeform, those sort of TV shows, which I think is interesting to people because they’re either right out of that period of their life or they still like those types of shows as a guilty pleasure.”
This year’s cast features a wide variety of students ranging from sophomores to fifth years that come together to create a cast Allen raved about.
“They’re spectacular! I mean they’re always good, but they’re particularly good this year,” he said.
Heather Magann is a fifth year Belmont student and third year Follies player who agreed this year’s cast is something special.
“We’re all best friends. I mean, that’s what makes it so great is that we’re doing it for the school and a lot of it for ourselves. It’s really easy to work with them because we’re just so comfortable with each other,” she said.
Magann came to the show her freshman year and looks back on it as one of her favorite moments.
“I came as kind of an escape to just laugh and have a good time and to this day I remember that show. It’s one of my favorite things I did freshman year,” said Magann, “It’s just a good way to get acclimated to the school and round off your semester.”
Allen concluded with a message to anyone considering coming to the show.
“It’s funny and it’s free, where else are you gonna see a show that this amount of energy and money was put into that’s free?”
Fall Follies runs Thursday through Saturday with shows at 7:30 p.m. in the Massey Performing Arts Center.
—
This article written by Henry Gregson and Sarah Lawson.