On Friday, May 3, the Upper School gathered in the auditorium during Community Time to watch the annual Upper School Talent Show. Among a total of eight acts, four seniors were able to celebrate their final day on campus by showing off their talents:
Senior musician Charlie Beetham ’24 played his saxophone alongside Livia Kam ’26 on the keyboard and Graham Kennedy ’27 on the drums, Angelina Fan ’24 and Yilin Huang ’24 danced a traditional Chinese dance together, and Nicholas Caputo ’24 performed a stand-up comedy skit.
Fan and Huang are MFS talent show alums. Fan has performed with the dance team in the past, while Huang performed a violin duet at a past show. Huang said she and Fan came together this year because “it was really important to us that we bring our unique dance culture to the school.”
Huang is appreciative of the support the Talent Show delivers.
“[The Talent Show] is a very nice community bonding event where the whole school will be supportive of people on stage, no matter how the performance went … I always feel super grateful for people cheering off stage and people who come up to me after to tell me they enjoyed the performance.”
Fan added that she continuously participates in this event because she “personally enjoy[s] being on stage,” and she believes “seeing [her] own progress is also a fun experience.”
Caputo, a first-time performer at this event, explained what persuaded him to perform.
“I decided to do the talent show because I have huge respect and love for comedy … I never really thought I was funny enough to do it … until I talked to a couple of people in my Comm Media Tech class who said they’d love to hear a routine.”
Caputo said, “Once I got up there and felt the roaring support from the community, I felt at ease.” He noted that “as a first-time stand-up comedian, I couldn’t have asked for a better audience.”
Beetham, a consistent Talent Show and Coffee House performer, uses these events to showcase his eight-and-a-half years of commitment to his alto saxophone as he could never join the ensemble minor that MFS offers.
“I have never had time in my schedule to participate in the ensemble minor … so my main options for performance [are] through Coffee House and Talent Show,” Beetham said. “I have enjoyed every time that I performed, so I knew that I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to perform again, especially for my last time at MFS … Coffee House and Talent Show performances have been the most memorable and special [moments for] me, so I wanted to make sure that I made this one as good as I could make it.”
As has become the custom, the recently elected ninth-grade class officers put together this event.
Emmie Huynh ’27, ninth-grade class president, said, “Looking back on the event, I’m really proud of how smoothly and timely the show went with a high level of audience engagement and enthusiasm.”
