Twenty-two years ago, MOHIBA was all about getting a clue. It was 1988, my senior year at Morse High School and the annual variety show was based on “Clue” — the board game.
Dressed in extravagent blue as Mrs. Peacock, I sauntered across the stage with my fellow Olio Players between class acts and lip-synching sophomores who strummed tennis racket guitars. The teachers that year sang “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” because the school was under what seemed like endless renovation.
It’s hard to forget your time of being part of something that for 83 years has run as reliably as the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. The theme changes from year to year, but MOHIBA really doesn’t. It’s all about students — from athletes to math whizzes to a core of dramadedicated kids — and teachers and even some community members camping it up for the annual Morse High Bazaar.
TOP, THE CAST FROM MOHIBA TREK 2012 rehearse their “Star Trek” spoof, from left, Josh Dilley, Jonathan Herrick, Rebecca Hamer, Cody Lamoreau, Robbie Chandler and Nathanial Barter (lying down); above,.junior Emilee Love stars as “Uhura” from Star Trek; at right, seniors Ayshia McCloud and senior Patrick Yurek rehearse music for tonight’s production.
The Trekkie stewards of the show, performing as 21st century Olio Players, are Matthew Boyle, Nathanial Barter, Rebecca Hamer, Cody Lamoreau, Morgan Quigg, Josh Dilley, Robbie Chandler, Emilee Love and Jon Herrick.
“Amazing.” That’s what Dana Douglass, a senior at Morse who will sing “Ave Maria,” as well as perform in the senior class act, said. “You really get to see peoples’ individual talents. You usually see sports things and Christmas con-
MORSE HIGH SCHOOL BAZAAR
Montgomery Theater
826 High St.
7 p.m. tonight, 2 p.m. Saturday
certs,” Douglass said in the hallway behind the Morse stage as students got ready for “hell week,” the final week of rehearsals before the big show.
On the Friday before “hell week,” students whispered and laughed in the wings of Montgomery Theater as they waited to go onstage. Many of them tuned guitars.
“Just about every act that’s an individual act this year is music-related,” Douglass said. “I’ve never seen so much talent at Morse.”
Patrick Yurek is one of eight seniors planning to sing solo, but unlike his classmates, the song he will bring to the stage with his acoustic guitar is a song he wrote.
“I wanted to write a song that was towards the ladies,” Yurek said as he plucked out some chords for fellow senior, Aysia McCloud.
They sat side by side amid backpacks waiting to go onstage. “I asked myself, if I wanted to write a song for a girl, what would it be?”
The answer is a tune called “Tell Me What You’re Feeling,” which Yurek plays unaccompanied on the edge of the stage, serenading the spotlight.
Two years ago, he needed a filler class because he had too many study halls, so he chose Basic Piano. “I would learn the lesson in like five minutes and then I’d have a lot of downtime. I’d go to the piano room and play songs I heard on the radio,” Yurek said.
He didn’t know until his sophomore year he could play piano by ear.
When Yurek got a guitar last Christmas, he discovered he could play that by ear, too.
MOHIBA gives students a chance to share such talents.
And it’s not just those gifts of performing arts that lend themselves to the stage. This year students from the junior class have organized a fundraising drive for those affected by Hurricane Sandy. During intermission and after the show, students will collect donations for the American Red Cross, a pitch they make about halfway through the two-hour show.
“How many communities in this fractured time can say there’s something they’ve done for 83 years? Not many,” director and Morse English teacher Kevin O’Leary said. “Yet there are little communities just like ours that were destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. They won’t get to have their MOHIBAs this year. So I’m dedicating our MOHIBA to them.”
And as MOHIBA gets ready to beam aboard the Bath audience, many of the memories of the 83rd bazaar have already been made.
“Where else do you get to be like this, to do this?” Douglass said.
“It only happens here.”
Tickets for the 83rd MOHIBA are available at the door and are $8 for adults and $6 for students.
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