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The annual lip-synching fundraiser for the Countryside High yearbook brings down the house.
By EILEEN SCHULTE
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 23, 2000
CLEARWATER -- Backstage was bizarre.
Young men stuffed socks in their bras and nervously adjusted their wigs.
Megastars -- N'Sync, Madonna, even the late Chris Farley -- wandered around casually or stood fidgeting, waiting for show time.
This remarkable collection of star power and adrenaline was pulled together for Countryside High School's regular celebration of the outrageous and uproarious -- the Lip Synch contest.
This, the 26th contest, is a tradition at the school. It is widely embraced by students and parents and painstakingly prepared by the students.
More than 700 people paid to pack into the auditorium on Friday and see students dressed as their favorite stars, lip-synching songs from CDs or performing skits.
The stated purpose of the event is to help offset the $64,000-plus it costs to print the annual yearbook, said English teacher and yearbook adviser Nora Moulton.
But one other thing sustains the show year after year: The kids love it.
Backstage before the contest Friday, participants battled bouts of stage fright. Teens paced and said, "let's give each other supportive hugs" one minute and yelled out, "I don't want to do this," another.
But not freshman Reni Migueltorena.
He calmly adjusted his sleeveless white dress shirt which fit snugly against his generous frame.
His partner Lance Tafelski tried to get in some last-minute practice.
They had been waiting more than a month for this moment, ever since they first saw the Chippendales skit on a Saturday Night Live video. In it, the late comedian Chris Farley and Patrick Swayze try out for the Chippendale Dancers, a male strip troupe.
Swayze, an actor and dancer, is graceful and buff. The overweight Farley was not.
Migueltorena was game to play Farley, while Tafelski saw himself in Swayze.
Let's do it, they said.
They practiced their moves every Friday for a month. Tafelski's grandmother took white dress shirts, cut off the sleeves and replaced the buttons with Velcro for easy removal.
They copied the original skit as best they could.
Friday, three "judges" sat at a table onstage and watched as "Swayze" and "Farley" started dancing.
Tafelski moved confidently while Migueltorena flung his large body around the stage. Then they ripped off their shirts revealing Tafelski's lean torso and Migueltorena's sizable stomach.
The crowd roared.
When it was over, a host asked Migueltorena, "Chris, where have you been all these years?"
Migueltorena responded: "I was dead but I came back to Countryside High to perform."
Then he put his hands behind his head and threw out his stomach a couple of times for audience reaction.
The audience reaction was deafening.
But the skit had plenty of competition. Fifteen acts were on the playbill.
Five judges sat at a table in front of the stage ready to assess originality, use of special effects, presentation, ability to get a good crowd response and choreography.
Among the competitors was Shayne Cahalan, looking impossibly thin in a black sequined tube top and white hip huggers. She and her dancers were ready to perform a dance number to Madonna's hit Vogue.
Above Cahalan's lip was a diamond piercing. It was supposed to resemble the famous Madonna mole.
She and the dancers bought the jackets that made up part of their costumes at thrift stores.
"They're old, from the '70s and '80s," she said.
Then there was Janet Jackson. Really it was Chris Jones, who bravely performed a dance/synch Jackson song called If alone.
The crowd went nuts as she did some robotic steps, and looked, and of course sounded, very much like the real Jackson.
Up next was bleach-blond Jerry Simon and Justin Saturley, who performed an Eminem rap song called The Real Slim Shady.
Tiffany Peters and 11 back-up synchers performed a sexy version of the Shania Twain song Any Man of Mine.
Dressed in brown cowboy boots, cowboy hat and fringe skirt, Peters looked a lot like Twain.
"We love you, Tiffany," yelled a young man from somewhere in the audience.
Of course, no 2000 lip-synch contest would be complete without Britney Spears and N'Sync songs. A troupe made up of 16 contestants synched and danced their way through Hit Me Baby by Spears and Tearin' Up My Heart by N'Sync.
Then came a group of guys who performed Who Let the Dogs Out by Baha Men, What is Love by A Night at the Roxbury, Faded by Soul Decision, and I Want it That Way by the Backstreet Boys.
After they were done, a host dressed in a long gown called the group over to the side of the stage and asked each member, "Who let your dogs out?"
She put the microphone up to one teen who said, "The junior girls, baby."
The audience howled.
After the acts were done, the judges took just minutes to decide the winners.
First place . . . Chippendale Dancers.
Second place . . . Vogue.
Third place . . . Hit Me Baby/Tearing Up My Heart.
Afterward, an excited Migueltorena sat in a chair in the first row of the theater reveling in his newfound stardom. Pretty girls stopped by and gave him hugs of congratulations. He beamed.
"I didn't come out to win, I just wanted to raise the house," he said.
What was the best part?
"When they were screaming my name. That was great," he said, smiling.