By Shivani Khanna
Gargoyle staff reporter
Posted Thursday, May 11, 2006, The OG, features

There isn't much in life more satisfying or funny than seeing senior Farid Zaghloul wearing a mop on his head to look like dreads for his rapper costume in this year's Big Show performance.

The annual show allows students to submit, perform, and direct short comedy sketches that parody student life at Uni and the latest trends in pop culture. It will be performed Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in the North Attic Playhouse.

Tickets will be sold at the door — $3 for students and $4 for adults. All proceeds will benefit the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity as part of X-Week's fund-raising efforts. Uni High's Activism Club will also be collecting cans of food to donate to the Eastern Illinois Foodbank.

“The inspiration [for the sketches] comes from very random sources,” says Big Show co-director Max Goldberg. “Sometimes it will come from Google video and sometimes it can come from other sources, such as typos. Last year, the misspelling of Abe Lincoln led to a video sketch entitled ‘Ab Lincoln,' in which Nick Gooler ate raw beef.”

This year's show, directed by Goldberg and fellow senior Shruti Purkayastha, has many skits oriented toward television themes, with MTV and the History Channel, for example, providing frames of reference for some of the material.

One person who knows all the ins and outs of Big Show is history teacher Chris Butler, who has been the event's faculty sponsor for the past 25 years.

“My role is to unlock doors and stay out of the way,” Butler says. “More specifically, it's a student-run and -written show, so I let the students do their thing and hope I don't get sued. Once in a while I try to be funny to inspire them, but that rarely works.”

So how is someone chosen to perform in Big Show?

“Our criteria for choosing cast members is based off of theater experience and the ability to get along with the rest of the group,” Goldberg says. “But most importantly, for me at least, it is based off of the overall humor of the prospective cast member.”

The show features several newcomers to the Big Show cast, including Zaghloul, seniors Batia Snir and Annie Fehrenbacher, juniors Devin Johnson and Scott Sapp, sophomore Anna Cangellaris, and freshman Hannah Leskosky.

Johnson, senior Daniel Jacobs, and sophomore Micah Berman have also added more music videos to the production.

“The overall creativity of the cast has given us a lot of great material,” Goldberg says, “and right now I can say that I'm happy with every single skit that we are showing.”

BIG SHOW DIRECTORS
• Max “Lost his friend, Johnson, in a horrible smelting accident and made a replacement out of” Goldberg
• Shruti “Balla” Purkayastha

BIG SHOW CAST
• Anna “Ridakulous Animal” Cangellaris
• Colette “DeJeezy” DeJong
• Annie “Rocker” Fehrenbacher
• Matt “Phat Pounder Doom R” Freeman
• Tess “Alation” Garvey
• Devin “Schlongin” Johnson
• Cordelia “Spirate” Loots-Gollin
• Hannah “Loskoskosk” Loskosky
• Scott “Leaking” Sapp
• Sara “Ligar” Sligar
• Batia “Snatia” Snir
• Tom “Johnson” Wiltzius
• Farid “Teary-Eyed” Zaghloul