I am writing to protest the absurd bureaucracy pervading Choral Contest this year. My main complaint is that Jonas House Singers, one of the a cappella groups in the program, was not allowed to sing at Choral Contest.   I know this because I went backstage to ask about it when they did not appear, and I was told “there is no more arguing”: there was absolutely no way they would be permitted to sing.   They had not been at the rehearsal, I was told, and so the sound crew wasn’t ready for them.   Now, the stage was already covered in microphones. A man with a shirt that said “Sound Crew” was standing backstage. I offered to run and tell anyone who needed to know out in the house. The MCs were backstage during every performance and could also have been notified and made an announcement.   But no: it would be absolutely impossible for the House of Jonas to sing, even using a different group’s microphone setup.

I understand that it is important for groups to show up for the rehearsal/sound check.   But it is also just as clear that there was no reason for Jonas to be prevented from singing.   They were actually well rehearsed, as opposed to some of the groups that were allowed to sing (isn’t the point to have fun?).   They weren’t at the rehearsal because one of their members had lost her voice and another had been in the hospital earlier in the week.   They didn’t think they’d be able to sing.   I’m sure there should have been more communication with the organizers, but the bottom line is that they recovered and showed up and to their dismay, and the dismay of the audience (there were people shouting for them), they were told that they hadn’t followed procedure and were disqualified.

They could have been disallowed to compete and still allowed to sing.   There was certainly ample time for them: they could have sung their entire set at the end, instead of the MCs being forced to stall (rather brilliantly) while results were tabulated. Instead, however, pure bureaucracy was allowed to triumph over fun.   Heaven forbid that a well rehearsed a cappella group be allowed onto a stage full of microphones during Choral Contest without having done a sound check beforehand!

My final complaint is that the TKEs were yelled at backstage and eventually disqualified for competition because they brought a trumpet onstage, and because they did not reveal their Choral Contest spoof during rehearsal.   Whatever about the disqualification, the actual contest doesn’t matter.   But plenty of other groups had instruments onstage, and what they did was hilarious.   This whole thing is for fun, remember?   It’s not like the Betas had rehearsed anything before Thursday night.

In conclusion: at Choral Contest of their senior spring, The House of Jonas was brought down by inflexible bureaucracy and a lost sense of fun.   I was deprived of the pleasure of listening to them, and the TKEs satirized Choral Contest surprisingly well.   Backstage organizers: Lighten up.