Friday, Feb. 18, the campus community was treated to some wonderful performances by the ladies of Elizabethtown College’s performance groups. The Girl’s Night Out (GNO) Benefit Event, hosted by our female acapella group, Melica, is held every year to raise money for a local non-profit or volunteer organization that benefits women and girls in and around Lancaster County. This year, the event’s proceeds will be going to Lancaster’s Clare House. As explained in the virtual program, “Clare House is a transitional housing program for women and children facing homelessness. The employment-focused program is committed to providing a safe and educational environment to help set women up with the resources they need to begin working.”

The night kicked off with two songs from Melica, “Mr. Perfectly Fine” arranged by Emma Romeo and “Dangerous Woman” arranged by Maggie Harbord. Soloist Maggie Heimbaugh stunned the audience with the opening number and set the tone for a night of truly magnificent performances from all of the groups. Carly Miller may as well have been Ariana Grande during “Dangerous Woman,” as she had the whole audience singing along to her brilliant vocals. Following Melica was the ladies of Vocalign with an arrangement of “Valerie” featuring soloists Grace Diehl, Charlotte Long and Miriam Englehardt. They may have been smaller than Melica, but boy did the Vocalign girls bring the heat! 

Then, the audience was treated to Emotion’s “Wasabi,” choreographed by senior Hope McQuoid and featuring a handful of her performers from last semester. The ladies spiced up the stage with McQuoid’s intricate and unique “fan-ography.”

Then the Dance Team performed a Pitbull mix hip-hop routine, choreographed by one of their captains, Mikayla Close, leaving everyone in the audience wanting more.

Luckily, there was more to come! Emotion’s “Hold Back the River,” choreographed by Christina Mercincavage and Emily Pellicano was up next. The beautiful lyrical number provided some nostalgic vibes for the audience before Mad Cow Improv took to the stage. 

Three of their “cows” had prepared two acting games for the audience. The first game, called “Half Time,” required a prompt from the audience that the actors had to improv a minute-long scene about. After completion of the scene, the actors had to repeat it in 30 seconds, then again in 15, 7 and 3 seconds, then one final time backwards in 30 seconds. The prompt for the first game was “trapeze training,” and the training was definitely entertaining. Their second game was called “Just Read the Line,” and also required an audience-provided prompt. However, during the skit, if the actors chose to, they could pick up a book and read a line from it, which would then be incorporated into the skit. The book used was from the “Harry Potter” series, and the prompt provided was “drinking milk.” At some point during the scene, “has anyone seen a toad?” was pulled from the book, along with a few other quotes that were worked seamlessly into the scene.

After Mad Cow’s show, the Dance Team concluded their performances with “Bad Romance,” choreographed by the team’s other captain, Carly Campbell. Their jazzy-number provided the perfect contrast to Melica’s “When the Party’s Over,” featuring soloists Harbord and Rachel Pryslak, who left the audience stunned with their beautiful duet at the end of the song. Then, in true Melica fashion, the girls wrapped up the night with “Wings,” featuring solos from Dori Hall, Brooke Challandes, Julia Middleton and Harbord. 

All of the performers did a wonderful job at this event, the cheers from the audience throughout the night were such a wonderful refresher after the last year or so of limited performances. 

“I was so happy to be able to host GNO again this year after we were unable to last year,” said Hall, Melica’s vice president. “It was such a good time to be on stage with all of the girls again, and I’m really glad that we were able to support another local program for women.” Members of the campus community can check out the following Instagram pages for updates about future performances:

Melica: @etownmelica

Dance Team: @elizabethtowndance

Vocalign: @etownvocalign

Emotion: @emotion_etown

Mad Cow: @madcowimprov