By Deena BustilloPLAY Editor
If you walked into a Purple Haze a cappella rehearsal during the right half hour window, you’d think you had accidentally stumbled into a giant middle school-like, co-ed slumber party -complete with catchy tunes, Oreos and Twizzlers. The eight women and nine men are sprawled across the floor of Jones Great Room, blasting Gwen Stefani and Rilo Kiley, but they’re just brainstorming a clever phrase to whisper as a cue before performing each song for their show that opens Friday. They’ll be rehearsing on this blizzarding weekday until midnight, just without pillows or blankets. Or requisite sleepover donuts for breakfast.
The members of the 17-person NU a cappella group are gearing up for their Winter Quarter performance, (this Friday and Saturday) named “Too Much A Cappella Makes the Baby Go Deaf,” a title adapted from a show done by the Neofuturists in Chicago. The show will feature 25 songs and skits in 60 minutes, in what Communication junior and Purple Haze general manager and producer Jessica Sher calls “our craziest, most fun show of the year.”
The show, or at least the group, has gotten a lot of buzz since the Purple Haze icon went up on Here and Now this week. Their Web site has jumped from about 48 hits per day to 250, according to Communication sophomore Morgan Karr.
The show will feature popular music, after it’s gone through the Purple Haze a cappella filter. Sher name-dropped artists whose songs they reinvented for the audience interactive performance: John Legend, Fiona Apple, Gwen Stefani and Rascal Flatts, to name a few.
And even more (literal) bang for your five bucks: Boomshaka will share the stage for the two-night run. The NU drum, rhythm and dance group (known for their inventive use of sticks, buckets and even their hands and feet) will open the show and collaborate with Purple Haze in the encore performance.
Before the Purple Haze rehearsal begins, a few members practice their stomps and claps to practice the Boomshaka numbers. The other members critique from further back, “No, it’s clap, clap, chest, chest, leg, leg,” and then joke about the group’s lack of dance rhythm. Singing and stomping are tricky, but after a few minutes the sounds unite. “Every member (of Purple Haze) thinks they’re a member of Boomshaka,” Weinberg freshman Christian Gero says with a laugh.
Purple Haze maintains a balance of silly and sing on and off the stage. “We can sing and make fun of ourselves,” Communication senior and the group’s musical director Carly Kincannon says. The rehearsal includes a warm-up of spelling names with their hips and wiggling Purple Haze spirit fingers, but when the formations come together a few minutes later, the members seriously critique the notes and harmony – all the things you’d shrug at unless you actually knew about pitch and range and all that stuff.
Onstage the group will dress up in Halloween-esque costumes. Sher usually comes clad in ’80s workout gear, but says she’s getting tired of it. The room will be redecorated and complicated, cramped formations will flow. Every song has a unique, clustered arrangement of people gathered around the soloist. Sher says the soloist and group sound compliment each another, “It’s teamwork, not competition.”
“Too Much A Capella Makes the Baby go Deaf” will run Feb. 16 and 17 at 9 and 11p.m. in the Jones Great Room. Tickets are $5 at the door.
Medill junior Deena Bustillo is the PLAY editor. She can be reached at d-bustillo@northwestern.edu.
