Sydney Sweeney. Angry Evanston residents. ChatGPT.
All these characters were brought to life by Evanston Township High School students in the 68th annual YAMO, a student-created sketch comedy show. The show’s seven-show run is from Sept. 26 to Oct. 18 in ETHS’ Upstairs Theater.
“The community here is literally the best,” ETHS senior and general director Claudia Nord said. “Everybody is supporting everybody, and it means a lot to me to work with all these people. It’s just a really happy place.”
In the 120-minute show, all the material is written, directed, built and performed by a team of about 100 students: Three acting companies — named “Acting,” “Impulse” and “Unexpected” — a dance company and a pit performed a series of skits, dances and musical interludes.
The skits covered a range of topics, from the struggle of automated toilet flushing to an imagined rivalry between a few of Evanston’s main roads — Central Street, Davis Street, McCormick Boulevard, Sheridan Road and Asbury Avenue. The material was written by a team of student directors and writers over the summer, who met frequently with staff sponsors throughout the process.
“Unexpected” company director Templeton Steinwedel, an ETHS senior, co-wrote and directed a skit about the controversy of Ryan Field construction, in which Evanston residents fight for their rights for construction-free streets, holding protest signs and singing a parody of “Do You Hear the People Sing” from “Les Misérables.”
“We talk about a lot with our advisors about how to balance the sketch comedy side of things with the commentary side of things,” Steinwedel said. “We had to approach the 2025 climate in a super specific way, otherwise people would have cried instead of laughed.”
ETHS Superintendent Marcus Campbell was in the audience Thursday night, attending his 25th YAMO.
Campbell said YAMO always reflects “the larger social, political climate” while still making attendees laugh because “Evanston loves a good joke.”
“We believe in the arts, and we have three theaters here at ETHS, and we’re building a new theater,” Campbell said. “We’re always very happy to support students in the performing arts, and it’s really cornerstone to the education here in Evanston.”
The show sold more than 2,300 tickets within 24 hours of sales opening, ETHS theatre teacher and YAMO coordinating director Timothy Herbert said. Tickets have sold out consistently since around 2006, he said.
“Impulse” company director Sam Consiglio’s favorite scene to rehearse was called “Conclave, Pt. 2.” A parody of the popular movie, the conclave broke out in their rendition of “Low” by Flo Rida, dancing and singing “papal bottom jeans.”
Consiglio, an ETHS senior, has been a part of YAMO for three years and describes her sophomore YAMO, where she was an actor in the “Unexpected” company, as “one of the happiest times” she can remember.
“It felt really good to be with a group of people who felt like all my friends and shared one big creative brain,” Consigilio said. “Coming into the YAMO space, you know that everyone in this room is going to have your back.”
The students only had six weeks for rehearsal, meeting six times each week to bring their work to life.
For Steinwedel, his three years in YAMO are so intertwined with his high school experience that he finds it hard to separate them from each other.
“It’s like nothing you experience anywhere else, especially at this age,” Steinwedel said.
“Unexpected” company member Sammy Jain described the rehearsal room energy as everyone collaborating to “make everyone’s day brighter.”
Jain’s older brother was also in YAMO when he was at ETHS, and the show “means so much” to his family, he said. Jain, an ETHS sophomore, said he is excited to continue taking part in YAMO.
“We get to help put a smile on people’s faces no matter what they’re going through, and it makes everyone in the cast, crew, orchestra — everybody — feel like they’re part of something bigger than themselves,” Jain said, who sang a few lines from a Benson Boone song onstage. “That is something that’s very ‘mystical, magical.’”
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