I began teaching at Belleville East in the fall of 1966. The school was still under constructions and many of the classrooms were not ready; it was a new school without traditions. Ever school activity that first year would be the starting point for developing the schools image. Before I was hired, he community voted on the mascot and school name. It was decided that the new school would be called The Belleville East High School Lancers. No one had any idea what the mascot would look like. After considerable discussion, it was determined that the mascot should be a knight, I guess it was because knights used a lance. I could never quite see the connection. In my mind, the image was a British lancer. I later found out the graphic designer hired to create the school logo, use a Portuguese Lancer wine bottle label for the type face which really confused everything. The final logo design was a shield with lances.
With the name a logo in place the principal began searching for new activities for the fledgling school. He approach me one day and asked it I would like to organize a school talent show. On my application, I listed my participation in a college review presented by the Blackfriars a theatrical fraternity. I told him I would give it a try and I quickly enlisted the help of the new music instructor, Jim McHaney. We decided to call it a Variety Show with a subtitle for each year. Jim and I worked on sixteen shows together and became good friends. The work was divided up and I took charge of the stage, publicity and house. Jim work with staging the acts, sound and lighting. The lines of responsibility were loosely drawn and many activities overlapped.
One of the major problems was the lack of performance space. The school did not have a theatre only a lecture center that was the new trend in school architecture during the nineteen sixties. It did have a small concrete floor stage. However, there was no wing space, dressing rooms, lighting, or sound equipment. We decided that we would use the gymnasium as a performance center. Trying to work around the gym scheduling was very difficult. We would have to create a stage complete with lighting on a very tight schedule. The Easter holiday was our choice. The spring break was Thursday to the Monday after Easter and we were able to use the gym for the remainder of the week. The tryouts were held in the music room several weeks before we started work on the stage. We selected several acts and divided them into two groups. The acts were responsible for their own rehearsals. Early on Thursday morning, the first day of spring break we started converting the gym into a performance area. We set everything up during and rehearsed half the show on Tuesday and half on Wednesday, On Thursday we had a dress rehearsal and Friday evening we presented the show. Everything was cleaned up an the gym was ready for classes on Monday. We followed that format for fifteen years. It was ten twelve hour days plus the tryouts and planning. The first show was a success and as the years passed it became an important school activity with large audiences. As it grew we rented a portable stage, lighting and created back stage area complete with curtain.The bleachers on one side of the gym were used for seating. Our trade mark was a group of students wearing candy box costumes and singing “Let’s go out to the lobby” and leading the crowd to the lobby for refreshments. My art classes created acts each year that pushed the envelope of what is talent. One such act is hard to visualize, imagine a student in a Hormel Spam can costume signing “Mr. Spam man” ( to the tune of Mr. Sandman} featuring four back up singers, performing Detroit style, dressed in wedding dresses. At intermission Mr. Spam man served spam samples and signed autographs. I don’t know what it meant but you could not forget it. We also had a panel of judges and trophies were award after the show. We had local celebrities as judges and in keeping with my off beat humor, I had a pro wrestler as a judge one year. Every one looked forward to the special judge each year. My last year directing the Variety show was 1984. I had a busy schedule doing technical direction for two or three plays a year plus my department head duties and I just did not have enough time. The show hung on for a few more years but eventually died out. Belleville East is now a large school with a new theatre and a large drama department. I would like to think those early years helped East develop into a fine school.
The first show in 1968 was called Lancer Laugh-Out a homage to the popular television show Laugh-in. Over the next fifteen years, with a two year break in 1979-80, the names of the show would be taken from pop culture. The name of the shows and years are:
1968 Lancer Laugh-Out
1969 Gotcha
1970 Do your own thing
1971 Hey don’t that look like someone we seen before
1972 All in the family
1973 Tell me what it is and I will tell you what to feed it
1974 Thanks, I needed that
1975 Aaargh!
1976 Hooray.
1977 Gong show
1978 Friday night live
1981 We’re back
1982 B.T.H.S.E. TV
1983 This is your night Charles G. McCoy
1984 Puttin’ on the Ritz
1986 Happy 20 th. Birthday East
1987 That’s the ticket
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