Students impress audience at Coffeehouse forty five
Photo Credit: Maya Hendl
Coffeehouse emcees Rachel Goldberg, Cat Merkle, and Caroline Geoghegan introduce the next act. These three senior hosts also serve as editors-in-chief for Mobius.
December 10, 2018
Students showcased their artistic talents last Thursday, December 6 at the first Coffeehouse of the school year. Coffeehouse is a biannual performance where students share their original poetry, prose, and music, as well as performing covers of songs.
Students from each of the four grades performed over the course of the evening, with nine numbers before the intermission and ten numbers after. Performances included two sibling duos, one father daughter duo, three pieces of original music, and five pieces of original poetry and prose.
The event was a fundraiser for Mobius, the high school literary magazine. Mobius is run by English teacher Pat Mahoney with the help of student editors and staff. This year, Coffeehouse was hosted by the three student editors of the magazine, seniors Caroline Geoghegan, Cat Merkle, and Rachel Goldberg.
From left to right, senior Möbius editors Cat Merkle, Caroline Geoghegan, and Rachel Goldberg pose following the successful Coffeehouse 45. All three have been staff editors of Möbius before, with Goldberg acting as the Prose Editor and Merkle and Geoghegan acting as the Assistant Editors in Chief for the 2017-2018 school year.
The hosts are responsible for writing a script to introduce each act. Although it is traditional for Coffeehouse hosts to use puns in their script, this year’s editors decided to shake things up, creating comedy through personal anecdotes.
“I didn’t want to do a lot of puns because I wanted to switch it up a little, and I think it went really well,” Merkle said. Along with hosting, Merkle performed in five different acts, singing, providing accompaniment, and reading poetry. Though it was a lot of work, Merkle still felt that it was a fun experience overall.
This is the same way Rachel Goldberg feels about being editor, saying “it’s super fun, definitely a lot of work, but great payoff.” For her, nights like Coffeehouse are the payoff that makes all the work worthwhile. She performed as well, singing “Back to Black” by Amy Winehouse while Merkle accompanied her on the guitar.
Caroline Geoghegan felt that this Coffeehouse was a huge success for Möbius, and truly enjoyed performing and watching her peers perform. Geoghegan read two original poems along with hosting.
“I truly believe that Coffeehouse is one of the best events Glen Rock High School offers, especially coming from a club that often doesn’t get as much recognition as sports or theatre,” Geoghegan said. “Just the amount of time and effort people are willing to put into something just astounds me every year.”
