St. Margaret’s 13th Annual Coffee House Cabaret showcased dance, vocal, instrumental, dramatic and visual artists during four sold-out shows held in the McGregor Family Theater January 27, 28 and 30. Forty-four acts auditioned and were selected from a panel of faculty judges to perform.

Event Co-Chairs Gloria Luna and Kathryn Olsen, with a team of Parent Teacher Fellowship volunteers, transformed the theater into an intimate French café. Guests were served specialty coffee and gourmet food.

Click here for a photo gallery.

The Middle and Upper School performers were accompanied by the House Band led by Band Director Chris Carbajal, St. Margaret’s Accompanist Lex Leigh, and Upper School students Olivia Lynch, Maxwell Bienert, Scott Lilly and Andrew Nallathambi.

There were many students from the Class of 2016 who took to the stage for the last time in the Cabaret, including: Sarah Grace Engel, Grace Chalmers, Shelby Nicholas, Erin Fitzpatrick and Heather Nielsen.

The show featured eight student dance performances, several of which were choreographed by the students themselves. The dancers were Valentina Martino, Mitra Alikhani, Hanna Talieh, Chiqui Laird, Hana Adams, Ava Olsen, Katherine Sele, Claire Sele and Derek Saunders.

Spoken word highlights included the delivery of monologues by Parker Ryan, Jake Kuljis and Rachel Roy, as well as a scene from “Odd Couple” performed by Shelby Nicholas and Erin Fitzpatrick.

Instrumental talent was shared by Will Weiss on the guitar; Jonathan Nagel, Natalie Yee and Kevin Zhu on the piano; Sarah Ko on the saxophone; Evette Chung on the violin; and a jazz ensemble rendition of Adele’s “Hello” by Kenneth Brown, Will Rosenthal, James Swanson and Neal Singh.

Vocal talent included: Hannah Olsen, Sarah Grace Engel, Nick Jacome, Rylan Rodriguez-Zahn, Grace Chalmers, Zoe Shor, Alette Segerstrom, Daniela Luna, Sarah Pence, Bella Ghanbari, Jackie Mullen, Bryce Victor, Jeni Bauer, Katherine Parrish, Anneka Miller, Tatianna Cloobeck, Garrett Higgins, Rebekah Olsen, Casey Healy, Lulu Arundale, Matthew Maga, Madilyn Montgomery, Daisy Sellas, Tyler Ashman, Lexi Vollero, Tommy Colglazier, Jack Aitken and Heather Nielsen.

The technical crew, under the direction of Technical Director and Resident Designer Bryan Dauterive and Video Supervisor Nicki Yokota worked behind the scenes. Junior Luke Desforges stage managed and led a team that included Jennifer Carpenter, Sam Cowan and Parker Ryan. The video crew members were Nicholas Kallins, Blake Stevenson, Eloise Marcus, Robert Milo and Matthew Stevensen and the shows were narrated by senior Jack Rubenacker.

A special thank you to Shelby Nicholas, grade 12, for the visual artwork for this annual PTF-sponsored event.