Students displayed an array of talents Thursday at the open auditions held this week for a talent show called “LSU’s Got Talent.”
Business fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi is hosting the first annual event in November, and members judged the auditions Thursday night and will continue tonight.
Mass communication freshman Jonathan Sciortino’s talent was one he said he kept hidden for some time — playing The Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” on the ukulele.
Sciortino said he has been playing the ukulele for two years and his audition was the first time he’d ever played in front of a group of people.
He said he chose to audition because he was ready to show people his skills.
Marcus Toussaint, mechanical engineering junior, showed off his dancing skills.
Toussaint said he didn’t prepare a routine for his audition but planned to show the judges a bit of everything he can do. He said he’d plan some choreography if he were asked to be in the show.
Toussaint said after his audition he wished he’d prepared more.
“I was just freestyling up there,” he said.
Toussaint said he has been dancing for eight or nine years and has taken classes in modern dance, jazz and, his favorite, hip-hop.
Toussaint also performed Greek step dancing for the judges, something he does often with his fraternity, Phi Beta Sigma.
“I use dance to express myself,” Toussaint said. “I’m here to have fun.”
Erin Landry, marketing senior and president of Alpha Kappa Psi, said the fraternity wanted to hold the talent show to get the community involved in something on campus.
Landry said she hopes more student organizations will join the fraternity next year for the event.
“We really just want to make it bigger and better every year,” Landry said.
Landry said she was contacted by about 15 people wanting to schedule auditions and hopes to see several walk-ins at the audition tonight.
The official talent show, which will be held Nov. 5 in the auditorium of the Cox Communications Academic Center for Student-Athletes, is a fundraising event for the fraternity.
Landry said the fraternity’s goal is to sell more than 800 tickets.
Landry said the first-place winner will win a performance during halftime at the LSU basketball game against the University of Houston on Nov. 30.
The winner will also receive a $100 gift card and 12 passes to Tiki Tubing.
Second- and third-place winners will receive a $75 gift card and eight passes and a $50 gift card and four passes, respectively.
Landry also said the fraternity plans to have bands and performances as exhibition acts throughout the show.
She said local band State Street Survivors will play, which she hopes will help attract an audience.
The last auditions for the show will be tonight from 6 to 8. Landry said the judges will cast the show by Wednesday.
—————
Contact Rachel Warren at [email protected].