A full live audience watches as a mixture of students and teachers perform various acts, such as singing, bean bag tossing and even a theater performance. Cedar Park Tonight started out as a talent show for the school, but switched to a showcase show in 2017. It’s a family friendly show that highlights students, teachers and school organizations, with numerous games and videos displayed throughout the night. The show will be held this Friday at 7 p.m. in the PAC.

Cedar Park Tonight is hosted by the three anchors of the Wolfcast, juniors Abby Martinez, Katie Whitmarsh and Jack Polishook, along with the rest of the entire broadcast staff behind the scenes.

“The main goal of CPT is to showcase the hard work and talent of our incredible wolf cast staff and spread entertainment to the student body,” junior Iliana Tangarova said. “As executive producer of CPT, I work hard to make sure everyone has their projects done in time, I help set up a schedule and typically overlook the show and it’s rehearsals. It’s going to be a very fun show, since so many people are performing like the dance team, theater and choir.”

There are numerous different performances that will happen the night of the show. One of them is a game named ‘Slay It Don’t Spray It,” which takes two pairs of one teacher and one student who are played a verse of music, and once the music is turned off one of the pairs will have to finish the lyrics. There’s a similar game on Jimmy Fallon, which is where Tangarova and Freshman Jayna Lipkin got the idea.

“I thought it would be really fun to have teachers and students team up,” Tangarova said. “It was easy picking which teachers should be in it, we went with Mr. Cieri and Mr. Marsh. It was a little difficult trying to find a student for Mr. Cieri since people had conflicting schedules. But we finally found one and I’m excited for how it’ll turn out. I think it’ll be received well.”

Accompanying the live games numerous other performances will be showcased, such as two different choirs. Seasons, the all girl performative choir, will be singing “Crabbuckit,” written by hip-hop artist K-OS. They’ve been practicing these songs since late march, due to the fact that they’ll be performing this song again in their last concert of the year. Junior Miranda Moser said she is excited to perform alongside her choir members.

“We’ve worked hard on learning these pieces while juggling our UIL competitions and concerts for our other choirs,” Moser said. “So it’s exciting to be performing as Seasons and Soundwave for the first time since Princess Tea.”

Choir isn’t the only musical performance that will be on CPT. Theater will be performing a number from their past musical ‘Something Rotten’, they have been working on the number since last July. The cast recently got new choreography for their performance since they recently performed at the Heller Awards. Junior Charlotte Newman says performing at CPT seems exciting.

“I am so excited,” Newman said. “I’ve never been to Cedar Park Tonight before so I’m intrigued to see how it actually works and to be one of the performing acts. It’ll be fun to perform with friends too.”

The broadcast staff has been preparing for the show since February. The planning process includes: segment pitches, brainstorming, picking teachers and students to be in the show and writing scripts. The week of CPT the entire staff holds rehearsals everyday after school in preparation for the night of the event. The three hosts have a lot on their plate according to Martinez, but working alongside them makes it more enjoyable.

“It’s so much fun getting to host it with them and it is one of my favorite events of the year,” Martinez said. “We have a really great bond and it’s exciting to be able to do a live event. It’s definitely a lot of work but it’s worth it to see it all come together in the end. I’m also looking forward to hosting with my fellow anchors.”

Alongside the three hosts and executive producer, stage manager and senior Katie Smith will be working behind the scenes. Smith has been working on CPT since their junior year. With it being their last year working on the show Smith says how emotional leaving the broadcast staff is as a senior.

“It’s definitely emotional, having it be the last time that I’m ever working on CPT,” Smith said. “I’m super excited for the show, but there have been some moments that I wish I could stay a little bit longer in the preparation stage, so that it doesn’t have to be over so soon. But I’m still really excited for this year’s show. And I know that we [the seniors] are leaving the program in great hands.”

Cedar Park Tonight is a show that the broadcast staff has been working on for many months. The mixture of games and performances is something that isn’t found anywhere else in Cedar Park according to Smith, while also giving their thoughts on why you should come to the show.

“This night is so much fun, you definitely don’t want to miss out on it,” Smith said. “This year we have an incredible lineup of teachers and students of organizations and it will be so entertaining and hilarious. Some of your favorite teachers [will be seen] making absolute fools of themselves on stage too, so who would miss that? Tickets will be sold online and at the door, everyone who can come should be there.”