Permian High School’s Black Magic Christmas Show returns Dec. 10 to First Baptist Church, 709 N. Lee Ave.
The show starts at 7:30 p.m. and tickets are $15 for reserved seats and $8 for children and students. You can purchase tickets at www.permianchoir.com.
Head Choir Director Kenneth Sieloff said work on the show started in October.
“Everyone is happy to be getting closer to what we used to have in terms of what was quote unquote normal. … Last year, we avoided certain songs because we didn’t want the dancing to get too close. But this year we felt comfortable to go ahead and do those songs and they love the songs,” Sieloff said. “They’re all working really hard and they’re really investing themselves in the process.”
Katelynn Jackson, a 17-year-old senior who is playing keyboards in the show, is in her second year in Black Magic.
“It’s going to be a very family friendly show,” Jackson said. “There’s going to be a lot of new songs that we don’t usually do. It’s going to be at First Baptist, which is always a really great venue. (There’s) going to be a great light show that comes with it.”
Jackson added that the vocalists and band members are talented and work hard to learn all the songs.
“It’s going to be high energy. It’s going to … be a Christmas show and it’s going to be really exciting,” she added.
Jackson said there was a show last year, but due to COVID they couldn’t have as many people.
“And when you don’t have as many people in the crowd, it’s less high energy. You don’t get as much as a reactive experience for the audience, which affects performance sometimes. So better turnout, I think, will be a better experience for everyone. It’s more of a community experience,” she added.
Being a senior, this will be Jackson’s last Christmas show with Black Magic. And she loves Christmas music.
“It’s really bittersweet,” Jackson said.
She added that the group is like a family.
“… We treat each other like we’re family, so … it makes me want to make the show the best (it) can be,” Jackson said.
Thomas Bell, an 18-year-old senior, is a sound technician also in his second year with the group. He also is involved in Kantorei.
Bell said he monitors the sound for the vocalists, the band and skits.
“It seems nerve wracking, but when you get the gist of it it’s very simple. And with sound you just have to really open your ears with everything,” Bell said.
On a show week, Bell said he and fellow sound technician Easton Easley, set up all the instruments, the soundboard, microphones, batters and all the headsets for the vocalists.
“And then later that day, when we’re going through microphone checks, we would make sure that no one’s sticking out and no one’s too low. We’re just constantly checking before the show to make sure that nothing’s gone wrong,” Bell said.
He added that he thinks the show will run smoother than last year because they have gotten a couple of upgrades to the soundboard.
“I also feel like it won’t be as hard this year to move everything due to last year having a lot of COVID, so I think it’ll be a lot more than what we were used to last year. I feel like we’ll have a much … wider range of doing things,” he added.
Like Jackson, Bell said he’s excited about the Christmas show. He said this won’t be the last time he watches a show or is involved in one.
“But it makes me happy knowing that I’m going into this Christmas show working with the younger sound guy, Easton, and showing him the ways of doing sound because I see his work and I see how determined he is. And I always listened to all of his ideas that he’s pitching and I want to see him grow more in the future …,” Bell said.
Vocalist Garrett Watkins is an 18-year-old senior in his third year with Black Magic.
His mother, Kim, painted panels that will be part of his song, “What Child Is This?”
“I’m super excited for this year,” Watkins said. “We have a really good group and we have a really young group, too. I thought it’d be really cool to see how they go from never being on stage to getting up on stage and I think it’ll be really cool with seeing how they do.”
He said having his mom create the panels for his song was really cool.
“… We’re doing panels with baby Jesus and then we’re going to have Mary and Joseph and then we’ll have the three wise men and then the three gifts that they bring. And they’ll come out during my song at certain parts, so I have something to … kind of help bring across the message,” Watkins said.
He said his mom has been “super involved” in everything he does.
“… She always likes to do that kind of stuff,” Watkins said.
Last year, she helped him choreograph the dance he did for his song.
He added that the show is going to be super emotional because it’s his last Christmas performance and he missed out last year.
Watkins also is looking forward to having a larger audience.
“I think (it will) be a lot more fun because last year we couldn’t sell as many tickets so we had to do two different shows. Doing one, I’m hoping that we can … fill the entire house and that’ll be something that we haven’t got to do yet, so it’ll be really cool,” he added.
