WANTED: QUIRKY, CORNY AND CHARMING TALENT GET READY TO AUDITION FOR THE MAPSO FAMILY FOLLIES TALENT SHOW By Tori Chickering and Ellen Donker. Photography by Lisa Whiteman

Get ready to audition for the MAPSO Family Follies Talent Show

The Lipman Family Circus wowed last year’s MAPSO Family Follies audience.

Are you the type who would like to see a show featuring dancers, musicians, circus folk, slam poets, drag queens, cloggers, dad-joke tellers or bird-callers? Or would you like the chance to perform your quirky or hilarious act in front of your friends and neighbors?

Since 2023, the MAPSO Family Follies has given our towns an oldtimey, heartwarming, low-stakes, family-friendly, local talent show. As the director and co-producer, I describe it as a 90-minute, neighbor-studded show with a nod to ‘80s show-biz variety shows. Think Waiting for Guffman meets The Gong Show meets America’s Got Talent.

Teddy & Sasha Ames sang “In the Shallow.”

But the Follies is not a contest. It’s an opportunity for performers of all experience levels to collaborate and challenge themselves in a welcoming community and be unabashedly silly. As comedienne and icon Cher quips, “Until you’re ready to look foolish, you’ll never be great.” Those words sum up the core of the Follies’ mission. It’s also where you come in.

The Follies team wants you to audition. The more quirky or unpredictable your audition, the better. It’s a chance to twirl that baton again, brush up on your ribbon dance or revisit that ventriloquist routine.

The Follies asks three local luminaries (business owners, arts instructors or supporters) to serve as audition judges. There are two key rules: 1) no act may be more than three minutes and 2) positively no solos. The ‘no solos’ rule fosters creative collaboration by insisting family, friends and neighbors work together to come up with an act.

“The multi-generational acts are really special,” says Sybil Rodgers, Follies consultant and former co-producer. “To see kids on stage with their parents – sibs and grandparents cheering – is to see the spirit of MAPSO in action.”

Your likelihood of being cast also improves by doing something upbeat, fun or uptempo. “Just keep it under three minutes,” says talent coordinator Cat Delett.

In case you haven’t been to a Follies show before, local ukulele instructor and Follies performer Mary Amato says, “It’s a glorious, uproarious antidote to isolation and a great way to make random new friends.”

Of course, the best part of the show is the emcee: ME! Audience plant Chrissy McIntyre says, “Tori brings a wonderful enthusiasm, making everyone on stage feel confident and special.” Not convinced? Amato adds, “She’s masterful at keeping the crowd engaged with grace and humor while all of us singers, dancers, jugglers, comics and acrobats of varying ages and experience, scramble backstage to get into places!”

The Follies team hopes the show continues for many generations to come. As Rodgers says, “It’s a homegrown mix of seasoned talent and brand-new performers, so the audience never knows who’ll grace the stage next. But they know they’ll be delighted.”

The show is fortified by the invaluable support of Maplewood’s township administration and Andrea Teutli, Miriam R. Perez and Stacey Ross-Trevor of the Maplewood Division of Arts & Culture.

The Follies depends on its volunteer backstage crew, local photographer (Lisa Whiteman), designer (Craig Stout), and, as Delett says, our “local trove of awesome arts instructors.” There have been show-stopping dance numbers from Studio 509 Fitness and musical acts from InterAct and The Strollers. In Tune, SOMA Pop Choir and South Orange Symphony have been represented, and MMS, SOMS and CHS students have performed.

Anyone ages 9 to 99 in Maplewood, South Orange and surrounding towns is invited to audition on Wednesday, September 24, 6 to 8 p.m. at The Woodland.

Online submissions will be accepted through September 30. The Follies will be held at The Woodland, Thursday, October 23 at 7:30 p.m.

Buy your tickets early as the show usually sells out. For tickets, audition guidelines, online submissions and more, visit maplewoodartsandculture.org/follies.