Cambridge Unity in Diversity Club Hosts First-Ever Talent Show

The high school talent show: a staple of teen movies from “Dirty Dancing” to “Mean Girls.”

“It’s a traditional thing to have a talent show,” said junior Shir Halfon. But since opening, the school has never held one.

Junior Taylor Simpson, the president of the Unity in Diversity club, wanted to change that.

Through the club, which she founded this year, Simpson worked with her club officers and their sponsor, history teacher Lauren Hall, to organize Bears Got Talent.

Bears Got Talent will be held Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the auditorium. Tickets are $4.

Halfon, vice president of Unity in Diversity, said this isn’t the first time Simpson has wanted to hold a talent show at the school. She said Simpson was involved with planning a talent show two years ago, as a freshman, but that it ultimately didn’t work out.

“I shared Taylor’s disbelief that we didn’t have a talent show at Cambridge,” Halfon said.

Simpson has been interested in holding a talent show for years and has been planning Bears Got Talent since the beginning of the school year.

To her, the Unity in Diversity club isn’t just a tool to help her achieve the personal goal of having a talent show. The talent show is a chance to show off the diverse interests and activities of students at the school.

Simpson and the other club leaders want Bears Got Talent to be an “unconventional” talent show that isn’t limited to singing, dancing or references to pop culture.

“We want there to be people who read poems. We want there to be people who display art pieces,” said junior Taylor Lothery, one of Unity in Diversity’s officers.

Without talent shows in high school, she said, students can lose an outlet to showcase cultural activities.

“There’s already diversity here,” Simpson said. But she said she thinks many students find it hard to show off their diverse interests and cultures.

“This is our biggest event of the year,” she said. “It’s basically our show of activism.”

For Simpson and the rest of the club, organizing the show has been hard work. According to Lothery, getting the word out and getting others involved has been the hardest part.

Without past years’ shows to look back on, the club can’t use precedent to make decisions.

Most of the club’s officers are upperclassmen, so they also have to balance the work of communicating and organizing the show with a busy time of year.

Despite the challenges, Halfon said she’s optimistic and excited for the show, and the planning has gone well in its final stages.

“I feel like the talent show is so important because it’s something everyone can do,” Simpson said.

Because it’s open-ended, Bears Got Talent can be more inclusive than many events that are focused around a particular activity, interest or club.

“This is something that can bring the school together,” said Simpson.