Melica encourages a girls nite out for charity

Last Friday night’s Girls Nite Out, presented by Elizabethtown’s female a cappella group Melica, was not your typical girls’ night out. While the atmosphere was generally upbeat, casual and spirited, there were serious overtones to the program as the Event Space was clothed in the color purple for domestic abuse awareness. October was Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and portions of the evening’s proceeds were donated to ACCESS-York, a Central Pennsylvania chapter of the Arts Action Against Domestic Violence campaign.

This was Melica’s fifth annual benefit concert for ACCESS-York, and according to Melica’s president Kate Norton, it was "designed to raise awareness about domestic violence, [and] also gives us a chance to showcase the girls and some of the amazing talent we have on this campus, all for a good cause."

Planning for the event began in the spring, and Melica put the whole concert together, from tickets to programs, decorations to performers. There was a "large bill of performers," Norton said, including Melica, the male a cappella group Phalanx, Troy Whitsel, Erik Kohan, Pat McCarthy, Melica members Jami Smith and Nicole Abell and Melica alumae Laura Schumacher and Joanna Kirby. Many acts were geared towards the seriousness of the domestic abuse issue, and Melica’s performance of Tracy Chapman’s "Behind the Wall," as Norton said on stage that evening, "speaks to the cause that we have decided to support here tonight."

Norton has been a member of Melica since the first semester of her freshman year and said "I can’t really imagine Etown for me without it." She said the girls are all close – her "extended family" – and they’re constantly busy rehearsing and performing. Besides Girls Nite Out, the group also performs on campus for various events and organizations, as well as off campus at locations like The Grateful Bean and Masonic Homes. The Melica girls also have competed in the International Championship of Collegiate a cappella for the past two years, which Norton said allows the group "to put our best out there and make some really great friends at the same time."

While last Friday was Girls Nite Out, there was no lack of boys with the solo male performers and Phalanx in attendance. "Phalanx and Melica are very close," said Norton, "We kind of look at them like our brothers, and we’ve helped each other out so much throughout the years. It doesn’t feel right to have a concert without having Phalanx up there singing with us." And just like Phalanx, Melica gets questions about what their name means. In Latin the word means "lover of music," while in Greek it means "beach grass," but Norton said it "just means ‘sisterhood’ to me."

Some of the charm of the evening’s showcase came from its hosts, Sarah Polite and Brian Sipe, whose personalities brought laughter to the Event Space. Polite introduced Phalanx as "our boys from Phalanx ... I love them!" and added her impression of Phalanx senior member Garth DeAngelis singing Lifehouse’s "Hanging By A Moment." Sipe added jokes to the show, and at one point quipped, "I’m sweating like Winona Ryder when she sees a security camera." Later after the performance of McCarthy, who seemed to be battling a cold ("I’ve got this cough thing, where I cough a lot," he observed), Sipe remarked, "I don’t even sound that good when I’m healthy."

Many of the performers also had their own funny – but seemingly stressful – moments on stage. When Abell and Whitsel had a little difficulty getting into their cover of the Fleetwood Mac song "Landslide," Abell lightened the pressure by telling the audience, "we’re teasing you." Afterward Sipe followed up by assuring her that "Stevie Nicks ain’t got nothin’ on you, honey."

Kohan also seemed to charm the audience with his comments during his act, as well as with his version of Tonic’s "If You Could Only See," to which he’d added his own ending because, he said, he didn’t want to learn the Tonic ending. His second performance was an original song, warning the audience ahead of time that he’d written the lyrics that day, and to just "see where it takes us, ok?"

"We tried to keep the event from being too somber," said Norton, "because it has to be entertaining at the same time to be a successful fundraiser. We tried to keep our reminders of domestic violence awareness subtle but noticeable." This was done by decorating the Event Space in purple and wearing the purple awareness ribbons, as well as publishing statistics in the program and on the backs of seats.