Excalibur brought Knights together today to celebrate Valentine’s Day with a “Romeo and Juliet” themed Coffeehouse. Combining a talent show with a music festival, McCallum’s annual Coffeehouse features original works by student singers, songwriters and poets. The Excalibur staff brought months of planning to life today as they decorated the library with fake vines and more hearts than you could count. Audience members, who paid $5 to enter, were greeted with a refreshments table complete with coffee and intricately iced “Romeo and Juliet” cookies from a local bakery. As the Excalibur editors stepped up to the mic, Knights took their seats for two acts of performances even more full of heart than the festively decorated library. As performers from all grades brought their talents to the stage, the audience clapped and cheered, snapped and smiled. 

We are proud to present 10 of our favorite photos in this doubly special Coffeehouse and Valentine’s Day Tuesday Top 10.

ONE FINAL HURRAH: For her fourth and final year performing at Coffeehouse, senior Charlotte Blackmon picks one of her older songs to perform for the audience. Her song in the first act was the show opener, as well as a major crowd-pleaser. 

“I’ve done Coffeehouse since my freshman year, and I always love it and love getting to share the songs that I’ve been working on or that I haven’t played in a while,” Blackmon said. 

This year, her song was inspired by her own personal life and experiences.

“I wrote the song I performed last year in songwriting class,” Blackmon said. “It’s about when you have somebody in your life who you don’t see anymore but they’re still important to you.”

Blackmon explained how throughout high school Coffeehouse has been an opportunity for her to grow and continue sharing her music with people in school and beyond. 

“I think what’s made me want to keep going with Coffeehouse is the environment of creativity, which has stayed amazing since I started playing,” Blackmon said.

Caption by Chloe Lewcock. Photo by Francie Wilhelm.

VALENTINE’S DAY DUET: Sophomore Robin Kulhanek and senior Lauren Ryan Holt perform a duet. Kulhanek said that after performing at Coffeehouse for the second time, they can’t wait to do it again. 

“My favorite part of Coffeehouse was getting to see other people’s talents and songwriting, and also the crowd is really a lot of friends,” Kulhanek said.

Kulhanek was assigned a project for theater and decided to write a duet to sing with Holt. Today was Holt’s first time performing at Coffeehouse and although she participates in musical theater and choir, Coffeehouse felt like an entirely different experience.

“My favorite part was being able to perform in front of different people than I usually do,” Holt said.

Kulhanek said that Coffeehouse has helped them become a stronger performer.

“From Coffeehouse I learned not to really care about the audience and more about being in tune with each other about the actual song,” Kulhanek said.

Caption by Ingrid Smith with reporting by Chloe Lewcock. Photo by Julia Copas.

ROMEO FOR THE SHOW: Seniors Layn Mayfield and Thea Krische perform Mayfield’s “Romeo and Juliet” themed composition. When Mayfield discovered that the theme of Coffeehouse would be “Romeo and Juliet” he knew he had to write a song. So he sat down at his piano, wrote a chord progression and wrote down lyrics that came to him.

“My dream is to be performing like this and doing stuff like this,” Mayfield said. “I try to write as much as possible. Not all of it is good. Most of it isn’t good, but I enjoy doing it.”

This time, Mayfield knew he had written something special. Separated into four parts, the song told the classic tale through Romeo’s perspective, from meeting Juliet to mistakenly finding her dead. The third part featured a violin solo where Krische trilled and plucked to tease Romeo.

Coffeehouse was Mayfield’s first time singing and playing an instrument on stage at the same time. As soon as he started playing and saw the faces in the crowd, his nerves turned into confidence.

“Playing a song you wrote in front of an audience is very intimate, and even if the lyrics aren’t your own personal thoughts, it’s almost like you’re telling your personal thoughts to an audience,” Mayfield said. “I felt very nervous, but at the same time, whenever I was playing I felt so, so joyful.”

Caption by Ingrid Smith. Photo by Francie Wilhelm.

SHOWING LOVE THROUGH SONG: Senior Jonas Richardson performs ‘Kamikaze Woman’ by Bread Green, a musical duo made up of Richardson and fellow McCallum senior Peter Wiseman. The song describes one of Richardson’s past relationships.

“It was a bad relationship looking back,” he said. “But I loved her a lot and songs like that one have helped me move on from that.”

Following ‘Kamikaze Woman’ Richardson traded his guitar for a keyboard and belted out ‘Sweet November Sky,’ an original song he dedicated to his girlfriend and upcoming performer, senior Anna Fox.

“I didn’t know he was going to tell everyone that the song was about me and that he loved me,” Fox said. “But I love that song. It was so great to get to hear something live that made me feel so loved.”

Richardson wrote the song as an expression of the love and sense of ease in his current relationship.

“Where ‘Kamikaze Woman’ was a conscious effort to isolate the angriest parts of myself, ‘Sweet November Sky’ was definitely made with a lightness in my chest,” Richardson said. “It’s a love song but it’s also a relief song. It’s about making to the other side of something difficult and finding solace in beautiful people.”

Richardson had no hesitations about sharing two deeply personal songs with the Coffeehouse crowd. 

“I’ve always been cool with putting my heart out there,” he said. “I just want to affect people and hopefully give them something to connect with. I feel like once the songs are out there, they aren’t about me anymore. They belong to whoever they may affect and they mean whatever they mean to others.” 

Photo and caption by Francie Wilhelm.

FINDING VALUE IN VULNERABILITY: Senior Anna Fox performs her original poem “Song of Solomon 2:16” as the final act of Coffeehouse. The piece drew on a transitional period of Fox’s life, which she embellished with biblical imagery and elements of her other writing.

“It’s a lot about the uncertainty of not knowing if something is requited,” Fox said. “The bible imagery for me is a huge way to get in touch with that feeling of being so obsessed with someone that it becomes religious.”

A longtime poet, much of Fox’s work is deeply personal, and even though she was performing for a crowd of her peers, Fox maintained that intimate aspect.

“It’s really personal without going into grave detail the way some of my other work does,” Fox said, “so it becomes a very vulnerable piece without putting too much on display, which is ironically also something that can be valuable in getting to know someone new.”

Fox also enjoyed watching her fellow performers show off their artistic skills. 

“I really loved watching Lucas [Hendrix],” Fox said. “That guy is a machine on the guitar. Robin [Kulhanek] and Lauren [Ryan-Holt] were also really thrilling. They’re so incredible in their involvement in MacTheatre, and it’s so special to see other sides of their talent.”  

Photo and caption by Francie Wilhelm.

A SHINING STAR: Senior Scarlet Bowman performs her original poem, “Plasma.” In the piece, Bowman reflects on the prevalence of plasma as a state of matter making up the stars, outer space and even human blood. With inspiration from personal experiences and her astronomy and statistics classes, Bowman encapsulates one of the unique ways that people are really made of stardust.

Photo and caption by Francie Wilhelm. 

NOT THE LAST OF SARWATE: Junior Keegan Sarwate performs a song he wrote based on the love between two characters in the TV show The Last of Us. In his second year as content manager for Excalibur, Sarwate knew it was time to shove the nerves aside and perform in the Coffeehouse he helped set up.

“Leading up to it was just nerves, nerves, nerves,” Sarwate said. “I always hate sharing my writing because it usually comes from a place of emotion, and being vulnerable like that is scary. It’s not the performing music that scared me, it’s the vulnerability. During it, I was definitely still scared, but I got more comfortable when the music started and seeing the audience’s reactions helped me too.”

Sarwate said that performing at Coffeehouse was a very different experience from his usual rock ‘n’ roll gigs at bars downtown. 

“[It was a] different environment, different type of song for me to perform and very different audience,” Sarwate said. “The audience being my friends and peers was both reassuring and much more terrifying because when I perform at bars like Antone’s I don’t have to see the audience in the halls the next day.”

Sarwate said that he will definitely perform at Coffeehouse again next year.

“Absolutely I’m doing this next year,” Sarwate said. “Next year will be my senior year and my third year on the Excalibur staff, so I want to go out with a bang!”

Caption by Ingrid Smith. Photo by Julia Copas.

MUSICIANS SUPPORTING MUSICIANS: A newcomer to both McCallum and coffeehouse, freshman Beatrix Lozach performed her original song at today’s show. Lozach used today’s performance to not only share her work with the McCallum community but also to gain experience performing in front of new crowds. 

“I think the entire aura of the musicians supporting musicians is really prevalent in Coffeehouse,” Lozach said. “I am just enamored with my art form, so I just wanted to see others in their element.”

Lozach’s inspiration for her piece came from her own personal relationships with her family, which she got to share with the audience today. 

“Essentially, I was reading this book, and it chronicled this mother and daughter traveling through India attempting to resolve some pretty insidious baggage between the two of them,” Lozach said, “and I was drawing parallels between my own relationship with my mother, fortunately untroubled, and so I wanted to write a piece about motherhood and about innocence.” 

Lozach said she looks forward to getting to perform her art in front of an audience soon and described her plans for the next Coffeehouse her sophomore year. 

“I think there’s always much to improve in the future, but I just enjoyed writing about things I love and serenading as well as being serenaded,” Lozach said.

Caption by Chloe Lewcock. Photo by Julia Copas.

SPARKLEBOOTS DAZZLING THE CROWD: On the Valentine’s Day edition of Coffeehouse this year, seniors Josie Bradsby and Scarlett Stevens performed their original song for their set. The show took place in the library and featured two separate acts, one during school hours and one after. The show, designed for McCallum’s very own singers, songwriters and poets to showcase their work and talent, took place this afternoon. Sparkleboots, Bradsby’s and Steven’s duo, was one of the performances showcased today.

“We were kind of just playing around and thinking of different themes,” Stevens said. “I guess we were inspired by our real-life experiences and wrote from that.” 

While the Coffeehouse experience comes in lots of different shapes in sizes, with different songs, performers and genres conjoining to form this event, Stevens described that despite the anxiety that came with performing, it was worth it. 

“I learned that it’s very nerve-racking,” Stevens said, “but at the same time, it’s fun to play in front of people.”

Caption by Chloe Lewcock. Photo by Julia Copas.

Excalibur senior editors Arwen Frederickson and Georgie Murray welcome the audience to this year’s Coffehouse. Photo by Julia Copas.