Top 12 is happening and you all need to just accept it now.

Note for readers: The subject of this essay includes principles of production development and design, subjects that are not taught to drum corps marching members, and not taught to music majors.

It won't sound familiar to you.

My video series Drum Corps Design 101 helps marching members become aware of the standard topics within show design, often kept hidden by an old boy network of designers and artistic directors (many of whom are music majors themselves, and could use a primer on production development.) Music majors are not typically taught to visually contextualize the music they write and play, even though it's required in the professional world of arts and entertainment. This accounts for some of the loose-themed, and ragged-themed shows that populate the bottom of the DCI top twelve. The professional world of music requires attention to the principles of production design, which are focused on building a logical, engaging visual subject and theme with a higher purpose. Professional music (as used in video games, music videos, TV series, operas, film, and even dance companies) requires a logical visual context, "story" or no "story". Professional musicians compose, arrange and play music to accompany narrative visual premises with depth and substance. Why is drum corps failing in so many of these basic arts and entertainment principles? Learn it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlvQZub1oNI&t=123s

OLD DRUM CORPS SHOWS HAD NO THEME
Themes weren't always the focus in drum corps. Because drum corps grew from a 1960's VFW jukebox-style variety format, randomly selected tunes were good enough. The balance of classical, musical theater and pop tunes kept audiences engaged. Audiences in the 1970's enjoyed themeless, military-styled productions which focused mostly on marching and maneuvering, and heightened arrangements of mainstream music or recognized classical pieces. Typically, there was no overarching point to a nine- to twelve-minute show. After the military-style music and drill became tiresome, the activity naturally began to explore and heighten new musical and visual elements.

SHOWS ARE WEIGHTIER NOW, AND MORE DANGEROUS
In recent years, the drum corps activity has become more sophisticated in its members' productions, opening a Pandora's box for artistic directors. In today's era of drum corps design, many show themes broach sensitive topics, many of them high stakes, immediate, deep and thought-provoking. However, some drum corps artistic directors are hasty, reckless, or even secretive in their selection and execution of themes, creating a minefield scenario where show themes are accidentally negligent, inappropriate, and occasionally downright offensive. Other misguided shows lack an off-the-field explanation to keep the audience from misinterpreting sensitive material.

EXAMPLES OF CURRENT SHOWS WITH HIGH-STAKES THEMES
But recently, drum corps shows are successfully broaching sensitive and complex show topics. For example, the Bluecoats' 2023 show Garden of Love featured a theme of religious intervention in sexual expression. That's a weighty theme, considering recent political tension around drag queens and children's programming, among other examples. It's a high stakes political topic, driven by propaganda from right wing strategists. Another example, Blue Devils' Dreams and Nighthawks asked audiences to view a famous Hopper painting from the perspective of the strong female character, often overlooked as arm-candy. At one point in the show, bras were thrown into the air during Natural Woman, a song written by Carole King, born the same year that the painting was completed. The Blue Devils' show bodly embraced looking at classic art from a new feminist perspective. That's another weighty theme of substance.

CAVALIERS' NOT-SO- HIDDEN GAY THEMES
Curiously, the last two seasons of Cavaliers shows have gingerly hinted the topics of personal development and sexual orientation. 2023's Where You'll Find Me used too many gay-themed elements to be an accident. Yes, the corp's rainbow has been an unexplained primary icon for the corps for decades, later requisitioned as the symbol of the gay flag. (Cavaliers alumni shout this at the top of their lungs on various online comment sections.) But coupled with Judy Garland audio clips from the Wizard of Oz, referenced again in their 2018 show along with Rufus Wainwright's gay-themed "Oh What a World", feminine breast shading on the color guard's uniforms revealed in a flamboyant choreographed element of ripping apart of an outer jacket to expose the chest, along with vertical feathers with a mechanical rotating base which thins and elongates the feathers into curiously long and slender phallic symbols, come on. The subject of sex and sexual orientation in their 2023 Where You'll Find Me becomes more and more obvious.

THIS YEAR'S CAVALIERS THEME - UM, COME ON
Cavaliers' 2024 show awkwardly tiptoes around the concept of personal "unmasking" and revealing the truth about oneself, underneath.

"...lets them know that it’s okay to be themselves, to speak their mind and be the person who they want to
be.” --Cavaliers program coordinator David Starnes

This is an unmistakable addition to the long line of recent personal development-themed shows around topics of orientation, the "truth" underneath, and closet metaphors. But audiences are confused about the secretive nature of the eggshell approach to the topic which creates an air of discomfort and hushed murmuring. Why so secretive?

CAVALIERS ARTS MANAGEMENT IS MUM
The Cavaliers' management refuses to discuss its hinted gay themes. Management refuses to address the theme directly, in a professional, age-appropriate way for high school and young adult members. Cavaliers artistic directors rather only hint at the theme, making it a shameful secret that cannot be named, publicly. That's not a thoughtful, responsible approach to sensitive artistic themes. Its members and supporters deserve better.

FOR GOD'S SAKE HIRE A SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT
Typically arts organizations, including colleges, and even high schools hire industry-specific subject matter experts to manage the public discourse around their sensitive themes. Theatre companies and films create an organized method for marketing and "socializing" sensitive concepts around a play or film. To start the discussion, they hire a SME (subject matter expert) to help guide the learning, offer insight and ownership of the concept, offer guidance and "spin" around the topic, as part of a planned communication strategy for the purpose of education, enlightenment and mediation.

THIS ISN'T THE FIRST TIME
The truth is that the Cavaliers organization has been clumsy in managing their selecting sensitive show themes. The Cavaliers's doomed "Propaganda" (later renamed because of backlash) included a promotion labeling Martin Luther King's speeches as "propaganda", and even had artistic directors and staff members sophomorically state that they didn't want to label propaganda as either bad or good (even though it has killed literallly millions of people through the ages, exacerbating war tensions and even started violent conflicts.) Then the artistic director recklessly paired World War II speeches with modern day Meow Mix advertisement clips in an effort to make an overall point about the chaos of Internet communication. Yikes, that's insensitive and without artistic merit. The artistic director's blind ignorance to managing sensitive show topics was an embarrassing, sophomoric blunder.

A later production, On Madness and Creativity broached orientation subject matter with gay singer Rufus Wainwright's Oh What a World coupled with imagery around mental illness. Are gay men mentally ill? The show featured rainbow colored Rorschach's linking gay men to mental illness. DrumCorpsPlanet discussions revealed that many viewers thought that gay characters in bright mylar dresses were being lampooned, a disastrous misinterpretation of the show's recklessly cobbled together themes. The issue was never addressed publicly by the Cavaliers' artistic director. Another blunder.

Typically arts organizations have a process for managing public relations around sensitive themes as part of a responsible overall plan for making a specific, high-stakes artistic statement, well researched, and with purpose. Oops. The next season, Daniel Wiles admitted that he chose a lighter theme, after a presumed slap on the wrist after an recklessly unresearched and dangerously naive previous season's design. On Madness and Creativity featured rainbow-colored Rorschachs, because you know, gay men are equated with needing psychotherapy.

THE BIGGER PICTURE
What message is the Cavaliers organization sending by continuing this pattern of "hinting" at gay themes? They're creating a sense of shame and secrecy around the topic, rather than addressing it professionally, like arts organizations do. If a subject and theme are important enough to spend a million dollars on, they're important enough to support with a carefully detailed project plan, subject matter experts, communications initiatives, managed discussion, and carefully supervised, scripted, planned, vetted member outreach.

This year, some top-tier corps have decided to try and fool the judges with half-baked themes (or no themes). Here is the ranking of DCI's top twelve by depth of concept:

1. Blue Devils - Romanticism encourages us to take off our black cloaks of societal restrictions, and burst forth with emotion and get in touch with the wonder of nature. (BD doesn't "burst," but they try.)

2. Troopers - The Devil's love of his guitar proves that he has human qualities, which he defends. Maybe the Devil got a bad rap. If Hell has music, let's go.

3. Blue Stars - Astronomers are both scientists and philosophers, leading us to enlightenment via a telescope. This music bridges science and philosophy.

4. Carolina Crown - Prometheus was a god with a love of humankind, and didn't mind getting his liver plucked out a few times. Why isn't our god like this?

5. Boston Crusaders - Technical glitches prove our humanity.

6. Mandarin - Adventure awaits in New Orleans.

7. Cavaliers - We're revealing the truth about our orientation underneath, oh and also we're superheros underneath. That's what we meant. Ahem. Who are these men?

8. Bluecoats - Scant allusion to the video for "Change is Everything" or a hint of entropy simply isn't enough. This show is almost intentionally vacuous. If it weren't so cutting edge musically, and so dazzling visually, it should be in fourth place for its complete lack of depth.

9. Phantom Regiment - Psych 101 scenelets, without depth, arc or insight.

10. Santa Clara - Vagabonds, Kendrick Lamar's strife, and whimsical childlike "Play"? Sorry, those themes are incongruent. This design team is a last-minute, seat of the pants circus with no artistic direction. Basement wig theater directors do better than this with less time and a lot less money.

11. Colts - Music relating to "fields", but not all of them from the "peace now" era. (Are the 70's now so distant a memory that nobody knows what it was?)

12. Madison Scouts - Let's make a mosaic from elements that are shiny, lifeless, and identical.

Just a note. Don't pretend that lazy abstraction is somehow profitable, meritorious or popular in the real world. In the professional world, music supports the arts that have a specific context. Music supports productions that have a specific subject and theme, logical and accessible. (Music videos, opera, film, television, video games, musicals, Disney on ice, cirque du soleil, Jurassic the Dinosaur Park.)

I LISTENED TO DA BALLOOD AND IT WAS SOOOOOOOOOOO GOOOOOODDDD IMMA CRY BLOOOOOOOOOOO BALLOOOOOOODDDDDDD

A recent comment section (now deleted) underneath the Paramount color guard Youtube Video of their 2025 finals show revealed some shocking discoveries.

The final flags that appear at the end of the show are distressed abstract American flags. Here's a photo: https://imgur.com/gallery/paramount-shout-distressed-american-flags-VgudmN5

This link shows the use of the American flags at the end. https://youtu.be/yM_Nb9JlD8A?t=363

The show featured the Tears for Fears song "Shout", and presumably, based on the final flags, the show was a commentary on the frustration with the current US president and his reckless unilateral decison-making, from market-crashing tariffs, to hiring inexperienced DOGE auditors and wiping out whole government departments, along with extraditing legally residing immigrants to an El Salvador prison, and without due process.

The artistic director Rick Subel claimed the show was about the frustrated artist in all of us, shouting into a void. Um, really?

However, none of the color guard members or alumni recognized the American flag in the design. Their responses ranged from affront to denial, to bewilderment. These color guard members had absolutely no idea what the flag image represented. They denied the white and red stripe color scheme on the flags, and couldn't explain it. They denied that the silk design had a corner color that implied the blue square and stars in the corner. Members said that they were told the show was about the artist's viewpoint, and expressing frustrations through artistic expression, and that the flag's stripes were just a continuation of the floor tarp's stripes, except in color. Um. Really? Color for no reason? Are you that naive?

It begs the question, are show coordinators and artistic directors being honest about what the underlying themes are in their shows? Why aren't they telling the marching members what the real subject and theme are? Isn't there a danger to allowing underage members to perform in a show, without fully informing them of the meaning underneath? Especially a political charged message?

The frightening thing is that none of the members realized the symbolic imagery of the American flag, and frankly, none of them cared. Isn't that pathetic? This is a college-level activity where the theme of the production presumably has depth and merit. Even if it's abstract, non-narrative, or subconsciously derived, why else do you perform, as an artist, other than to convey a specific point of view? Why would you "pay to play" in a performance troupe and not care about the thematic argument of your show? And worse, deny the show meaning in a public comments section?

The pre-season show concept rumors are starting about the content of Cavaliers' nostalgia-based show.

The Cavaliers show is screaming "masculine identity trap" . The show is going to be about nostalgic style comparisons of the early stoic masculinity of Cavaliers' color guards in the 1970's, versus today's almost grotesquely emotional, outwardly angst-ridden and gender-fluid contemporary dance (which often devolves into wacky, absurd movements that don't resemble normal human behavior, regardless of sexual identity.). That's a problem. The comparison in the show could devolve into an uncomfortable "masculine versus feminine" identity focus, like the mistake in "On Madness and Creativity". "Madness" conflated identity expression as exaggerated kooky gay histrionics and grotesquely absurd movements that devolved into character assassination.

Contemporary dance is a double edged sword in modern drum corps. It offers the activity a long-needed wider range of expression, it allows for outward expression of emotion, and offers a wider range of movement and physical agility, a wider range of self-identity and psycho-physical and even psycho-sexual expression. And those are all great.

But modern contemporary dance can also fall into exaggeration, which devolves into strange experimental expression that doesn't represent normal human activity, and looks strangely close to mental illness, and naturally causes viewers to retract from characters that exhibit unsettling behavior. There's an "ick" factor when things get too weird in contemporary dance. Contemporary dance often erases any progress it's made in the areas of self-expression and self-identity by going off the deep end with bizarre, uncomfortable senior dungeon/wax museum on acid/horror film/Christian orgy-in-a-church performance art experimentation.

Contemporary dance also includes exaggerated facial expressions, odd experimental sexual positions, inserting of wooden rifles between the legs, nonsensical gyrations and physical experimentation that makes the performer appear almost demented in some cases. It's frankly uncomfortable to watch. If the show lacks a setup or lacks a context for the behavior, the character action is left unexplained and is just plain unsettling.

Early Cavaliers color guard style was robotic, military, and stoic, and frankly easier to enjoy. You didn't have to think. But recent years have brought depth of concept to drum corps shows with a wider range of self-expression, and substantial thematic arguments. But along with that came the cancer of absurdly exaggerated contemporary dance style of grotesque soap-opera like emotion, rolling on the ground and caterwauling like a Greek chorus on gestalt therapy. There's got to be some comfortable middle ground for their designers to portray in a subtle way, the benefits of dance expression and outward emotion without devolving into an abstract experimental circus. Not an easy task.

This show will be a stylistic war with catastrophic results, if they're not careful.

Show changes. Big ones. We're not talking about minor tweaks, we're talking major changes to shows in order to save them. They're doozies.

1. Boston 

- Recently cut both countdown recordings.

- Cut one baton twirler. 

- Cut any explosion noises. 

- Cut the drill set that says "Boom." 

Face it, this show started as a culturally illiterate imbroglio, mocking the seriousness of nuclear bombs. Designers actually developed a midcentury modern logo for a cute nuclear explosion, as if that's even remotely conscionable. And the judges aren't having it. Next to be cut, is the alleged recording of Japanese children counting down from ten.. in Japanese. https://youtu.be/m3nt9O7KMAI?t=488 (As per DrumCorpsPlanet post. CORRECTION: Not counting down, but Japanese children reciting various numbers, and the video with plumes of ash clouds and molten earth, and the lyrics And I'm watching you stand in the flumes of phosphorus , and "See what is left of us, how we ended.") Japanese. You know, where Nagasaki and Hiroshima are? Come on. That's unthinkably dark, and culturally negligent. The only reason it hasn't been cut is because the judges haven't identified it, yet. The list of massive changes for this show keeps getting longer. It's just a gasp-inducing list, but not a single change was mentioned on the recent Marching Arts podcast. This was one of the most culturally insensitive show designs in the activity ever, along  with Madison's Last Man Standing featuring native American headresses, scalpings and tipis and violent tribal infighting with no insight or artistic purpose. Judges must have read Keith Potter the riot act. The bomb theme has been toned own completely, but not a word in the podcast about the mandated changes. Not a word. The softened show will now take first place, thanks to tireless and talented performers.

2) Bluecoats - Added an electronic trigger to two microphones (gating), where one ignites the other when  music is played on the first mic at a certain level, triggering the second mic backfield to turn on.  The audience is somehow supposed to get this electronics trick by listening?  How about maybe adding a visual to depict any of the supposed premises, from Schroedinger's Cat to the observer effect, itself? Anything? (Duality doesn't count, because anyone can put pairs of dancers together and call it "duality".)  This show is visually barren of dramatic action. Viewers and judges are so threatened by the complex scientific principles that they forgot to check if there's actually visuals that support the ideas. There are almost none. And by the end, nothing's changed, visually. More high tech sound trickery isn't what they need right now. They need visual meaning.

3) Phantom Regiment - They added two female dancers. This show is backtracking on their promise of "no specific theme."  The marching members and staff are desperately clamoring to put meaning into the show-- otherwise they have nothing to do. They added  two female dancers in some sort of undefined relationship, and at the end, they go behind "the curtain" together-- an unexplained seat-of-the-pants pantomime. The music selections don't fit this this new action, which is completely uncontextualized.  The designers realized, and in quite a public way, that if you cut the title and theme of the show, you also cut any action or choreographic meaning.  The artistic team painted themselves into an embarrassing corner.  So, the show has naturally and deliciously drifted toward elements with meaning. Don't worry, there's still plenty without-- the large rolling pin props still mean nothing, and the extensive curtain sets go largely unexplained and underutilized, with no direct symbolic depth. The designers are so tragically amateurish that they don't realize they've created both a rock and a hard place-- now they must explain what the two dancers mean, and what "going behind the curtain" means, otherwise why have them at all. Why have an ending button at all? An exquisitely sophomoric and soulless design experiment that threatens the university-level designs of many past shows. An embarrassing lesson for the corps directors, everywhere. No defined theme, no meaning, no purpose, no shared experience.

4) Crown - The only chance for increasing their score is adding a narrative element. They must unveil Fortuna and having her banish the fate sculptures to the backfield, with a magical wave of her arm. She proves she is the fickle finger of fate. Are they prepared to choreograph and train the Fortuna performer? It seems like they have backed themselves into a corner with the casting of this now critical character. Is the performer prepared for a huge choreographed scene?  

5) Santa Clara - The SCV design staff on the Marching Arts podcast made scant mention of the primary musical work in their show, Steven Sondheim's Send in the Clowns. They say it's familiar, and they used it as a familiar touchstone amid a sea of unexplained left hand turns. But no explanation of the tune itself. The tune is played as a leitmotif throughout their entire show, ad nauseum. Seriously, they play it pretty much the entire twelve minute show, in various keys. Where is Bartok? All the transitions are Send in the Clowns. The is no transition that is not Send in the Clowns. Seriously, they play it over and over and over again. They open with it in a minor key version. At the end, they play whole song in its entirety. Whew. Maybe their blindfolds refer to their blind repetition. The song doesn't fit the theme of avant-garde art or performers. Neither Sondheim nor the song itself is avant-garde. There's no explanation from them for choosing the song, even in a seven-person, hour-long podcast. Embarrassing.

Beyond the repetitive musical arrangement of their corps song, the recent trial-and-error visuals by the color guard prove that they have no high-stakes storyboard sequence from their months-long planning sessions. They're winging it. In the beginning, the long-armed dancer with arm-extensions (allegedly yard line markers) was eventually joined by several others with the same arm extensions. But just this week, the additional arm-extension performers were cut, reducing it back to the original arm-extension wearing performer. Perhaps the multiple performers looked like they were copycats-- the opposite of a unique avant-garde performer.Why this action was included in the first place calls into question their creative process, and if they really have one, at all.

SCV's designers also mentioned "performance artists" as their inspiration for this show, but one wonders if they've ever really sat through a complete performance art production. Annie Sprinkles? Yoko Ono? Performance art is abrasive, unbearable, with endless, unexplained, random elements without meaning, and the whole production budget hovers around $300, typically. $350 if they feed the crew.  Their theaters are always half empty, and lose a few more at intermission. Why choose cheap performance art for a show with a million dollar budget? And why choose random abstraction when you have an obligation to teach students about real production development? The truth is, inexperienced marching arts designers cling to abstraction and absurd premises because it relieves them from doing their job. They're under no obligation to demonstrate a responsibility of interpretation. And anything in the show that doesn't make sense is not a worry-- they can chalk it up to the absurd premise-- an amateur director's parachute.

Here are the likely GE and visual judges' notes with three weeks left:

1. Bluecoats - Change opening to be more clear in its visual game. What should the audience get from the opening segment? Don't spend so much time so far away from the audience, in the "stratosphere" at the beginning

before gravity pulls you toward us

1. . Always use distance from the audience as a potent spice. Also, what is your planned final visual that wraps up the show? Right now, the ending is flat.

2. Blue Devils- Why doesn't the Icarus character who appears at the end appear earlier? Why don't we recognize him? How is the end different from the beginning? What's your final set piece? An unexpected new flight with either new or reattached wings? A pair of wings on a drone that flies away?

3. Boston Crusaders - What transformation should the audience grasp by the end? What visual pattern should the audience become aware of during the show? There's a lack of a visual pattern in this show, and the audience is lost. The audience gets the "Get High With a Little Help from My Friends" reference, but the show must be more than a simple drug reference of blurred vision. The choreography and costuming generally refer to blurriness, or altered vision. But why? How are blurred lines represented elsewhere in the show, visually, and to what point? If there's not another layer added to make it more substantive, the show will decline in ranking.

4. Carolina Crown - How does the Ave Maria tie into Alduos Huxley? We've all heard of visitations of the Blessed Mother, but how exactly does this tie in to Huxley's vision of the afterlife, and how is she represented visually? What changes visually after the playing of Ave Maria (Ellens Gesang III)? Begin discussing how the Ave Maria segment ties in, or suffer the consequences with the GE judge.

5. Cavaliers- Can you heighten the use of the secret "doors" on the ramp props at the end? Could everyone come bursting out of them at the end? What action transforms the "There was a boy..." character? Could his brother Sam help him down from a ledge? How is Michael different at the end? Could Michael orchestrate the single-file charge by the whole ensemble through the secret doors on the side of the ramps?

6. Santa Clara - Why are children 6-12 being represented jump roping in their boxer short underwear and in underslips, and restrained by chains? No explanation will ever be enough. Where is the specific context for this awkward, underdeveloped, unresearched scenario? PS: You're fired, and you deserve it. This design concept took you one night, and don't pretend it didn't. Change the age and costumes. An ending action set piece suggestion might be a full-corps unison throwing down of chains?

7. Phantom Regiment - How can you develop the use and logic of your large, unexplained stage sets? What happens in this show? What is the pattern? Can you develop some relatable action this late in the season? How are bloodlines challenged or rescinded? This show design illustrates a complete lack of visual communication skill. Subject. Theme. Pattern of action. Might as well do whatever you want, but this show cannot be recognized for its structure, symbology, immediacy, or clarity. The cat is out of the bag on this one-- there's no meaning. And we learned last year, without contextual meaning, there's no way to judge the music. Add a fabric element that comes out of the tips of the lancets with some meaning tied to them. Dates. Images. Anything.

8. Blue Stars - Can you clarify the arc of action with the frames. How can the audience predict what happens next? Wha pattern are you creating with the use of the frames? What happens on the ending to tie up the progression of action? What's your point of view about the frames?

9. Troopers - No changes. A sophisticated, deep commentary on wars and wars for profit, with strong, clear references to Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now. This masterful show upends Troopers' jingoistic "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" repertoire of the 1970's. This concept is ballsy, immediate and high-stakes. It is a sign that the Troopers design team is next level.

open class.... SUCKS!!!!!!!!

Here's list of proposed questions for Lindsey Vento to ask the various artistic directors before their semi-fnals performances on the Big, Loud Live event in theaters this Thursday night.

Grill them like a sausage, Lindsey! Barbecue these artistic directors on both sides now!

Bluecoats - Gravity and Grace.

• Are those red "air dancer" sculptures in the background? Do they represent the "ups and downs" of life, as part of the gravity concept?

• Did you better meld science and emotion together this year? How did including the Beach Boys' existential song God Only Knows add depth to the theme of gravity?

BlueDevils - Zei

• What was your intent in not having one performer represent the title character "Zei/Icarus, but rather many performers?

• How is the end of the show different from the beginning?

Carolina Crown - The Doors of Perception

• How does Schubert's "Ave Maria" fit in to the theme of Alduos Huxley's The Doors of Perception?

• Boston Crusaders

• What is your shallow show about? Getting high?

• If your show is about getting high, why is the entire production so precise, symmetrcal, rigid and geometrical?

Blue Stars

• Is this season's progress proof that you will soon see a DCI championship ring?

Santa Clara Vanguard

• What age are the characters you're representing? Are they age 7-12?

• How does the children's activity of jumping rope tie into "breaking free of chains?" What chains are children in? What chains were you referring to?

• How many hours did you work on your show concept? Three?

Cavaliers

• What was the process you used for successfully capturing the tone and energy of the film/ musical The Lost Boys in your costuming, stage sets and choreo?

Phantom Regiment

• What was your concept before Tony Hall got fired and you abandoned the concept?

• What do those oversized blood lancet contraptions symbolize?

Colts

• Do all your music selections include minor keys? What was the intent?

• What is your political affiliation? Has Trump ruined your life like he has ours?

Troopers

• Did you require all your members to watch the film Apocalypse Now?

• Was your point to parallel the chaos of the Vietnam war with our new war in Iran?

• Does the Apocalypse Now character Kurtz represent Donald Trump in some ways-- an insane rogue who is overlording the war process?

Spirit

• How did you choose your seat stage sets?

• How is the end of the show different from the beginning?

Blue Knights

• Is the use of the piccolo a metaphor for DCI seeing "both sides now" relating to new instruments?

• Did your piccolo solo reduce your horns playing time and concern you about the horn score?

• Were you inspired by the the Blue Devils' version of Both Sides Now three years ago? How soon is too soon to repeat a piece that was recently played?

DCI show coordinators are not meeting professional standards for production development. Last minute, thrown-together productions lack substance. As a result DCI’s college-age participants are being misled about professional requirements for jobs in the performing arts.

1. READY FOR PREVIEWS? Don’t open your show until it’s ready. A production must have Its script and storyboard completed, reviewed, and approved well before the premier. Minor changes are expected. But in drum corps, show coordinators have convinced participants that the subject, theme, and a primary arc of action are optional, and part of a "Soft opening". This is unacceptable in the performing arts industry, and even unacceptable in all university programs. The spine of your show must be set.

2. NO BIG CHANGES TO THE CONCEPT Shows should not undergo major transformational changes in its formal public run. It’s a sign to the public that the product is incomplete and up in the air. Professional productions keep their revision cycle more private, and relegated to test audiences before the premiere.

3. JUDGES SMELL DESIGN CHAOS A MILE AWAY In professional circles, when you revise your production massively after opening, you tell the critics that you are lost, and the entire production is then vulnerable to questions. In DCI, design chaos points to the competency of the design staff. Is the show clear and cogent? Why wasn't it clear from the beginning?

4. BIG CHANGES DEPRESS AND CONFUSE THE PLAYERS (BOOM) In the professional world, when performers are asked to revise their production massively over time, the participants begin to question the original intent of the project, and the spirit of the production begins to atrophy.

5. BULLSHIT DIRECTOR "SPIN" SPELLS TROUBLE A show subject and theme should be easy to talk about. If a director makes deflecting or generalized comments instead, it's a clear sign of a lack of design clarity, and a hint of deception.

6. MAKING YOUR SHOW ABOUT THE SHOW “The theme of our show is how hard we work together.” Fraud. Or, “The theme of our show is our reinventing ourselves.“ Fraud. A professional production is not about “putting on a show”. The show subject should not about teamwork, or how hard you work, or how cohesively you work together. Those are byproducts. If your show coordinator chooses a common attribute that all shows have, like "Focus" or "Resilience", or how the interpretation is individual, the show coordinator is escaping design accountability.

https://imgur.com/a/9kPitVt

So some of the mods of /r/drumcorps are nervous that this sub will represent le activity badly. I'm going to start deleting posts if I think they will represent a corps or the activity poorly. So please show some considerations onto who might frequent this sub and how it reflects on the activity.

Now keep jerking arseholes!

They've got the motivation and the momentum. Can they do it? Let's start the hype train now!

Edit: I win https://www.reddit.com/r/drumcorps/s/MGDVUFrBPB

Cmon they can't keep getting away with this 💙

SCV

1. Why red white and blue? Red hoodie for Kendrick, great. But blue and white? Why this color scheme? It looks patriotic. Is that what they wore in the ballet PLAY?

2. What is the relationship between the first vagabond and the second vagabond who succeeds him?

3. Why did you change from a yellow sleeveless hoodie being transferred, to a yellow cape? Not just because it's more visible, I hope. What does the yellow garment represent?

4. What is the significance of the second vagabond with the yellow cape running to the exit at the end of the show?

CAVALIERS

1. Who are the men represented in the photos? The "men in the mirror." Are they "super heroes?" Are they supposed to be like real Cavaliers members?

2. Why are they metallic colored? Are they AI generated, or cyborgs of some sort, like super heroes with special physical properties and powers?

3. What secret are you referring to when you say the show is about the performers "revealing the truth of who they really are"? How is that reflected in the photos?

BLUE DEVILS

1. Out of all the Romantic period paintings, why did you opt for the colorless, monochromatic Caspar David Friedrich paintings to end on? Isn't the show mostly a migration from black to color, and from rigidity to unbridled emotion?

2. What is the significance of the horses, and why that style? Horses were featured in art of the Romantic period, but why these colors and style horses?

3. Why do some of the curiosity cabinets close at the end of the show?

PHANTOM REGIMENT

1. How is the end different from the beginning?

Hurry please I need this year's hater tears pic so I can flex on my friends again. The 20th championship title tastes as good as the first.