A Heaping Bowl of Special K

Written by:
Kellogg
3 minute read
The live show cast, in all of our purple glory.

Did you think that your high school production of “The Music Man” would be the last time you’d be on stage? Think again!

Special K! – a full-length musical production – is the highlight of spring quarter for much of the Kellogg population. It involves nearly 100 students, including the 24 member live show cast, 12 member band, 3 separate casts for short digital films, a feature film cast, a slew of writers, a full-fledged tech crew, a marketing army and many more. Plus, the 1000+ audience members who came out to see the production during it’s 5-show run.

In true Kellogg fashion, the show is entirely student written, produced, choreographed, directed, and marketed. It has corporate sponsors. It has a full length feature film. It operates on a self-raised budget that is larger than many of our salaries coming into Kellogg. This is not your grandma’s variety show, oh no. Granted, we had a former Broadway dancer turned business school student to oversee all of the group numbers this year, so we may have been at a slight advantage…

This year’s show took place in the year 2042, in the bunker of a former Kellogg student who decided to build a bomb shelter and delay his graduation upon hearing that the Keg was closing (oh, and that a meteor was hurdling towards Earth…but mostly the Keg thing). Skits and song parodies abounded, including:

  • “Rolling in the Dough” (to Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep”) about  self-help group for students who are choosing to go into less-than-lucrative non-profit careers
  • “Get Your MBA” (to Gaga’s “Born This Way”)
  • “Big Donor” (to the Broadway classic, “Big Spender”, about Dean Blount’s quest to find alumni donations for the new building capital campaign…she saw the show. She laughed.)
  • …among many more

Although none of the show content goes online (we are business school students, after all, and generate a significant amount of revenue through DVD sales), we did release a teaser in the winter to build anticipation for the production.

The end of Act I, finishing up “First Year is Over”, a parody of Florence + the Machine’s “The Dog Days Are Over”

The best part of being in the cast, however, was seeing the overwhelming student response to the show. We sold out most nights. Students flocked to Facebook to rave about the show and convince their friends to buy tickets. It was truly an all-Kellogg event.