Raise-A-Ruckus is a yearly tradition at the Apple Festival. It is put on by East Noble High School’s Theater and Show Choir. The show’s performers are all students at ENHS and are some of the school’s best performers year after year.  It has always been a must see for anyone at the Apple Festival, whether they’re from the area or from across the country here for the first time.

This year’s performance lives up to its predecessors. The shows starts with the memorable and appropriately named introduction song “Raise a Ruckus.” Then is followed by songs that have been performed for years and you expect to hear and want to hear again. They also performed some of their own new songs, including “Put It in the Piggy”, a song about saving money using a piggy bank, sung with pig puppet and even having Senior Zack McCoy dressed as a pig complete with pig ears, tail, and snout, leading the pig calling. They also performed their own hilarious rendition of the classic song “Twelve Days of Christmas” as “Twelve Foods of the Apple Fest”, with each day having its own food that can be found at the festival, from Pepsi and a bag of popcorn to apple fritters and dumplings to fruit kabobs to root beer. It was original and very funny.

Both genders got to their own performance of a song you’d actually hear on the radio. It started with the boys taking the stage, Freshman Nate Deetz taking the lead, singing “Cruise” by Florida Georgia Line. Deetz sang incredibly well, definitely a talented singer and performer for a freshmen in his first Raise-A-Ruckus. The boys all around did great. Later in the show, the girls took to the stage for their own song, “Georgia Peaches” by Lauren Alaina. The girls really got in to the song and sang it beautifully. The girls’ performance was definitely a highlight of the show.

As there always is, there were plenty of memorable performances during the show. A particularly funny one starts with one of the girls heading down into the audience and dragging Senior ,Sam Kreigh, by the ear back up on to the stage, which is the beginning of another yearly song with the boys singing how they are nothing more than liars and the girls were mistaken to believe them when they said “I love you”. The song is well done and humorous. A second memorable song is the “Squirrel” song. One of the boys take to the stage and lead the song, rather well I might add, though the most memorable part is what happens on the actual stage. Not long into the song, one of the boys, now in a pair of overalls, is running around the barn while bring attacked by a squirrel. After he runs around the barn during the chorus, the squirrel is passed on to another boy waiting in the audience, wearing a girl’s dress and hat. The boy in the dress runs all around the barn for the remaining barn. The audience really got a kick out of that song. And lastly, the unforgettable melodrama with the cast getting members up on to the stage and placing them in costumes for their part, with the people not allows fighting the part very well. This particular performance has an elderly women as the farmer who doesn’t have the money for the mortgage on the cow, a man as the sweet young thing, a man as the villain who came for the mortgage on the cow and was willing to take the sweet young thing as payment, a man as the hero who killed the villain, and a teen girl from the high school as the cow who’s only line is, rather fittingly for the character, “moo”. The melodrama is always funny, even if not as memorable or knee-slapping funny as other parts of the show, it’s still an act you’d want to see for the show year after year.

Raise-A-Ruckus is a yearly tradition, one of which will be continuing for at least another year, and a must see for everyone at the Apple Fest. It is incredibly funny, hugely entertaining, and always a good time. The cast of Raise-A-Ruckus is a talented group that you will want to see again and again. It is a remarkable show. Congrats to all who were involved for creating such a great performance and can’t wait to see next year’s show.