A buzz was in the air as Waynesburg University students entered the Goodwin Performing Arts Center (GPAC) this past Friday as students attended WU Voice, recently re-vamped from what was previously WU Idol. Instead, attendees came in with there being great mystery to the structure, participants and judges of this new singing competition.

As people filled into the GPAC, they noticed four swivel chairs, each with a mic and buzzer, sat in front of the stage. At 8 p.m., Mary Beth Cocchi, senior nursing major, came out as announcer for the night. She proceeded to introduce each of the four judges: Matthew Pioch, director of housing; Josh Beppler, integrated marketing coordinator; Lauren Bailey, resident director of East, South, West and Pollock halls; and Elizabeth Diviney, resident director of Burns and Ray halls. The reason for secrecy, according to Diviney, was to keep the integrity of the game show intact.

“We didn’t know the participants,” said Diviney, “and I think if the participants knew who the judges were [before the competition], they would have been like, ‘You gotta pick me, pick me.’”

After the judges each sat in a swivel chair, Cocchi read off an introductory quote for the first contestant. The quote, however, was not from the contestant. It was from the character Michael Scott from the TV series The Office. In fact, multiple other participants and even the judges, chose quotes from The Office and other sitcoms. Megan Leiter, junior nursing major, explained the participants needed something vague as their quote.

“Backstage, they told us we had to write these cards,” said Leiter. “So some other people and I, we were trying to figure out what to write, and we were like ‘ah man, lets just write quotes from The Office.’ A couple of us did The Office quotes, and others built off that. Someone had a Parks and Recreation quote, and someone did a 30 Rock quote.”

For each participant’s performance, Cocchi would read their introductory quote, walk off, music then played and the participant started singing behind the black curtain. As he or she sang, the judges listened with their backs turned to the stage. Each judge needed to gather a team of singers. If they liked what they heard from a participant, they would hit their buzzer and turn around. As soon as one buzzer was hit, the curtain was drawn, and the participant would step out and be seen.

At the end of their performance, all the judges who turned around would try to convince the participant for them to join their team. The participant then chose which judge they wanted to join. Dziak said she chose Pioch as her judge because of his familiarity with her.

“Matt has a very open mind when it comes to things, and he’s seen me perform me before,” said Dziak. “He’s seen my strengths and my weaknesses, and knows that I will excel really well with him.”

There was no song theme for last week’s performance. This week, however, each team discussed a song theme with their team. Heidi Dziak, junior accounting major, said her team picked a theme that each of them could pick a song from.