SAN JOSE, CALIF. – Silver Creek High School held its annual FANTASTICS, an acronym for ‘fun at night through activities and skits to increase class spirit’, on March 11, 2023, a night put together by students, filled with amusing skits, mind-blowing dances, and fun games! 

For a bit more than a month, the students of Silver Creek have been leading up to this one night, after spending countless hours working on choreographing dances and learning them, making beautiful props, and writing scripts. FANTASTICS is a longstanding tradition at Creek, and students have reveled in it every year. This is the second year of FANTASTICS since COVID-19 happened, and it was expected to be another great year. 

This is the final show for the class of 2023 after participating in three Nonfires and two FANTASTICS and they are expected to finish with a bang! 

This year’s FANTASTICS theme was “World Tour,” with each class’s theme being a different city worldwide. The class of 2023 was “Tokyo,” 2024’s was “San Fransisco,” 2025’s was “Seoul” and 2026’s was “Rio De Janeiro”, with each of the countries being Japan, The United States, South Korea, and Brazil.

This year was the first time in quite a while that a FANTASTICS had been held in the gym. While there were many upsides to having it in the gym, like a better sound system so the audience can hear better, and classes incorporating lights into their skits, The biggest downside was how unbelievably hot, and at times smelly, it was in there. But props to Leadership for being super smart and having the programs be put on popsicle sticks to be used as fans.

The whole event began late, pretty much starting half an hour later than the proposed time due to a long line outside. After the first introductions from ASB, each class had its hype dances, followed by an introduction video (another new addition this year), then it was the leadership skit. With most of those being staples to FANTASTICS and its sister event Nonfire, it was nothing surprising but as good as they all usually are.

Next was a very memorable game of musical chairs. The Sophomores ended up winning the game, with Adelene Nguyen getting the win for her class, but the standout of the whole game was a standoff between Senior Matthew Li and Junior Wynston Phan, Who spent at least a minute wrestling for a chair, ending in Li sitting on the chair on top of Phan.

It was finally time for the classes to start their performances, first up was the Freshmen with Rio! Outside of the performance altogether, the best part of the performance was the inflatable bird costume, which was so cute and funny it ended up stealing the show for me. The dances were really good for the Freshmen, noting the second dance was really good. The criticisms I  had though were mainly the boards and the skit itself. The boards didn’t line up most of the time, both being out of order and one side not matching the scene of the other, and they were also falling apart on one side. 

I thought the idea for the skit was really cute, however, it didn’t really end. They broke the vase and then nothing, it didn’t really seem to wrap up. There were also very long transitions between the songs and the skit. But the Freshmen did really well, and I could see them getting better every year.

Next was Tug of War. The first match was between the Juniors and Freshmen, which ended up with the Juniors winning. Next was the Seniors against the Sophomores and after a long standstill between the two classes, the Seniors pulled through and won. After a very long intermission, there were the final games to determine places. In the end, it was Juniors for first, Seniors for second, the Sophomores and Freshmen respectively. 

Then it was back to the classes! Next was the Sophomores with Seoul! Overall I thought the Sophomore’s performance was very cute. True to the theme they created a storyline that followed a typical K-drama, however, they had very American names. Similarly to the Freshmen, their boards were out of sync for both sides. They had very good dances, with the light one being particularly stunning visually. They also had the cutest props out of all of the classes

However, there were at least three times in their skit where actors forgot to come out and lip-sync their lines. Leaving the other actors talking to thin air or maybe a ghost? There was also a major issue in their skit, Hanahaki Disease, or Flower Disease is Japanese and not Korean. So as much as I loved the cute storyline that is something that is hard to look past.

After the class of 2025, there was a game of Hungry Hippos. I still do not know who won, and honestly, the game itself was very hard to follow.

Now it was time for the Juniors with San Fransisco! The Junior dances have improved a lot over the past year and I think by next year they could get even better. They had really good boards, that were for a majority of the time not out of sync. I thought the sound effects that they included in their skit audio were very funny, so good job on that.

The only thing I would critique about the Juniors was the plot, it was quite boring and a little odd. The point was there, however, I struggled with the execution. If they had a better skit their performance would be amazing. I know next year the Juniors will continue to improve and get better to dominate all classes.

The last game was Balloon Popping having to spell out a phrase hidden inside of the balloons to win. The Seniors took home first place for this one, the first game they won of the night.

Now the best for last, the class of 2023. The Seniors gave their heart and soul into this last performance and it showed in the final result. The Seniors had a very creative storyline that involved traveling to an alternate universe and ultimately was a story of friendship and finding who you are. The dances were fantastic, but that was to be expected for 2023. The boards were beautiful as well.

If I had to give one criticism of 2023, to be fair to the other classes, it would be how emotional the performance was. But I thought it was super cute when the class officers came out wearing the past t-shirts that have been used for Nonfire and FANTASTICS. It was the closest to perfect it could have been.

That’s a wrap for FANTASTICS 2023! The final winner tally is Seniors, Juniors, Sophomores, and Freshmen. All the classes put so much work into this event and it was amazing, you can really see the time and effort that they did to make this event great. I have high hopes for next year’s classes in continuing this time-honored tradition and can’t wait to see what’s to come.

DISCLAIMER: This article is supposed to be lighthearted and not intended to discredit anyone in leadership, Any and all criticism is constructive and not meant to offend. If you have any complaints please, let me know. I think they did a fantastic ( job running, planning, and creating the event.