Walpole High School hosted its annual hypnotist show on Monday December 22, organized by the Walpole High Student Council (StuCo). Frank Santos Jr., a professional comic hypnotist, led the audience through his entertaining annual event.
Upon entering the auditorium, StuCo officers encouraged senior attendees to sign up to be hypnotized StuCo Advisor Kerry McMenimen then opened the show by announcing the chosen individuals, whom Mr. Santos then later narrowed down to a smaller group.
The final group of eight seniors included Molly Rockwood, Sam Chauvin, Drew Cormier, Conor Tracy, Rishab Mathur, Meghan Coakley, and Joe Feldman.
Mr. Santos chose senior Matt Moriarty as a volunteer to assist with the first piece of the show. Santos explained that each time he said the word “good” in his conversation with Moriarty, the boys on stage would believe that Moriarty had emitted a very unpleasant smell, while the girls would smell something amazing like roses or nice cologne.
In perhaps the most entertaining portion of the show, Mr. Santos explained to Cormier and Feldman different sets of instructions involving the bathroom, and the resulting scene was quite chaotic. Cormier asked to go to the bathroom and returned with piles of toilet paper he was convinced were bills of money. Feldman would repeatedly run from the stage to the bathroom, only to forget halfway down the aisle where he was going and return perplexed to the stage.
Lastly, Mr. Santos played a few well known tunes to which some of the seniors sang solos. Feldman, thinking he was Taylor Swift, sang “Wildest Dreams,” followed by Chauvin singing to Luke Bryan’s “Shake it For Me.” While Cormier did not know many of the beginning lyrics to Justin Bieber’s “Sorry,” he confidently belted out the chorus and had the rest of the seniors dancing along with him on stage.
After Santos brought the seniors back to a conscious state, the eight individuals were able to see videos of themselves that were taken by audience members. Rockwood said, “It felt like a dream, like I remember doing things but I can’t remember why.”
Junior Mike Timson, the StuCo member in charge of the hypnotist show this year, said that attendance was lower than expected. “I was very pleased with the performance of Frank Santos Jr., and we hope to have him back next year; however, we will need to address the attendance issue before next year if we want the event to continue in the years to come,” Timson said.
Overall, the show not only made the audience laugh, but it unified the Walpole High school community. Moriarty said, “Although Mr. Santos didn’t necessarily perform different acts from last year, the show itself is impressive, and it forces students who are from different social groups together, making the audience laugh at the ridiculous things they do.”
