It’s a common fear among incoming college students: the Freshman 15. Upon graduating high school, students are warned about the possibility of gaining weight during their first year of college, and the Freshman 15 is often joked about between family and friends.

However, there is nothing funny about its counterpart, the Reverse Freshman 15, which is becoming a more common occurrence for many students as they transition into the college environment.

Dr. Laura McLain, a Team Leader from the Renfrew Center in Atlanta, is very familiar with this phenomenon.

“This Reverse Freshman 15 is the trend for some individuals who are very fearful of gaining weight, and so they go to these excessive extremes to make sure they don’t gain that little bit of weight the first year, or to drop weight,” McLain said. This fear can be triggered by a myriad of factors, from the pressures of newfound independence to brain chemistry and genetic disposition.

“It can be old fear coming up for those who are in recovery from an eating disorder, it could be a new set of fears that arises with being out on their own,” McLain said. “College is a huge transition time, and it’s not even just freshman year problems, it can be any point in college. Transitions happen all the time.”

Some of the common signs of the Reverse Freshman 15 or any eating disorder include compulsive habits regarding diet and/ or exercise.

“Taking extreme dieting measures; talking excessively about food, cooking or dieting; and even when injured they’ll continue to exercise. It becomes very compulsive or habitual,”
McLain said.

Additional signs to look out for include — cutting out certain food groups from the diet, spending excessive amounts of time at the gym or missing out on social engagements.

People suffering from eating disorders may also have a distorted body image or equate body image with self-worth.

Along with more well-known eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorders, health professionals are witnessing the trends of disorders such as “orthorexia” and
“drunkorexia.”

While these are not clinical terms, they can be used to describe some of the eating disorders currently on the rise in college communities.

Orthorexia involves obsession with maintaining a supposedly healthy lifestyle and may be associated with dieting trends seen in the media.

“The things that you see are really focusing on very, very clean eating, a hyperawareness of being fit and active, but there is no flexibility with it,” McLain explained. That lack of flexibility can be very damaging to one’s personal health.

Another challenge of the college transition involves learning to navigate the world of partying, which introduces complications with alcohol consumption.

“The drunkorexia that has now surfaced as well is the tendency for individuals to calorically restrict what they eat; restricting food, but then binge-drinking. So, they are essentially making up for their calories in alcohol,” said McLain.

Students constantly deal with social and academic stressors that make it difficult to simultaneously maintain their schoolwork, friendships, and personal health.

“It comes down to balance and really doing research before you go away to school. Make sure you know the resources that are available on campus, get to know a kind of schedule – most people function best on a schedule.

“Getting connected and getting involved with your peers is really important, especially in college when you’re away from home,” McLain said.

What should you do if you have a feeling that someone you know is developing an eating disorder?

“It’s important, especially as a friend, if you’re concerned, to not try and solve the problem for them, but to really help support them in seeking out professional help,” said McLain.

In addition, it is important to take your friends seriously and avoid placing blame on them, as doing so can hinder a person’s desire to seek treatment.

Professional help takes on different forms, such as one-on-one or group therapy, and resources are available through the Georgia Tech Counseling Center, the Renfrew Center in Atlanta and the Multi-Service Eating Disorders Association (MEDA) at www.medainc.org.

While professional help is of utmost importance, friends can also make meaningful contributions to a support system.

McLain gave examples of supporting someone, including,
“being available to your friends; talking about things other than food, weight, counting calories and exercising; attempting to focus on the feelings or emotions they’re having as opposed to weight, calories, and food.”

This is it. This marks the last issue of the Technique for the semester. For a lot of sections, that makes sense; the Life section hardly has campus life to worry about over the summer. SGA becomes inactive, so News can take a break. But Sports will have to leave a number of storylines unfinished. Will baseball salvage its season? How will softball fare? Who will Tech basketball bring into its recruiting class? Will women’s tennis go all the way? By the time we next publish, we will have these answers, or at least progress towards them.

But in the meantime, we can recap the storylines of the year. From new additions to the Tech’s coaching ranks to a greater understanding of where we stand in the national sports scene, here are a few concluding thoughts.

CJP and CJP: Yin and Yang

If you went into a laboratory to try cooking up a coach to serve as a foil to football head coach Paul Johnson, you could not do much better than basketball coach Josh Pastner. Johnson is the epitome of a Southern football coach: gruff, tough and unwilling to let his guard down. Who could forget his sarcastic tongue-waggle at a fan in the immediate aftermath of Tech’s shocking win over Florida State? His explanation: that same fan was likely criticizing him a few minute before, as Everett Golson was marching the ‘Noles downfield. Johnson, like “The Catcher in the Rye’s” Holden Caufield, abhors phonies. And he does not keep silent about it.

Pastner, by contrast, is as affable as perhaps any coach in college athletics. It does not take long to find “Who Said It: Josh Pastner or Michael Scott,” an online quiz that challenges participants to distinguish Pastner’s sayings from those of the unlucky-in-life “The Office” character. He has gone to great lengths to convince students to attend games. He has repeatedly expressed his excitement about the program. He refrains from swearing; he has never cursed at a player in his coaching career, courtesy of ramblinwreck.com. He is, in so many ways, what Johnson is not.

Yet I believe that Tech is stronger for having both of these coaches. Root for the cold realist in the fall and the charismatic optimist in the spring.

Early in Pastner’s tenure, he received a call on his radio show from Johnson, wishing him luck. Here’s hoping that friendship continues for years to come.

It’s a Wonderful Life

In iconic 1946 film “The Wonderful Life,” protagonist George Bailey is on the verge of suicide until he is reminded of the impact he has had on the lives of others. Without him, his town would collapse. His troubles are by comparison not worth the actions he was planning to take. Unrelated as it may seem to Tech athletics, we should take stock of its lofty place in the grand scheme of things. Tech faces the best teams in the nation in virtually every sport for which it fields a team. Football? Tech faced off against two of the NFL Draft’s highest-projected quarterbacks. UNC’s Mitchell Trubisky and Clemson’s Deshaun Watson. The latter just led his team to a national championship. While the Jackets did not notch a win against either, the Tech defense did a better job against Watson than many did all year.

Follow basketball instead? The national champion Tar Heels couldn’t get past Tech at McCamish Pavilion on New Year’s Eve this season. NC State guard Dennis Smith, Jr., one of the most explosive players in the NBA Draft (and one who has drawn some comparisons to Oklahoma City Thunder star and MVP frontrunner Russell Westbrook), could not lead his team past the Jackets. Tech’s NIT win over Indiana led to the firing of Tom Crean, a national story.

Tech has not won a national championship, but there is no doubt that the team is nationally relevant. That counts for something. What exactly that something is may not always be clear.

We will return briefly in June and July, and we will be back for good in August. Then, we will know what football’s depth chart looks like. We will have a general idea of who will make Tech basketball’s starting five, both for the men and the women.

And, although some might rightly argue that it never seems to end, we at the Sports section of the Technique will be back, not only to attend classes, but also to cover the next chapter of
Tech athletics.

It is easy to be sucked in by the year-round nature of college sports. There are March Madness and baseball in the spring, football in the fall, swimming and diving in the winter, and so many other sports on those seasonal lists. Every season is filled with excitement. Fans track statistics and trends, becoming attached to specific players and hoping that they move on to continue competing at the professional level. Collegiate athletes rise to the top of the social spectrum very quickly. It is easy to become a full-time spectator and begin to believe that those collegiate athletes can do something that you cannot.

While the likelihood of a collegiate tennis player going straight into the professional circuit right after college may be higher than the chance of a recreational tennis player jumping straight into an ATP World Tour, tennis fans should not forget that there are more tennis teams to support than just Tech’s NCAA-sanctioned collegiate teams. The Tech club tennis team has been working hard to become a consistent contender in club competition on the challenging national stage.

Tryouts are held twice a year for interested athletes. Though the tryout process for club tennis is less intense than recruiting for collegiate tennis, the levels of sportsmanship and devotion are just as high. Club tennis players approach the game seriously, striving not only to maintain fitness levels but also to win incredibly close matches.

Hard work and grit has paid off this year. Out of more than 700 college teams across the nation, Tech was named to a list of the top 64 co-ed intramural and club tennis teams by the United States Tennis Association (USTA). They competed last week at the 2017 USTA Tennis on Campus National Championship in Orlando, Florida with a chance to take home a national title.

Welcoming several new freshmen and sophomores to their ranks, there was some expectation of growing pains. Yet it seems that new talent has had the opposite effect for the team. These players have often made the difference.

“Our team’s drive to win the close matches against consistently great teams such as UGA and the University of Florida has helped the team be so competitive,” team captain Jake Inderrieden explained. “We are also fortunate to have a very young team composed of several freshmen and sophomores who have made an immediate impact.”

A focus on winning close matches carried the Jackets through the USTA Tennis on Campus National Championship and earned them first place in Pool P as well as a spot to compete in the Gold Bracket. The team won every match in its pool. Kicking off the weekend against Colorado State University, the Jackets quickly moved past the Rams, beating them by more than ten points.

As the day went on, Tech lost a little bit of its edge, but that didn’t keep them from defeating the University of Southern California and the University of Illinois on the court. The margin of victory in their final two matches may have been a little smaller than the first match of the day, but a win is a win, no matter how close the final score.

Tech moved on to compete in the Gold Bracket, and their diminishing edge moved on with them until it was no more. Losing to the University of Michigan in the quarterfinals, the Jackets closed the championships at eighth place. Although the team was not able to secure a championship title this year, the growth and dedication that have been developed has set them up to be future national competitors.

Winning is not Tech’s club tennis team’s only goal. If every individual is focused solely on securing a game for himself or herself, it would not be likely that the team would go very far, even in a sport like tennis where athletes often compete by themselves. The team aspect is just as important as being competitive and winning matches. In fact, it may even be more important. Supportive teammates make for consistently successful athletes.

“A good team captain is able to bring the team together to achieve more than each player could individually and motivate the team to perform better than every expectation,” Inderrieden said.

Inderrieden has done just that, and the results have reflected his team’s hard work.

Next Thursday marks the beginning of the National Football League’s annual draft. Over the course of three days, 253 of college football’s finest athletes will be told to pack their bags and move to a new city, be it Jacksonville, New York or Green Bay.

The first evening is a spectacle not all that different from an Oscars ceremony (that is, if the Oscars allowed attendees to raucously boo award presenters.) Wardrobes are critiqued, major networks offer wall-to-wall coverage and tearful hugs are exchanged. For the players selected, all too many of whom grew up in economic despair, being selected is a promise of financial security. Overnight, 32 young men go from ramen-slurping college students to millionaires.

As the draft rolls on, the mystique dies down, the so-called “generational” prospects already taken. Yet many of the NFL’s most impactful players had to wait awhile to hear their names called. A select group of Tech players — quarterback Justin Thomas, center Freddie Burden, defensive linemen Patrick Gamble and Francis Kallon, kicker Harrison Butker, and punter Ryan Rodwell — are hoping for just that.

While Tech football does not have nearly the professional degree of programs such as Ohio State and Alabama, which see a number of players drafted in high spots each year, its successes at the next level have been notable. Former first-round pick Calvin Johnson was amongst the best receivers in the league prior to his surprising retirement. Safety Morgan Burnett was a third-round pick who has morphed into one of the better starting safeties in the league with the Green Bay Packers. Defensive lineman Adam Gotsis, widely projected as a mid-round pick, shocked many when the Denver Broncos took him as a second-round choice last season.

The draft process begins in earnest shortly after the season ends. Players declare for the draft (thus forgoing whatever remaining NCAA eligibility they may have), sign with a professional agent and compete in various pre-draft events. These range from workouts held by interested teams to full “bowl” games that pit artificially assembled teams of college prospects against one another.

One Tech player — Butker — was even lucky enough to be invited to the NFL Combine. The Combine is one of the most closely-followed scouting events in the process. Prospects complete athletic drills such as the 40-yard dash and weightlifting. Perhaps more importantly in the eyes of some teams, though, they are subject to rigorous character interviews. After all, a team makes an investment in a player when it chooses him; protecting that investment is the wise thing to do.

Each of Tech’s players is viewed differently by the scouting community. One of the more highly-touted prospects is Gamble, who was graded by draft expert Lance Zierlein as a late-round talent who could develop into an effective rotational player.

“While he needs to add more bulk, he has the length and athleticism that 3-4 teams will want to work with at the defensive end spot,” Zierlein said, courtesy of NFL.com.

Zierlein, however, noted that Gamble had a tendency to be dominated by double teams and needed to put on weight in order to compete with bulkier players in the NFL. A team drafting Gamble, thus, should not expect immediate contributions, save for his play on special teams units.

While Gamble will need to change his style of play, Tech quarterback Justin Thomas will need to change his position altogether. The Prattville, Alabama native was once recruited by Alabama coach Nick Saban to play defensive back for the Crimson Tide. Choosing to stick it out as a passer, Thomas chose the Jackets instead. But in order for him to carve out a career at the professional level, he will have to move to either cornerback or safety.

Thomas has an unteachable attribute that scouts will surely covet: his speed. At Tech’s pro day, a Combine equivalent, Thomas ran a 40-yard dash timed at about 4.30 seconds, a mark that would have put him among the ten fastest players at the Combine.

Thomas is even more a project than Gamble, though; he has never played a defensive snap at the collegiate level, and playing against receivers making millions of dollars is hardly a way to soften the learning curve.

The rest of Tech’s prospects have not garnered much attention. Davis, for example, was a productive linebacker at the collegiate level who will have to overcome physical limitations at the next level. But the path of Butker, the senior who famously drilled a game-tying field goal versus UGA in 2014, is a reminder of just how complex the process can be.

Butker’s agent, Jordan Hagedorn of BTI Sports, says that the connection was made via a “friend of a friend.” A fellow agent mentioned that Butker was looking for representation. Hagedorn, not far removed from passing the NFL Players Association’s agent exam, was looking for his first client.

Over a whirlwind 15 hours, Hagedorn met Butker’s family and girlfriend. Five days later, Butker called and signed with the agency. Ever since, Hagedorn’s responsibility has been “constantly serving [Butker’s] needs.”

One of those needs will certainly be support as the draft process nears. Hagedorn has been in contact with NFL teams. Eight, he says, have expressed varying degrees of interest in his client.

The reality of being a kicker, however, is that being drafted is not likely. Arizona State’s Zane Gonzalez may be the only one whose name is called next week. But Hagedorn acknowledges that there are advantages to being undrafted. Players not selected by a team are free to negotiate with any or all of them. With enough interest, Butker could very well pick his destination.

“We’re very open-minded and open-hearted,” said Hagedorn. “We’re just going to let it play out.” For the kicker who meticulously (and famously) recorded every kick of his collegiate career in an Excel process, sitting back may not be easy. Nor will it be for any of Tech’s other draft prospects. But with a week until the draft, workouts completed and interviews aced, waiting is all that remains between Tech’s graduating football players and their hopes of playing the sport in the finest league of its kind.

On April 11, the Tech Women’s Volleyball team played host to the Beijing Automobile Works Women’s Volleyball Club (BAW). The teams ate meals together before and after the match, and BAW took a tour of campus prior to the match. The result of the match was 3-1 in favor of BAW, but beyond that, the match signified the growing role of college athletics on an international scale.

Tech sports are currently in a renaissance of sorts in terms of international events. This past Fall Tech opened the season against Boston College in Dublin, Ireland. It marked the first time that the team traveled outside of the United States to play a game. Furthermore, the Tech Men’s Basketball team will be traveling to Shanghai, China to open its season this coming Fall against the highly-touted UCLA Bruins.

The history of American collegiate athletics beyond the United States’ borders is rich and deeper than most would think. The first college football game played outside of the United States or Canada was played on January 1, 1909 when the Cuban Athletic Club beat Tulane 11-0. That game began a long streak of games being played in Cuba and Canada until 1946. Following that year, only one game was played outside of the United States until 1976, when Texas A&I (now Texas A&M Kingsville) played Henderson State in a string of games across Europe, courtesy of cfbdatawarehouse.com.

The cycle of international play continued just as before, with a 10-year drought of international games coming after 1996. Furthermore, a game wasn’t played outside of the U.S. or Canada until 2011, but now it seems the NCAA is back to pushing international games. However, this time these games seem to be about more than just playing, at least in the case of Tech athletics.

When Tech travelled to Ireland in the fall, they brought along a delegation of representatives of both the university and the city of Atlanta. President Bud Peterson and Mayor Kasim Reed both traveled to market Tech and Atlanta as growing hubs for business and ideas. On September 1, two days before the game, Trinity College of Dublin hosted a joint faculty symposium. The following morning, foreign direct investment agency IDA Ireland hosted a business breakfast to discuss how U.S. companies had made Ireland their home in recent years, courtesy of gtri.gatech.edu.

Taken out of context, this volleyball match seems like a tiny blip on the radar; however, it is very clear that Tech is using athletics as an avenue of marketing the Institute on an international scale. The match against BAW is the perfect stepping stone towards Tech men’s basketball’s game against UCLA coming up this fall; both have the potential to make Tech even more a household name abroad.

The game and events surrounding it will most likely mirror the trip to Ireland, with symposia and workshops being a part of the itinerary. However, this game is also result of the Pac-12’s effort in recent years to market its universities on an international scale. The game is officially known as the 2017 Pac-12 China Game presented by the Alibaba Group. This event officially began last year when Stanford played Harvard in Men’s Basketball last year, but the organizer, Pac-12 Global, was founded in 2011.

This game marks a perfect storm for both the Pac-12 and Tech; both groups have made a great effort in the past few years to market themselves internationally. While it isn’t clear if Kasim Reed or other delegates for Atlanta will be traveling to China like they did Ireland, President Peterson and new athletic director Todd Stansbury will be there for the Jackets, a chance for Tech to showcase itself once again.

In 2022, the McAuley Aquatic Center will once again host a national swimming and diving championship event. From March 16-19, the Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships will be held at McAuley, and the Men’s championships will be held from March 23–26.

The NCAA recently announced the future host sites for all of its championships from 2019 to 2022, and for swimming and diving, Tech is the one of only two schools to host both the men’s and women’s championships in the same year for the next five years. The other school is the University of Texas at Austin, which was ranked as having the second best collegiate competition swimming pool by college admissions preparation site College Ranker. McAuley Aquatic Center ranked first in the same list.

Tech most recently hosted the swimming and diving championships last year, and the first time they hosted the championships was in 2006. The most reasons stint was in response to the NCAA deciding to move championships from the state of North Carolina, a boycott it recently lifted.

Other championships Tech has hosted include the Conference USA Championships in 2014, 2016, and 2017. Other events include the 2005 Men’s and Women’s Atlantic Coast Conference Swimming and Diving Championships, the 2005 NCAA Zone Diving Championships, the Nations Bank Pan Pacific Swimming Championships, the IXth Diving World Cup and the IXth Water Polo World Cup. Of course, the most famous competitions McAuley has hosted came with the 1996 Olympic swimming and diving events as well as numerous USA Olympic trials since then.

The Aquatic Center was constructed next to the Student Athletic Center fields in preparation for those Olympic Games. Construction on the $21 million facility began in July 1994 and finished in time to host the VIIth Synchronized Swimming World Cup as its inaugural event. The Olympic Games, contrary to popular belief, was the second competition held at the new Aquatic Center. Originally an outdoor stadium, renovations began in 2001 to reduce the crowd capacity to 1,900 and completely enclose the stadium. During those same renovations, the current fourth and fifth floors of the Campus Recreation Center were also built. These suspended concrete structures are completely supported by the roof of the CRC, courtesy of ramblinwreck.com.

In 2016, the Aquatic Center was renamed the McAuley Aquatic Center in honor of Herb McAuley (EE ’47). McAuley not only swam for Tech during his time as a student, but also coached swimmers at tech for 40 years. McAuley truly loved swimming, and he continued to swim competitively in his 90s.

What might be equally impressive about McAuley is that its facilities also play host to thousands of students, alumni and faculty looking to get in a quick swim before work or perhaps enjoying its waterslide. Tech may have to wait until 2022 to once again welcome the top teams from its conference, but there is no doubt that McAuley will be plenty busy between now and then.

From the beginning of his career until now, Kendrick Lamar has always had one clear message for his audience: people are products of their respective environments, and each person’s story deserves to be heard. Kendrick’s work aims to intercede for those who are chronically misunderstood, whether a prostitute, a gangbanger, a concerned mother or a young black man in America.

Now, about a decade into his career and five major label releases in, Kendrick asserts with “DAMN.” that he is not exempt from his own message, and as a misunderstood person himself, he has a lot more storytelling to do.

Having been intellectual hip-hop’s poster child for the past five years, Kendrick wants every listener to know that the environment he has occupied during that time has also had an immense influence on his identity. Kendrick Lamar’s personal story of change, self-discovery and inward honesty is what he tells in“DAMN.”

With song titles like “LOYALTY.,” “PRIDE.” and “GOD.,” it is quite clear that the entire album functions for Kendrick Lamar as a diary of sorts. He candidly takes to task the realities of his own life post-“To Pimp a Butterfly.”

One of the most potent revelations comes from “FEEL.,” an  undeniably sad song. Kendrick enumerates the various forces that make him feel confused and powerless, even if he should be feeling on top of the world considering the success of his rap career.

Drearily, he says “ain’t nobody prayin’ for me/ain’t nobody prayin’ for me/I feel like a chip on my shoulders/I feel like I’m losin’ my focus,” and in a later verse, continues “the feelin’ is toxic, I feel like I’m boxin’ demons/ Monsters, false prophets schemin’/ Sponsors, industry promises/ N*ggas, b*tches, honkies, crackers, Compton/Church, religion, token blacks and bondage.”

The album also attempts to separate the person of Kendrick Lamar from the messages that he preaches in his music. On “XXX.,” featuring the legendary U2, Kendrick honestly outlines the things he would do to anyone who deeply transgresses him, even if it were to make him a
violent hypocrite.

He raps “if somebody kill my son, that mean somebody gettin’ killed/ Tell me what you do for love, loyalty, and passion of/ All the memories collected, moments you could never touch/ I’ll wait in front a n*gga’s spot and watch him hit his block/I’ll catch a n*gga leavin’ service if that’s all I got/ I’ll chip a n*gga, then throw the blower in his lap/Walk myself to the court like, ‘B*tch, I did that!’” Grim? Yes, unfortunately so. But honest? Yes. This rawness is what makes “DAMN.” so excellent.

The musical additions and production on “DAMN.” also mark a drastic shift from the styles that were implemented on “To Pimp a Butterfly.” Back in 2015, Kendrick had artists such as Thundercat and  Pharrell Williams in the studio with him.

Now, he has switched out the personnel that created the funky, unashamedly black sounds of “To Pimp a Butterfly” with producers who are more known for their work in neo-soul, contemporary R&B and atmospheric pop.

Steve Lacy, founding member of the Grammy-nominated group the Internet, received a writing credit for “PRIDE.” Up-and-coming jazz superstars BadBadNotGood received a production credit for “Lust.”

Even Greg Kurstin, the music producer best known for helping Adele find her voice during the recording process of “25,” received a writing credit on “LOVE.,” the album’s most saccharine display of vulnerability and sentiment.

Expressing in a single review all that makes Kendrick Lamar’s “DAMN.” so damn amazing is difficult. This article does not touch on the extraordinary true story told on “DUCKWORTH.,” Kendrick’s still evolving understanding of the concept of blackness or even the ground-breaking visual artistry that is seen in the music video for “HUMBLE.” that was released before the album.

Ultimately, the world has come to love 29-year-old literary, musical and conceptual genius Kendrick Lamar because through the entirety of his career — even with all of the heavy themes, innovative concepts and expertly-told narratives — Kendrick’s albums are still the ones that listeners bump in the summer with shades on and the top down. Thankfully, Summer 2017 will be no different.

To those with superficial knowledge of DramaTech Theatre’s latest production, Joanne Bogart and Eric Rockwell’s “Musical of Musicals: the Musical!,” it must seem that the Institute’s theatrical community has gone completely mad.

The playbill reads like the pitch of a used car salesman cursed to always tell the truth. There are five ostensibly independent scenes that all have roughly the same plot. The five listed characters, who appear in each scene, are categorized by archetype.

The play bills itself as unremarkable, unoriginal and boring. In an alternative, depressing universe, this self-description might be the set up for an awful, unamusing evening. However, in this universe, it is the set up for something beautiful: satire.

The production sets itself the ambitious goal of mocking not just a few particular plays but rather theatre in its entirety. This goal makes the show so great: mocking an individual play would be mean, but mocking theatre as a whole turns out to be hilarious. While “Musical of Musicals” does mock a few specific plays, it is clear to the audience that its focus is on the wider world of drama instead of individual productions.

Through five different theatrical styles, the play examines the same clichéd plot: the Ingénue (Cassidy Ray) cannot pay the rent she owes the Villain (Sam Puckett), forcing her to seek advice from the Matron (Caroline Geckler) and eventually allowing the Hero (Mikael Bucknavage) to intervene romantically, paying the rent and saving the day.

While the production’s use of the repeated plot to mock clichéd characters and tropes is thought provoking and funny, the play’s greatest strength is the constancy of its humor. No moment in the show is left empty; when its writers are not making fun of a theatrical trope, they are dropping one-liners that leave the audience in tears of laughter.

This double-edged sword of inherently funny comedy that also holds deep meaning is wielded in the constant references made to corn during the play’s first scene. While the absurdity of watching characters obsess over corn is naturally funny, the audience is also aware that the Bogart and Rockwell are satirizing the emphasis placed on the American agricultural heartland in drama.

Likewise, while most members of the audience notice that the production is criticizing sexist archetypes through the Ingénue, they also cannot resist laughing at the absurd naiveté of Cassidy Ray’s character.

“Musical of Musicals” is the ideal satire: the audience knows exactly what the production is trying to do, yet they cannot help but be both amused and entertained when “Musical” does it. The play makes fun of everything wrong with theatre, from sexism to racism to plain old dryness, and it does it with beautiful taste and comedy.

The excellence of the production extends beyond Bogart and Rockwell’s perfect execution of satire. DramaTech’s cast and production crew elevate the experience from a funny and intellectually engaging musical to a properly entertaining evening.

Cassidy Ray plays a convincing Ingénue, and Mikael Bucknavage could not be more perfectly suited to the role of the hero. Caroline Geckler holds her own as the Matron, and Sam Puckett turns in an impressive performance as an absurdly sinister Villain.

The stars’ solid performances back up the play’s excellent satire, but the main cast is not the factor that truly sets the show apart. Rather, the pianist Robert Solomon and the Man Upstairs (James Nugent) steal the show with their hilarious and constant antics. While the two play tangential roles during the main scenes, they spar more like brothers than cast mates during breaks, leaving the audience in constant laughter even during the intermission.

Excellent production quality combines with a truly hilarious and stimulating play in a tribute to what is possible in theatre with little reliance upon plot. More importantly, however, the pairing forms an experience that is guaranteed to leave audiences laughing and thinking every time. “Musical of Musicals” runs again from April 20 through 22, and those who missed it during its first weekend should not hesitate to give it a try.

Some people treat honesty as a virtue. Charlamagne Tha God, host of radio show “The Breakfast Club,” treats honesty like armor. In his upcoming book, “Black Privilege: Opportunity Comes to Those Who Create It,” Charlamagne offers a blunt, humorous account of his life from his upbringing in South Carolina to reforming himself after drug-related arrests to becoming the “Howard Stern” of hip-hop and a social media tycoon.

Part biography and part self-help book, Charlamagne hopes his story will inspire readers to pursue their dreams and be realistic about their goals.

Born Lenard McKelvey in the small town of Moncks Corner, South Carolina, Charlamagne showed promise as a young elementary school student, but he later became caught up in selling drugs and causing trouble throughout middle and high school, which landed him in prison more than once and nearly fractured his relationship with
his parents.

After landing a job as an intern for a local radio station, Charlamagne found his calling in working as a DJ and giving his unfiltered, unabashed opinion on his show free of charge. From there, he co-hosted a morning show in New York with Wendy Williams and then went on to host “The Breakfast Club,” which is aired around the world, with Angela Yee and DJ Envy.

While his personal story reads like a funnier, slightly sordid rehash of the American Dream, the recurring theme in “Black Privilege” is honesty. For Charlamagne, placing importance on always speaking what he believed in started young.

“My father was always telling me that you’re not lying to the person, you’re actually lying to yourself. I figured early on that it’s always easier just to tell the truth,” Charlamagne said.

“I come from a town [where] we used to clown each other so hard. … Nothing was off limits. It was almost like we had to own things before somebody else uses it against us. It’s just weird. It’s kind of like one of those things where I just realized — voila! What’s the point of lying?”

Though the colorful anecdotes about Charlamagne’s father and ongoing relationship with his now-wife make for entertaining reading, the most powerful takeaway from “Black Privilege” is Charlamagne’s “PYP” philosophy. PYP stands for Pick Your ___, with the third P standing for Passion, Poison or Procrastination.

Using different stories from his life to illustrate each point, he urges readers that they have the choice between pursuing their dreams, getting caught up in their vices or not reaching for anything at all. Of all the stories in “Black Privilege,” the one Charlamagne hopes will stick with readers the most is “definitely looking at all the times I’ve been fired.” Charlamagne has been fired four times from four different radio stations, all for different reasons. Now, he is a host on one of the most popular radio shows in the country.

“I just knew radio was my passion, it was something I was willing to do for free,” he said. “It was something that I just couldn’t escape. … Even if you get fired, if it’s something that you love to do, you’ll wait for the next opportunity regardless of how big … or how small that opportunity is.”

This philosophy, Charlamagne stresses, is for everyone, regardless of the book’s title “Black
Privilege.”

“People will look at the title and think that it’s just a book for black people, but it’s not,”
Charlamagne said.

“I feel like anybody who’s ever felt marginalized, anybody who’s ever felt depressed, anybody who feels like they need an extra push when it comes to transcending their circumstances, I believe this book is for them. Because when I talk about the whole concept of privileges, I’m just telling people that my privilege is black because that’s what God made me. God made me a black male.

“You can have woman privilege, you can have gay privilege, you can have Asian privilege, whatever you are. It’s just a matter of embracing it and realizing that God gave you everything you need to succeed, in spite of all the obstacles.”

Charlamagne will be signing his book, “Black Privilege: Opportunity Comes to Those Who Create It.” A question and answer session will be moderated by Rodney Ho from the Atlanta Journal Constitution at the Barnes & Noble in Tech Square on Saturday, April 22, at 12:30 p.m.

On their Death of a Bachelor Tour, Panic! at the Disco stopped in Duluth to perform at the Infinite Energy Center on April 12. The pop rock band was touring in support of their single and album “Death of a Bachelor,” both of which were released last year.

The show featured two openers, the first of which was Saint Motel. Their entrance was marked with an old-fashioned NASA video featuring a voiceover of the band’s name and their “Saint Motelevision” album cover as a backdrop behind the stage. This album cover features a woman in a vintage swimsuit diving into a pool shaped like an old television.

On stage, the band had an old television showing the same retro videos and text as the venue’s big screens. Saint Motel’s performance was creative, tied together by an interesting theme and full of energy and crowd interaction. Particular highlights were a saxophone solo during “Destroyer” and the entire audience standing on their feet during “My Type.”

The next opener was Misterwives, an indie pop band best known for singles “Our Own House” and “Reflections.” An abundance of different colors and lighting effects made their set memorable. The band played multiple new songs from their upcoming album “Connect the Dots,” set to release in May, including the hit single “Machine.”

The band also covered “Same Drugs” by Chance the Rapper. Misterwives ended the set with the singer (Mandy Lee) and guitarist (Marc Campbell) playing drums along with the band’s main drummer (Etienne Bowler) to “Our Own House,” giving their set an epic finale.

After Misterwives, Panic! At the Disco’s crew readied the stage for their performance. With 10 minutes until their set, a timer appeared on screen that counted down the minutes and seconds left. Finally, the band stepped on stage at exactly 9 p.m. — or as a Panic! fan might say, nine in the afternoon.

The audience roared as guitarist Kenneth Harris played the opening chords of “Don’t Threaten Me with a Good Time.” Singer Brendon Urie brought a positive vibe with his smile and flashy outfit. When he hit the high notes, many of which are not in the studio recordings, the crowd
went wild.

The on-stage scenery changed on a song-by-song basis. Stage scenery always contained bright, detailed visuals on LCD screens as virtual stage props. The screens  would also occasionally show snippets of Panic! at the Disco music videos. Some songs featured fire shooting out of the steps surrounding the drumset, near where the band’s horns section would usually stand.

Performance highlights included the band freezing for a moment during “Miss Jackson,” and Urie then performing a backflip. A crowd favorite was a piano rendition of “This Is Gospel” played on a beautiful piano located near the back of the floor.

The piano was on an elevated platform and rotated to face all sides of the audience. After that performance, Urie performed the band’s Sinatra-inspired single “Death of a Bachelor” while walking through the audience to get back to the stage.

The band covered “Movin’ Out” by Billy Joel and “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen. The audience was especially loud during “Bohemian Rhapsody” with thousands of people singing along. Another highlight was when Urie played a drum outro during “Let’s Kill Tonight” before drumming to a mashup of Rihanna and Bruno Mars songs.

One of the most magical moments of the night was during the song “Girls Girls Boys.” Before the show, Panic! fans had placed different colored hearts on all 13,000 seats in the arena. During this pro-LGBT song, audience members held their hearts on top of their phone flashlights, thus beautifully lighting up the room in rainbow colors. Brendon gave a speech about how this “love displayed right here” was inspiring and proved love would trump hate in what he called an important time in history.

Before the band’s last couple of songs, Panic!’s crew came on-stage to sing “Happy Birthday” to Urie, who turned 30 on the day of the show. The crew also fired confetti guns at Urie. This energetic party atmosphere encapsulated much of what was special about the entire concert. The bands seemed to enjoy themselves and the killer production and audience enthusiasm contributed to a show that outshone many previous concerts.