Lead actor in musical was sick during performance week
By Elena Chamberlain, Current Staff
For his first lead role in a high school musical, West Bend West ninth grader Keegan Kainz sacrificed seven pounds. Continue reading
Category Archives: Entertainment
Take My Temperature, Baby, One More Time
Filed under Entertainment
Introducing the All-District Strings Festival
By Elise Marlett, Current Staff
The orchestra program is putting on their largest performance in history. Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment, School News and Features
Movie Review: I Lost My Body
By Brandon Labecki, Current Staff
Among this year’s Oscar nominees is a gripping animated film from France that depicts the extreme aspects of the trials of life. Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment
Don’t Resist the New “Dark Crystal” Series
Prequel series honors the original film
By Brandon Labecki, Current Staff
Netflix recently released “The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance,” a series that expands the creative world of 1982’s “The Dark Crystal.” That begs the question, how does the new show compare to the original film? Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment
Milwaukee Film Festival Review: The Ground Beneath My Feet
By Brandon Labecki, Current Staff
Sometimes the most interesting films to examine are the ones that are closest to reality. Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment
East Grad Worked Behind the Scenes at the Milwaukee Film Festival
Twenty short film collections are included in this year’s Milwaukee Film Festival
By Samantha Dietel, Editor in Chief
Moviegoers may have a West Bend graduate to thank for the forthcoming Milwaukee Film Festival’s setlist of short films. Continue reading
Filed under Community, Entertainment
Aw, Snap! She’s Never Seen a Marvel Movie
By Justin Scherzer, Current Staff
While the whole world lined up to see the ever-anticipated “Avengers: Endgame,” one West Bend student opted to save her money.
In the past decade, there have been 22 hit films released in the massively successful Marvel Cinematic Universe, but East High School senior Grace Peplinski has never seen a single one. Below, Peplinski explains how she lives life without superheroes. Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment
West Bend Talent Included in Lake Country Film Festival Lineup
By Justin Scherzer, Current Staff
Three future film directors may currently be walking the halls of the West Bend High Schools. Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment, School News and Features
Trumpet Player Selected for Statewide Touring Revue
By Grace Peplinski, Current Staff
While most kids will be spending their summer hanging out with friends, one West Bend trumpet player will be touring with a distinguished music group. Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment, School News and Features
Where’s Walter?
The face of visiting orchestra director Walter Muelling can be found in a beloved WBHS mural
By Lily Mottet, Current Staff
West Bend High Schools orchestra students never imagined the man painted in their classroom was based on a previous student. Or that the student would return to West Bend 13 years later. Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment, School News and Features
Vandalism Won’t Spoil Black History Month Celebration
Teju the Storyteller headlines Thursday’s event
By Elise Marlett, Current Staff
The leader of the West Bend High Schools multicultural club was in disbelief when she saw what had been done. Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment, School News and Features
‘Roswell, New Mexico’ Hits a Wall
Sci-fi show wastes its potential for political allegory
The CW’s “Roswell, New Mexico” is another attempt to keep the “The Vampire Diaries” magic going. Now that that’s out of the way, we can talk about the series’ political message. Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment, Viewpoint
WBHS Presents First Children’s Play in 11 Years
By Rachel Gergetz, Current Staff
The upcoming play “Junie B. Jones is Not a Crook” is a novelty for the West Bend High Schools. Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment, School News and Features
Welcome to the Dollhouse
WBHS graduate designed the artwork for this year’s Milwaukee Film Festival
By Samantha Dietel, Editor in Chief
For Melissa Johnson, working with the Milwaukee Film Festival meant designing a dollhouse. Continue reading
Filed under Community, Entertainment
Game Review: This is the Police II
A cold case reopened
By Robert Pulford, Current Staff
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: “An upstanding cast of police officers find out that there’s someone in the force who’s corrupt, but as they dig deeper into the case, they find that the corruption goes a lot further up the chain than they bargained for.” Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment
Dolphins Make Waves at School Board Meeting
Synchronized swimming team successfully petitions the district to overturn lighting directive
By Mattie Zautner, Current Staff
Over 60 dolphins swam into the last school board meeting.
Members of the Dolphins, the West Bend High Schools’ synchronized swim team, crashed the April 9 school board meeting to persuade district officials to allow the natatorium lights to be turned off during their show scheduled to open just three days later. Traditionally the show depends upon a darkened room for effect, but this school year the team had been notified that the lights could not be turned off for safety reasons. Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment, School News and Features, Sports
Waking Toward Greatness
Video game review: ‘Hearts of Iron IV’
By Robert Pulford, Current Staff
World War 2 is, if unintentionally, the perfect time period for war games. Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment, Viewpoint
Come for No Nonsense, Stay for Coffee
Student band will perform at the Hub’s ribbon cutting ceremony
By Jessica Steger, Editor in Chief
No Nonsense is making its big break into the community.
The band will help kick off the ribbon cutting ceremony for the Hub Thursday at noon. The Hub is a coffee shop opened by the Washington County Volunteer Center on Water Street in West Bend. There have been several soft openings, and a weekend-long Grand Opening will begin May 17. The ribbon cutting marks the beginning of regular business hours. Continue reading
Filed under Community, Entertainment, School News and Features
The Secret Rock Life of a Guidance Counselor
By Samantha Dietel, Current Staff
This Friday, Kara Phillips will be stepping away from the typical lifestyle of a high school guidance counselor to pick up a microphone.
Phillips, a counselor at West Bend East High School, is the lead singer of the local rock band Love Handle. She and her band will be performing at 8 p.m. Friday inside Pillars Pub, which will be the group’s first gig since December. Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment, School News and Features
Pencil, Ink and Digital Paint: East Grad Has Ties to Oscar Nominees
Rory Kurtz is an award-winning illustrator
By Jessica Steger, Editor in Chief
West Bend East High School alumnus Rory Kurtz has a personal reason for hoping “Baby Driver” wins an Oscar on Sunday.
Kurtz, an illustrator who graduated from East in 1997, created the official movie poster for “Baby Driver.” He also produced the alternative key art for “I, Tonya,” another Oscar nominee. Kurtz creates art for many clients, including Mondo-Alamo Drafthouse and well-known publications such as the New Yorker and Rolling Stone. Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment
‘Keep the Crowd Rocking’: West Bend Bands Bring the Rock and Jazz
By Rachel Gergetz, Current Staff
The No Nonsense Brass Band thinks its new song will wow the crowd Wednesday at the third annual Rock & Jazz Fest. Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment, School News and Features
WBHS Will Celebrate Black History
February is Black History Month
By Kaitlyn Von Behren, Current Staff
Black History Month will be celebrated at the West Bend High Schools for the first time this year.
About 20 WBHS students will perform Feb. 8 in a Black History Month Celebration in the Silver Lining Arts Center. Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment, School News and Features
Why the OG Grinch is the Best Grinch
Chuck Jones’ “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” brings the iconic art and rhymey dialogue of Dr. Seuss to life, while adding plenty of its own flavor to the fife.
While there are many a Christmas cartoon made in the West, let me tell you why the original “Grinch” is the best. Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment, Viewpoint
West Bend Theatre Company Begins Its Christmas Future at WBHS
‘A Christmas Carol’ is coming to the Silver Lining Arts Center
By Sydney Spaeth and Priyanka Trivedi, Current Staff
After seven years of performances at the Masonic Lodge, the West Bend Theatre Company is moving its annual production of “A Christmas Carol” to the West Bend High Schools.
By joining with WBHS, the producers hope the show will become an annual fundraiser for high school students. Fifty percent of the proceeds from “A Christmas Carol” will benefit WBHS choir students by allowing them to travel and produce high-level musicals and performances. Both the directors and students participating in the performance are excited to see how the show will turn out now that it has been moved to the high school. Continue reading
Filed under Community, Entertainment, School News and Features
The Good Actor
The creator of “House” returns to the prim and sterile halls of a metropolitan hospital in ABC’s “The Good Doctor.”
“So what separates this from the 7 billion other doctor shows that ape ‘House’?,” I hear you ask. Well, dear viewer, the Good Doctor in question, Shaun Murphy, has savant syndrome autism. The series is centered on Shaun and his struggle just to interact with his patients and fellow doctors. Much like “House” before it, that dynamic is where “The Good Doctor” shines. Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment, Viewpoint
House of the Three-Quarter Round
The crew builds the set for “House of the Seven Gables.” The set was designed to give audiences a unique experience close to the action. Photo by Justin Scherzer, Current Staff.
By Justin Scherzer, Current Staff
The West Bend High Schools’ fall theatrical production will be a significant deviation from their usual shows as the audience will be seated directly on stage for a tale of greed, love and murder.
Director Tonya Fordham and her theatrical cast and crew will put on Vin Morreale Jr.’s play “House of the Seven Gables” Nov. 16-18 at the Silver Lining Arts Center. However, contrary to the majority of productions they put on, this play will be in black box style, meaning the audience will be seated on stage with the performers. Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment
Milwaukee Film Festival Review: Jasper Jones
By Grace Peplinski, Current Staff
In “Jasper Jones,” a young man balanced on the edge between childhood and adolescence discovers a dark secret in his pristine hometown of Corrigan, Australia.
This interesting, impactful movie is just one of the many foreign and domestic films playing in this year’s Milwaukee Film Festival, which started Sept. 28. Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment
‘I Knew I Would Regret It If I Didn’t Go’: Two WBHS Students Audition for American Idol
By Jessica Steger, Editor in Chief
“American Idol” is making a comeback, and this time it has local connections. Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment, School News and Features
The Radio Stars
By Gabrielle Diaz, Current Staff
The familiar voices from the West Bend High Schools’ public announcements are now being heard on local radio.
West junior Andrew Haese and East senior Lydia Spettel can be heard on 101.3 WIBD talking about events happening in the community and the schools at 6:45 a.m. every Tuesday morning. Listeners can also find Haese daily on his own station, A100 Radio. Continue reading
Filed under Community, Entertainment, School News and Features
Basically Belle
East junior brings Disney love to Autism Walk/Run
By Mattie Zautner, Current Staff
Her yellow gown twirled around her feet as she danced the night away with her beast.
For as long as she can remember, Gabby Diaz, a junior at West Bend East High School, has loved the Disney princess Belle. This obsession inspired Diaz to dress up as Belle for a recent Autism Walk/Run, attend prom wearing a dress similar to Belle’s gown and start her own party entertainment business. Her princess career has already begun and she plans on continuing to be a role model to all the little girls and boys out there. Continue reading
Filed under Community, Entertainment, School News and Features
Family of Composers
Siblings will perform original songs at Friday’s talent show
By Mattie Zautner, Current Staff
“Why Do I Like You?” and “Diamond Eyes.”
These two songs cannot be found on a Billboard Top 10 list because they were composed by West Bend West High School students Victoria and Sebastian Hunt. Their love of music inspired each sibling to write original songs to perform in this year’s WBHS Talent Show. The show is at 7 p.m. Friday in the Silver Lining Arts Center. Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment, School News and Features
“13 Reasons Why”: Honorable Yet Flawed
Making television for teens is easy, making television about teens is herculean.
Netflix’s “13 Reasons Why” is about the 13 reasons why a high school girl named Hannah Baker committed suicide. The events of the story are told through recorded tapes that Hannah made before her death and through her friend Clay in the aftermath of her death. It’s surprising to see entertainment aimed at teens actually tackle a subject that’s relevant to them, but it does make it inherently difficult to discuss because of its subject matter. The dodgy execution of the series doesn’t help either. Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment, Viewpoint
West Bend’s Rising Star: Savanna Rose
East junior nominated for Wisconsin Area Music Industry award
By Hannah Bensen, Editor in Chief
Many young musicians dream of winning a Grammy Award one day. Savanna Bonlender may not have received a Grammy quite yet, but she has the chance to win a prestigious award. Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment
ABC’s “Time After Time” Won’t Stand the Test of Time
“Time After Time” is a character-driven drama built on drama-less characters.
On paper, especially if you have prior knowledge about the show’s concept, what I just said must seem silly. After all, how can that be true about a series featuring time travel author H.G. Wells actually traveling through time to stop Jack the Ripper from ripping in modern times? Well, you throw out any personality or perspective that those two characters might have and replace it with public enemy number one of television, teenage drama writing. Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment, Viewpoint
The Music of “La La Land” Deserves Oscar Recognition
VIEWPOINT
The movie’s soundtrack is both contemporary and timeless
By Kara Conley, Current Staff
Winning seven Golden Globes is a miraculous feat in the film industry, but the success of “La La Land” doesn’t stop there.
Damien Chazelle’s modern-day musical continues to captivate audiences, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences took notice of its beauty, nominating “La La Land” for 12 Academy Awards. One of the awards “La La Land” is in contention for this weekend is Best Original Music Score. The film’s composer, Justin Hurwitz, has created musical mastery with a nostalgic sound that is refreshing to ears engulfed in a contemporary cacophony. Continue reading
Filed under Entertainment, Viewpoint
The West Bend Current 