For more than two decades, music students at Traverse City Central High School ended the school year with Rendezvous at the Jazz Club, a pop music showcase concert which doubled as a celebratory send-off for graduating seniors. That tradition sunsetted years ago, with the last Rendezvous shows occurring in the late 2010s. This week, though, students will work to resurrect the spirit of Rendezvous, with a similar musical revue show called “Spotlight” taking the Central auditorium stage Friday night at 7pm.

Senior Isla Falconer was only in sixth grade when Rendezvous had its final curtain call, but the legend of the end-of-the-year showcase still piqued her interest when she got to high school. A member of Central’s choral and musical theater communities – she played the lead role in the school’s 2024 musical Anything Goes, and was a top-10 finalist in the statewide Italian Songs and Arias Vocal Competition this spring – Falconer says she simply wanted an extra performance opportunity on the calendar.

“I’d heard a lot about Rendezvous, and this year, I just decided that I wanted to bring it back,” Falconer says. “Our choir directors didn’t really want to support that, so we decided to make it a completely student-run event, and it became a new opportunity based on what I heard about Rendezvous, where we all have another chance to sing and perform together.”

Created by former Central High School choir director Jeff Cobb in 1998, Rendezvous, at its peak, incorporated hundreds of students from across the choir, band, and orchestra departments, as well as pupils from the school’s sound production class. The show involved a rigorous audition process, a full band, and a three-night performance slate, with song selections ranging from jazz standards to classic rock staples to modern pop hits.

Falconer’s version, called “Spotlight,” is a significantly scaled-down production: a one-night-only, 20-song program with a smaller number of students and a focus on Broadway showtunes. A press release for the event promises selections from beloved musicals like Wicked, Hamilton, and Les Misérables.

Even with a smaller scope, Falconer says putting together a Rendezvous-like production without the full backing of Central's music department has proved “tricky.”

“There are so many little technical difficulties to consider,” she tells The Ticker. “For instance, if you want to collect donation money – which we do – you have to have two TCAPS staff members there to count the money. There are just a lot of little things that are hard to do without a teacher directly involved, and we’ve been working on this show since fall, just to iron out all those details.”

Fortunately, Falconer was able to find a lot of allies – and not just among her fellow performing arts students. Key behind-the-scenes players included Minda Nyquist, the theater teacher at West Senior High, who came in to provide choreography assistance; and Central High School Principal Ben Berger, who offered guidance for how students could mount their own event on school property.

“Spotlight has been a fun thing to watch grow,” Berger says. “Our music program is wonderful in all that they do, and students leading the charge on this event shows the desire they have to allow Central High School students another opportunity to perform. The more kids we can get participating in any extra-curricular or co-curricular activity the better. My job is easy: to give them the clear operating procedures they must follow and then get out of the way.”

For Falconer, bound for New York University this fall to pursue a performance major, Spotlight has proven a crash course in all the aspects of putting on a show. Now she wants to pay that opportunity forward to the next generations of local arts students.

First, while the Spotlight show doesn’t have a formal ticket price, there is a $5 suggested donation, with all proceeds going toward the Young Company program at Old Town Playhouse. That program, the “educational arm” of OTP, offers classes, workshops, camps, and performance opportunities for northern Michigan kids aged 5-18.

Second, Falconer is hopeful that current or incoming underclassmen at Central will carry Spotlight forward in future years, perhaps even building it into the annual springtime tradition that Rendezvous used to be.

“I really think there are never too many performance opportunities for students,” Falconer says of Spotlight. “I remember coming in my freshman year, as part of the ensemble in the musical Crazy for You, and feeling intimidated by all the seniors. But I ended up having so much fun working with them, and working my way through this program. Being able to be a senior now and to lead something like this, that feels really special to me. And I just really hope that people who are freshmen now, or maybe even younger, can look at this thing we put together ourselves, and be inspired to carry it forward.”