By Tolga Sahin | Intern
The curtain may rise in February, but for the members of Baylor’s Student Productions Committee, the work behind All-University Sing begins long before taking the stage.
By the time people enter Waco Hall, the executive producer has already spent nearly nine months coordinating themes, approving songs, reviewing costumes and relaying notes between organizations and Waco Hall staff. The process requires as much logistical precision as it does creativity.
Renee Hayes, executive student producer for Sing, said the process begins almost immediately after the previous year’s show closes.
“I started this process in May,” Hayes said. “We do theme and song approvals in June, so basically my whole summer is just doing that for every single group.”
The theme approval process alone involves cross-referencing every submission against a list spanning, so that organizations do not repeat a theme within a four-year window. Once it is confirmed, the submissions are forwarded to a committee of Baylor faculty and staff for final approval before communicating results back to each organization’s Sing chairs. Songs go into a similar review — lyrics may change during this process.
Once the school year begins, the coordination shifts to a weekly rhythm. Hayes holds a signature meeting every Wednesday to walk organizations through upcoming deadlines and explain how to fulfill requirements related to costumes, props and backdrops, all of which must receive her sign-off before appearing on stage.
“I’m basically approving everything that goes on that stage,” Hayes said. “It’s a big communication process.”
That communication is handled in various directions. Individual acts each have a student producer who serves as a direct point of contact, meaning Hayes is rarely reaching out to performers themselves, but is instead fielding questions from producers and routing answers back through the appropriate channels.
The weeks immediately preceding the show intensify significantly. Hayes attends every tech rehearsal at Waco Hall, often arriving around 4:30 p.m. and staying past midnight for post-production meetings where staff and advisers exchange notes on each performance. She said no show is ever truly the same, even when the acts are.
“We give notes, and then I relay those notes to the producers, and they relay them to the Sing chairs,” Hayes said. “It’s never really finished.”
Though she is also a film major and credits her academic training for sharpening her communication and time management skills, Hayes emphasized that the show’s success is never the result of any single person’s effort.
“It really does take a village to do this show,” Hayes said. “There’s Waco Hall team, there’s my adviser, there’s the producers, the stagehands, the ushers, a live orchestra — there’s just so many people that make this happen. I’m just a small part in the bigger picture.”
That sentiment has long resonated at every level of Student Productions. Park City, Utah, then-junior Andrea Boyce, who served as internal vice president of Student Productions in 2023, told The Lariat that the months-long investment makes the final product all the more meaningful.
“I’ve been working with my groups since about the end of June,” Boyce said. “Sitting at open stage and watching an act that I’ve been helping or assisting with for a very long time come to life is the best part, hands down.”
All-University Sing is traditionally held the last two weekends of February.
