‘Got Talent’ Never Lets Us Down

Girls Preparatory School’s Frierson Theater was packed Sunday afternoon, more than 15 minutes before the start of the 17th annual Got Talent show. Parking spaces outside were filled. The entrances to the theater were filled with standing students, parents and McCallie and GPS faculty and staffers all trying to find an empty seat.

So it was only fitting that the event’s opening act, McCallie’s Black Box Rock Band, expertly performed the 1969 Beatles tune “Don’t Let Me Down,” because Got Talent never lets you down.

This year’s show featured 14 total acts, evenly split between seven GPS offerings and seven McCallie performances. The audience voted the $500 first prize to the seven-girl ensemble group of GPS juniors known as GLOVERILLA, who performed a dance in all-black attire on a darkened stage wearing black gloves with twinkling lights attached. All you could see were the lights moving to different dance tunes.

As one member said afterward in describing the group, “We’re just seven girls, 14 gloves and a dream.”

Now that dream includes an extra $71.43 in each member’s pocket. Not bad since a quick search of the Internet found pairs of such gloves range in price from $7 to $10. The group also said it’s available to perform at weddings, birthday parties and such.

Noted McCallie senior and co-emcee Joseph McGee of GLOVERILLA’s performance, “I think we can all agree that was Gloverly.”

But so were the other 13 acts, co-emcee and GPS senior Lily Bernard, roving reporter Jeffrey Stubblefield, a McCallie seventh-grader, and special performers Sean Clark, last year’s winner, and Oliver Lyons.

As has always been the case at Got Talent, a performer cannot repeat as champion, but Clark’s soaring cover of Radiohead’s “Creep” would have been tough to top if he’d been allowed to compete. And Lyons’ guitar cover of a Van Halen number was equally polished.

Radiohead numbers were featured twice in the show, once by Clark, and once by GPS seventh-grader Ryan Mahone, who sang “Fake Plastic Trees” while playing her guitar.

A whopping eight Middle Schoolers total were on the card, seemingly more than in past years, which makes the future for the event look brighter than ever.

The first of those, GPS sixth-grader Giugi Miller, brought down the house with a rousing rendition of the Katy Perry anthem “Roar.” 

McCallie eighth-grader Taylor Brown then wowed the crowd with his yo-yo efforts. Soon, it was GPS seventh-grader Charlotte Darr’s time to take the stage with a dance number backed by Gwen Stefani’s “Wind It Up.”

Darr wound up winning $100 for the best Middle School performance of the afternoon.

“I started working on it in August,” she said. How many hours did she work on it? “About four hours a week,” added Darr, whose brother Cooper is a McCallie eighth grader and whose father, Paul, graduated from McCallie in 1998.

So how will Darr spend her prize money?

“Not sure,” she said. “I’ll probably save half of it.”

One of the most compelling performances of the afternoon came from GPS seventh-grader Evanne Early, who only enrolled in GPS around a month ago. Encouraged by her mother to enter Got Talent, she delivered a magical effort singing “Part of Your World” from Disney’s The Little Mermaid.

Asked what she liked most about GPS to this point, she said, “Everything.”

Though it sometimes didn’t seem like it, there were Upper School performers from both schools. McCallie senior Lee Fiorello and ninth-grader Ben Morris combined to sing the Julio Iglesias/Willie Nelson song “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before.” The Black Box Rock Band was all US members: senior Oliver Lyons, junior Thomas Harden, sophomore Cullen Pratt, and freshman Kody Wright. McCallie junior Alejandro Mendoza also struck all the right chords with his cover of “Feel Good Inc.” by Gorillaz.

Then there were GPS sophomores Alyana Steadman and Lucy Lydon, whose duet of the Wicked song “For Good” earned them the runner-up prize of $125.

The two good friends chose the song about a month ago but said the first time they’d performed it together was the first rehearsal a little over a week ago.

A final trio of Middle Schoolers showcased the talent sure to be on display next year and beyond. McCallie seventh-grader Eason Herrmann rocked the Justin Bieber hit “That Should Be Me.” Fellow seventh-grader Oliver Harr, who stole the show in the spring production of “Newsies” last year on this same Frierson stage, perfectly executed Coldplay’s “Fix You.” And GPS sixth-grader Abby Turcotte was amazing singing Leanna Crawford’s “Psalm 23.”

Asked why she chose that song, Turcotte, who sings at her church almost every Sunday, told emcees Bernard and McGee, “My mom and I were having a bad day and this song came on in the car.”

The final act of the day consisted of McCallie senior Elijah Cooper singing and playing guitar on “Alone” (Trampled by Turtles) and “Suit and Jacket” (Judah and the Lion) accompanied by fellow senior Ben Anz on piano and vocals. They wound up winning third place and $75.

Said Cooper afterward, a sentiment surely echoed by most of the acts almost every year: “I was really happy with our performance. It was much better than in the rehearsals.”

They always are.

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Click here to view photos from Got Talent 2026.