By Emily Cedre
Vincent van Gogh was a renowned artist whose pieces are on display across the world. Throughout his life, Van Gogh struggled with mental illness and feelings of separation from the rest of humanity. His works like “The Starry Night,” “Café Terrace at Night,” “Sunflowers” and others, in tandem with his life’s story, evoke powerful emotion in many who see them. Based out of a city in Texas with the same name, Melissa High School’s 2025 production, “Someday You’ll Understand” explored these topics.
The Director of Melissa High School’s Scholastic A Class Winter Guard team, Clay Singletary, said that the show concept arose from their music selection, and from assessing the talent of their 2025 team.
“Our show was inspired by the song, ‘Meaning’ by Cascadeur,” said Singletary. “The tone, feeling and lyrics of the song really propelled the concept to the forefront. In the beginning, we hear the lyrics, ‘I’m a strange man. Like a ranger. I’m invisible. Like a monster.’ This entire build from beginning into our first…ensemble moment helps portray the spirit of Van Gogh, and utilization of tension and turmoil as we build into our first impact.”
The title of the show, “Someday You’ll Understand,” came from the song’s lyrics.
“Our show title is inspired from a quote…within the chorus lyrics, ‘But someday you’ll understand. The meaning of my life. But someday you’ll understand. The meaning of this world,’” said Singletary. “We utilize the visual and emotional feeling of isolation, by purposely excluding at least one individual in every ensemble moment to emphasize the hope and longing of acceptance.”
The team had costumes, props, and flags inspired by the 1850s to the 1890s, which is the time period when Van Gogh completed most of his well-known paintings.
“We have two flags in our 2025 production, the first of which showcases the color of yellow,” said Singletary. “It is believed that Van Gogh felt that yellow was the only color that would bring himself happiness during his troubling times. The second flag in our show, hints at the coloration, texture, and design of one of Van Gogh’s most famous works, ‘The Starry Night.’ Our props and floor really bring to life our show this season as we utilized canvases, easels, and boxes. Our floor is a digital construction or montage of letters that Van Gogh would write to his brother, Theo. Our boxes, easels and canvases provide stages and texture within the production to showcase a series of…self reflections of Van Gogh. As the show progresses, we reveal canvas by canvas from a grayscale outline to the final canvas full of color, at the conclusion of the show.”
Singletary reflected on how surreal it felt to watch his team perform during Scholastic A Class finals.
“This team truly is the embodiment of selfless young adults,” said Singletary. “Our hearts are full of pride, gratitude, and love for each other and this activity. We were at our hotel when finals [qualifications] were announced. We saw where we were placed heading into finals and it felt so dreamlike. Being in and watching is already an amazing experience for all, but performing within those walls is a once in a lifetime experience. Once it was our turn to go into our finals night rotation of warmups, the students were equal parts prepared, excited, nervous, tired and passionate. At the conclusion of finals awards and the presentation of medals, and lots of tears, hugs and pictures, we all forgot that we had been up almost twenty hours.”
At awards, Melissa High School was crowned the silver medalist in the Scholastic A Class division, the largest classification to compete at the WGI World Championships. They had made school history.
“Thinking back on it, the whole experience from start to finish still feels like a dream. For all of our students this year, this was the first time they have all participated and competed at WGI World Championships,” said Singletary. “We set out to participate at Worlds this past year to give the students a [great] experience and show them a whole new side of the activity. It was a year of many firsts for them, from the sheer experience of the trip, to it even being some of the student’s first time on an airplane. Watching their eyes light up may have been my personal favorite part. Our community works very hard, and takes a lot of pride in our town of Melissa, Texas, and the team was elated by the feeling of support from the school, town and community on their accomplishments.”
When looking back on the season in its entirety, Singletary said that this season changed the staff and athletes for the better.
“What we will carry with us forever are the moments in between the trophies–the laughter in rehearsals, the tears during critiques, the courage it took to be vulnerable with each other, and the unwavering belief the students had in themselves and in this program,” reflected Singletary. “They became more than a team; they became a family. They made each other better. They made me better. We couldn’t have done any of this without the support of our school district, administration, band staff and, most importantly, our amazing parents.”
About the author:
Emily Cedre works as a content creator for OneTouch Direct in Tampa, Florida. She graduated from the University of South Florida with a bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications with a concentration in Broadcast Programming and Production. She also minored in Psychology. She began color guard in her junior year of high school, was a captain of Sunlake High School’s Open Class team and has since spun for the University of South Florida.
