By Give Me My Money
Where’s the Money, Dale
In February of 2020, Professor of Theatre and Director of the Daniel Z. Gibson Center for the Arts Dale Daigle, in front of the whole Department of Theatre and Dance and the eyes of God, made a promise that the student who could make him laugh the most that semester, would win a $100 bill.
Senior Will Reid was present at the meeting and said “So Dale Daigle rummaged through his wallet and pulled out a $100 bill and said any student who could make him laugh the most this semester would win either an automatic theatre degree or the $100. He handed the money to [Associate Professor of Theatre Brendon Fox] for safekeeping. We all looked around the rooms like we were at the Cornucopia for ‘The Hunger Games’ because we all wanted the same thing — that $100.”
“I remember looking in the room for a weapon to use against people to claim my prize. I only found a book to thwack someone with or a poster to initiate paper cuts. I was on the balls of my feet ready to go at any moment. Thankfully, we were all smart enough to avoid bloodshed… for the moment,” Reid said.
Unfortunately, Reid would not go on to win the $100 prize.
Shockingly Daigle declared that there were two winners, both of which were sophomores who had been in his Introduction to Acting course, were both in the play he directed “8×10,” and both had him as an academic advisor: Clown Zachary Papatheodorou and beloved Elm Student Life Editor, and according to Fox “a true renaissance woman” Emma Russell — that’s me.
“The day I found out Emma and Zach had won, I admit, I was shocked. Zach was a frontrunner because, well just talk to him for two minutes and you’ll see why. But Emma, Emma had defied all the odds and claimed the throne. It was at this moment that I vowed to never underestimate Emma, or her apparent talents, ever again,” Reid said.
In order to try and win the money Papatheodorou would “just jingle my keys in front of the camera, and Daigle would just giggle and babble and try to grab at them every time.”
Papatheodorou is currently in the production “She Kills Monsters: Virtual Realms” by Qui Nguyen directed by none other than Daigle and senior Patrick Salerno.
“I haven’t learned my lines yet and so [Daigle] sometimes yells at me, but luckily the keys thing works there,” Papatheodorou.
How did I win the comedy competition, you might ask?
Simple, I merely recreated scenes from the best comedy movie of all time, “Twilight.”
Despite the fact that Daigle announced the winners at the end of the last spring semester, he has yet to pay up, despite false claims he made to both me and Papatheodorou in an email he sent last November.
On his plans on getting the money he won, Papatheodorou simply said, “Oh, I have a baseball bat.”
As the other winner I asked Papatheodorou if he would be open to the idea of forming an alliance with me, so we can both track down Daigle to get our money. He responded by saying “No. I don’t like dividing the loot.”
Papathedorou is planning to take all the cash for himself, and to that I say get ready bucko because I own a katana that I got for $10 at a yard sale, and I will dropkick you directly into the sun.
Daigle, my Venmo is @Emma-Russell-Duda. I will be waiting.