Neeltje Kackar ’26 (she/they) is a Physics/Comp Sci double major, and is aiming to visit every club/organization at W&M by the end of her senior year. In her previous little free time, she loves to code hobby projects in Python and Rust, and she loves to make sure her “Invite Me To Your Clubs” flyers are on top at Swemromas. Email her at misc@wmclubs.blog.
The views expressed in the article are the author’s own.
Hiya, I’m Neeltje Kackar (Class of ’26)! I’m writing a series of opinion articles for The Flat Hat intended to highlight some of the best clubs I’ve been to. My hope is that by writing these articles I can contribute to a sense of extracurricular connection among students at the College of William and Mary, and help peers find interests that they never would have had otherwise.
For those of you who don’t know, the Satanic Mechanics is a fairly large club at the College which is dedicated to producing a production of the Rocky Horror Picture Show every semester/year.
On the evening of Sunday, Sept. 11, I was walking around the second wing of the first floor in the Integrated Science Center when suddenly I heard loud whooping from the vents. I quickly deduced that the sound was coming from upstairs, and the fact that the cheering was punctuated by music intrigued me. So, I went to the second floor classroom where my Data Structures class takes place every Monday morning, and lo and behold, there were at least 30 people in the room, with the aforementioned loud music and cheering taking place right before I entered.
After sitting on the side of the room for about 20 minutes, I began to understand what was happening: the exec team at the projector played a short clip of weirdly dressed people from YouTube, and then audience members went up and copied the YouTube people, as if they were auditioning for the role. Every time that 3-4 of the auditioners finished their performance, the audience members conducted a blind vote for whoever acted out the YouTube clip best. In a strange urge, even though I had no clue what prize was being competed for, and even though I’d never performed anything theater-like for anyone, I wanted to try.
At the first opportunity, when the execs asked for volunteers to come to the front, I dropped my bag at my seat and walked to the front. The exec team asked each of us to introduce ourselves and share a fun fact about us, and when it came to my turn, I shared the normal formalities. Somewhat surprisingly, when I said I had absolutely no idea what the name of the club was, let alone what I was competing for, the audience not only laughed, but cheered. That was quite possibly the best reception I’ve gotten from any club for any reason, and I was ecstatic. Later in the evening, when I had mostly realized what was going on, I decided to audition again for a different video. However, I knew I was no good at acting out scenes, so I simply spun in a circle for two minutes. This netted some of the biggest laughter of the night, and when I was done, I knew that even though I didn’t win the competition, this was going to be one of the best moments of my Every Club Journey™.
To recap: the Satanic Mechanics held an audition for character roles in their upcoming Rocky Horror Picture Show performance, and even though I had no clue what I was doing when I auditioned, it ended up being quite possibly the most fulfilling hour-and-a-half in my college experience. Even if you aren’t interested in acting, I highly recommend you go to their auditions and their show at the end of the semester.