Every year, the most important members of the Step Sing audience are the judges. They are the ones everyone is performing for, and they face the pressure of determining who will be known as the greatest people on campus next year.
The judges are typically a panel of different people with some connection to Step Sing, music, theater or dance. They are split between the Friday and Saturday night shows. Judges are given a scorecard for each group with multiple categories.
“Although each judge is selected for his or her experience in a specific area, each judge gives a score in every category. The combination of these opinions rewards the most well-rounded group that is both technically proficient and entertaining,” the Step Sing Committee said in the 2025 program.
The program broke down how each group is judged. They are evaluated on entertainment value, musical quality, choreography, theme development and creativity. Entertainment value has the highest point value, and creativity has the lowest. Additionally, each show’s highest and lowest scores are dropped, and the middle scores are averaged to provide the final score.
For last year’s 75th anniversary, all 16 judges were Samford and Step Sing Alumni. Celebrity Chef and Samford Alum, James Briscione, was on the judges’ panel last year.
“It was funny, you know, seeing this kind of being a part of all of it again, we were forced to do it as pledges and underclassmen for Sigma Chi, but we actually had a good group and we had a lot of fun with it. We never took it too seriously. We wanted to put on a good show, but we were really having fun with it.” said Briscione.
Another Samford alum that was asked to judge was award-winning show choir director, Kacey Mixon.
“I wrote and directed the freshman class show that won sweepstakes my freshman year, then directed ADPi’s show for three years, and also served on committee my freshman year,” said Mixon.
The judges were asked early in the school year whether they would like to be on the panel.
“I was honored and surprised to be asked but it was really unexpected and very exciting,” Briscione said.
While Briscione was unsure of his qualification to be a Step Sing judge, he found that his experience judging cooking competitions on The Food Network prepared him for Step Sing.
“If you have to judge six dishes lined up in front of you and you taste through each one or if you have 12 chefs competing and you get their plates one at a time. So actually really it is a skill and a process you learn like kind of that evaluation process and apply that to the shows.” Briscione said.
While all of the judges had a history with Step Sing, Mixon has one of the most impressive resumes for being a judge. She has directed multiple winning show choir shows and said that Step Sing helped her discover her talent for directing choirs. Her experience gave her more insight into judging Step Sing and, in turn, helped her mindset entering the show choir competition season a few months later.
“It helped me remember that everybody is human on both sides of this table. It was good for me to go and see kids enjoy singing and dancing, just for the sheer delight of it,” Mixon said.
Both Briscione and Mixon were pleased with last year’s top three winners. Although they will not be judges, they are excited to see which shows will be put on this year.
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