Welcome back, everyone! On our 2025–26 Opening Day for staff, the Barrington 220 Executive Council was pleased to present Opening Day Live (ODL), a Saturday Night Live (SNL) themed production that we created to introduce our district’s educational themes for the year: authentic learning, culture, and our new hashtag theme, #BReal. Like SNL, we also riffed on current and relevant topics including, but not limited to, our student device guidelines (B Here. B Now. B Engaged.), our SEL curriculum, general back-to-school sentiments, and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Before a brief exploration of our use of AI in this production, I’d like to specifically thank the amazing staff who served in writer, director, and leadership roles in the production: Nicki Gavin, Writer & Director; Mark Domanico, Opening Day Live Band Leader; Brandon Pemberton, Choir Conductor; and Brigid Tileston, our Coordinating Producer. I have also included the full production credits below in case you missed the scrolling credits at the end of the ODL production.
If you have been in Barrington 220 for at least a couple of school years, you may remember that last year, we created an original mini-musical using AI as a “creative partner” that we performed during Opening Day. That entire process taught us that AI was a high-quality tool, but that it did not replace “human intelligence.” For example, we found that AI worked well for generating an initial working story and script, but the script needed to be heavily edited and rewritten. The dialog, in particular, needed the most help to sound more human. Last year we also attempted to use AI for composing music and creating choreography, but we abandoned AI's use entirely when we found that the AI tools of the time did neither of those things well. However, we did find that AI-generated lyrics provided a good starting point for our songwriters, but they also required significant human rewriting in all three of the songs.
This year, we had similar experiences, but found a few new uses for AI and saw AI improve in a few areas. Since our production this year consisted of several derivative works/parodies of known SNL characters and scenarios, we were able to use AI to help us create initial scripts. However, the scripts needed considerable rewrites to make the dialog believable and to improve the jokes and humor. In fact, as we saw last year, the more our students and staff actors rehearsed, the more the scripts were improved through improvisation and suggestions by the performers.
Of course, the amazing Opening Day Live Staff Band and Barrington High School and Staff Choirs delivered phenomenal live performances without any AI assistance. However, the opening theme song to the “Dougie Downer” sketch was “composed and performed” by AI.
For the "Dougie Downer" 20-second opening, the AI music creation tool Suno was used with considerable trial and error. First, I felt that the lyrics generated by Suno were not optimal so I attempted to write them with the help of ChatGPT. After 20 or more attempts, I abandoned ChatGPT and wrote them myself. The writing process using ChatGPT was likely valuable to help me generate ideas along the way, but the AI-generated lyrics never had a structure that seemed to work. The ability to add original lyrics to Suno is a new feature since last year so I was able to paste my original lyrics into this tool and then add descriptors about the style I wanted. This process took 12 iterations to arrive at the theme song heard on Opening Day. At the end of that project, I’m not sure I saved any time using AI, but the 20-second song sounded very impressive and matched my description: “1950s TV theme style, 120BPM, major key, happy, bouncy, harmonized female singers, 20 seconds.”
AI was also used for other specific tasks including:
- Assisted in removing backgrounds from photos used in the “Dougie Downer” sketch opening.
- Generated background text for the Opening Day Update sketch opening.
- Generated the brick background image used along with the ODL logo.
- Generated the intentionally bad A.I. classroom image used in the Opening Day Update sketch.
- Generated the AI Robot animations (using Apple Memoji) for the Opening Day Update sketch.
- Assisted in creating general communication and organizational materials for the production.
From the beginning of the rise of AI tools in the last few years, we have taken a proactive approach here in Barrington 220. While many other school districts went on an AI-banning spree—or worse, decided to ignore AI—we created a staff task force to draft AI guidelines and tested several AI tools, both for staff and student use. We continue to find through our various trials that AI can be very helpful as a tool in certain circumstances under certain conditions, but it is currently not ready to replace humans.
As promised, here is the full list of credits for Opening Day Live on August 18, 2025. You will only find a list of humans here. For this production, I could not bring myself to credit AI any more than I would credit my SUV for helping me get to the production on that morning.
Barrington 220 Opening Day Live 25/26
Cast, Creatives, & Crew
“Coach Ricky vs. AI”
Josh P., Coach Ricky Rawlins
Brin F., Mrs. Bell
Maymuna M., Student
Aspen R., Student
Ruhi Sh., Student
Logan T., Student
Nicki Gavin, Writer & Director
Opening Credits Sequence
Produced by BHS-TV
Aidan K., Director & Camera Operator
Julia S., Co-Director & Editor
Peter C., PA
Kevin H., PA
Dr. Jeff Doles, Teacher
John Roncone, Announcer
Opening Monologue & Message
Dr. Craig Winkleman, Superintendent
Tim Maguire, Authentic Audience Member
Brandon Duke, Authentic Audience Member
Amy Suessen, BEA President
Shawndra Shelton, BSEO President
“Together Two Twenty” Video
Eric Steckling, Producer & Editor
“Dougie Downer”
Doug Connell, Dougie Downer
Jenny Shannon, Staff Member
Shawndra Shelton, Staff Member
Erica Ward, Staff Member
Kevin Krivosik, Trombone
Doug James, Voiceover Artist
Nicki Gavin, Writer & Director
“Bronco Cheerleaders” Video
Amy Winkelman
Craig Winkelman
Nicki Gavin, Writer & Director
“Opening Day Update”
Nicki Gavin
Brad Gillette
Nicki Gavin, Writer & Director
“Learning 1980s Style” Video
Aspen R., Student 1
Brin F., Student 2
Josh P., Student 3
Ruhi S., Student 4
Written & Produced by BHS-TV
Aidan K., Director & Camera Operator
Julia S., Co-Director & Editor
Peter C., PA
Kevin H., PA
Dr. Jeff Doles, Teacher
Barrington 220 Choirs
Brandon Pemberton, Conductor
Ryan Palmer, Piano
Mark Domanico, Percussion
Barrington High School Choir
Sam B.
Ashley C.
Matias C.
Jayden C.
Lilah D.
Camryn F.
Ethan G.
Tilly H.
Ella H.
James J.
Eli L.
Ethan M.
Daniel M.
Mariana N.
Joshua P.
Aspen R.
Adrian R.
Maggie S.
Barrington 220 Staff Choir
Janet Blake
Riley Cook
Erin Donahue
Mike Duggan
Emily Durham
Lori Ford
Nicki Gavin
Kelly Haradon
Katie Hildebrand
Erin Kirby
Noemi Lara
Cat Lasky
Erin Lindsey
Amy Lovi
Tim Maguire
Diana McKee
Laura Minerva
Kate Moody
Katie Muhtaris
Nazarii Mykhailenko
Mike Nelson
Natalie Pollack
Kaitlin Popovich
Nancy Reed
Alison Rohrbach
Tom Root
Abby Schaub
Ben Sorce
Karen Tischhauser
Kateri Tumminello
BTP Candles Video
Junior H., Student
Ken Hoving, Special Education Teacher, BTP
Live Production Crew
Josie S., Prop Construction/Stagehand
Raaniya A., Stagehand
Jake M., Stagehand
Maymuna M., Stagehand
Aidan K., Camera Operator
Peter C., Camera Operator
Opening Day Live Band
Mark Domanico, Band Leader & Bass/Guitar/Keyboards
Garrett Luczak, Bass/Guitar/Keyboards
Hector Ontiveros, Drums
Josh Beatty, Tenor Sax
Janet Blake, Vocals
Chelsea Hedges, Vocals
Alison Rohrbach, Vocals
Jeff Simon, Vocals
Jeremy Wemhoff, Vocals/Guitar
Special Thanks
Barrington High School Bands, Kevin Krivosik, Director
Barrington 220 Staff Interviewed for the Together Two Twenty video
Barrington Historical Society
Susan Buerckholtz
Willow Creek Production Staff
Brigid Tileston, Coordinating Producer
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