On Monday, Feb 17, posters were set out for Chaplain’s Associates to hang up around campus. These posters were advertising chapel events happening over the next week and weekend and, as they do every week, student employees went around campus hanging them up, more concerned with the color of the pushpins than the actual posters they were displaying. But with a slight glitch in autocorrect, the unsuspecting CAs accidentally put Skinner Memorial Chapel on the map in a very big way. Posters advertising a choir concert were accidentally printed with the words “Chappell concert this Sunday at 5pm! All are welcome!”
On the night of the concert, Chaplain’s Associates immediately noticed some peculiar occurrences.“I think I first thought something was up when people were lining up to come in waaaayyy before the concert was supposed to start,” said Emma Ployie, a CA. “I mean, people are never even on time to chapel events, but being EARLY? And why were they all wearing red wigs? I always knew there were a lot of gingers on campus, but I never knew there were so many. The chapel may not be a denominational space, but we do like people to at least wear pants, if not cover their shoulders. But everyone was in rhinestone leotards. It’s not just inappropriate, it’s cold!”
With more than five thousand people packed shoulder-to-shoulder in the main sanctuary, vestibule, staircases and basement of the chapel, the show was set to begin. Reports allege that three students even forced their way into the Druid Closet, using the giant druid horn as a periscope to try and hear the sound better. The students, as well as community members from far and wide following an intense YikYak advertising campaign, were in for a surprise, as instead of Chappell Roan walking onto the chapel stage, a 30-person choir from a local Episcopalian church sensibly field inside to an engaging yet modest organ tune.
Fans didn’t lose hope, however. The crowd murmured that this was likely a big act, and the real Chappell was hiding in the chapel somewhere, maybe not even in the choir.
“I really truly believed that once everyone was on stage, one of the choir people would take off their little robe and reveal a sparkly Ally B costume or something and start singing Good Luck Babe!” an anonymous Chappell Chapel fan said. “But then it looked like this choir thing was actually happening. I still held out hope. I thought she was really leaning into this ‘chapel’ thing, you know? Like doing a camp Christian vibe. Like that one Sabrina Carpenter music video”
But after a few short Bible readings, the choir concert began, with not a lyric from Roan to be heard.
“I thought she was playing the long game, I really was,” a Chappell Roan fan who flew all the way from California lamented. “They were singing this super long song in Latin, and I was like ‘this kinda sounds like the Pink Pony Club opening!’ No! It was the Magnificat.”
Ultimately, the Episcopalian choir finished their concert with no pop icon in sight, if you don’t count the soloist on the rousing rendition of Psalm 145 that is. While fans of Roan left a bit dejected, some attendees went in Chappell fans and came out Chapel fans.
“Ok ok ok, those choir people got to me.” Carol Singer ‘27 said. “About halfway through I lost all hope that Chappell would show up, but then I saw it. In those couture white robes, super elaborate costumes, singing those deep cut hymns about love and acceptance in Heaven, with that ORGAN? It’s really the essence of Chappell Roan distilled into a few dozen devout Episcopalian adults.”
