Sharon Schroeter talks 19 years of Digicel Rising Stars

The name Sharon Schroeter is synonymous with ‘Digicel Rising Stars’ (DRS), and that’s not surprising. Shroeter – or ‘Auntie Sharon’ as the contestants call her – has been with the talent competition since its inception 19 years ago, and she’s not going anywhere any time soon.

“It doesn’t feel like 19 years. I could do another 20. My children were born in this show. The younger is 18 and the older is 20,” Schroeter shared.

When it comes to the contestants, the series producer possesses a certain magic. She walks into a roomful of DRS contestants and somehow they are all transformed into gleeful kids who are ready to turn cartwheels at the sight of their favourite auntie. A delighted Shroeter stated that this year’s contestants are super talented, and the mother hen in her comes strutting out as she talks about her chicks.

“They are my kids. I am always very honest with them. I don’t pretty up anything, I protect them. I don’t want anybody to ever take advantage of them. Being in entertainment is not easy, and I want to make sure that while they are with me they are okay. It’s a really great bunch .... especially this year’s. They are smart, they know that this is what they want, and they just want to soak up all of the knowledge they possibly can, to make sure that when they leave the competition they are better artistes.”

She shared that even after the competition has finished, the bond is still there. “Up to today I spoke to Brown Shuga, and she won in 2009. If I want anything I can just pick up the phone and call one of them and seh, ‘I need you to be a guest judge ... I need you to perform on the show.’ The connection that I have with them will be a little deeper than what anybody else would have. When they get selected, I go to their homes, I meet the family and we shoot what is called a postcard. I get to see where they are coming from and do that first interview. I think the kind of personality that I have as well ... I am tough with them, but I am also very compassionate.”

Schroeter shares a similarity with each contestant because she, too, had singing aspirations. A singer on her Montego Bay High School Choir, Schroeter won medals in Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) competitions and even completed the Royal School of Music exams up to grade seven. However, always nervous in front of a crowd, her passion switched to media, but she always had that love in her heart for music.

“So working on ‘Rising Stars’ and actually being able to produce and allowing people to live out their dream ... there is a reason that I got this particular job. Occasionally I will sing and they will hear me and say, ‘Auntie Sharon, you can sing?’”

Having been doing this for close to two decades, just how good is Schroeter at picking winners? With a laugh, she noted that “back in the day ... yes”, and shared that from the very first interview, both she and the cameraman, who has been working with her for all of the 19 years, picked Christopher Martin as the 2005 winner.

MOST MEMORABLE COMPETITION

“Now, I can’t predict because I see the votes. It’s only when it kinda get down to the nitty gritty ... you don’t know what’s going to happen until it gets down to the final two. And that is what happened with Chris and Noddy [Virtue]. I didn’t see those votes until long, long after,” Schroeter said, while recalling the contest 18 years ago which had to be aborted because of the mammoth crowd.

Schroeter named it as one of her most memorable ‘Digicel Rising Stars’ moments.

“I have a few, but I think 2005 Emancipation Park. I remember seeing the crowd that coulda fill Emancipation Park ‘bout four times and still leave over, ... seeing the buses, and seeing people selling Noddy Water and Chris T-shirts, and we were just looking around and going ‘Wow!’ I am sorry it ended how it ended. They were in the tent behind the dome and people figured out that they were in there ... and you could just see hands coming in under the tent saying, ‘Touch mi, touch mi, touch mi.’ And I said we have to get them out of here.”

She recalled calling the bus driver and fleeing with the contestants towards the bus. “This was when there was no Marriott, and out there was a dust bowl. I said to them, ‘Hold everybody’s hands’, and we ran across the street to the bus and I literally flung everybody inside. Then people realised that it was them and dem seh, ‘See dem dere!’ and the speed [with which] the bus drove off ... but people were just running down the bus.

“After everything, I was just sitting on the sidewalk around the back entrance of Emancipation Park, and I was just shaking my head because I just couldn’t believe what had just happened. When yuh go inside and yuh see what was left ... the broken chairs, the broken tree limbs and all these things. I was just like ‘Wooooow.’ It was bad. We bought back all the chairs ... and I am sure that we paid for some trees,” Schroeter said.

Another memorable DRS moment for the series producer was when Cameal Davis, “a little girl from Denham Town with a big voice”, went up against five guys and made her name as the first female winner of the competition.

“I predicted Chris. No predictions this year. It’s a great bunch; really, really talented. Right now it’s anybody’s game,” Schroeter declared.

yasmine.peru@gleanerjm.com