“This is your man, Principal Nick Cannon. … No homework for the rest of the week!” Cannon declared.
High-pitched screams could be heard from classrooms when Cannon — the celebrity entertainer, actor-rapper and TV host of “America’s Got Talent” — invited the 350 students to the cafeteria for an afternoon dance party that may live forever on social media.
The diligence of CREC students in entering a radio contest brought Cannon here as “principal of the day.” School administrators welcomed their star guest and the Hot 93.7 radio crew, considering it “all good, clean fun,” said Diane Giarratona, assistant principal of the academy’s high school.
“The hype has been crazy,” Giarratona said.
Eleventh-grader Chasidy Cosme said she heard about the Hot 93.7 contest in March.
Cannon “is very well-known in our school,” said Cosme, 16, an aspiring broadcast journalist from Hartford. “I thought it’d be a cool thing for him to come.”
Working with a few other girls, Cosme made posters and appealed to the student body on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to vote online for their school. The CREC arts academy, with two sites in Hartford, was the winning entry — perfect, students said, because many of them are entertainers, too.
The school’s musical, “Carousel,” runs Thursday through Saturday in the city’s Learning Corridor, which Cannon also visited Wednesday afternoon to rally another 350 CREC arts students awaiting him there.
Cannon said he recommends that young performers focus on the “freedom of just being yourself. … When you tap into an artist, whatever it is that they want to do in life, as long as they can do it with a passion and heart, that’s all that really matters.”
At the Huyshope Avenue academy, students with cellphone cameras raised them in the air as Cannon spun music in the cafeteria and teenagers danced on tables. One girl even crowd-surfed.
“I’m looking for talent!” Cannon said. And later: “It’s time to take some selfies!”
“I think we shouldn’t have to go back to class,” Cannon joked at one point, also noting that it was Teacher Appreciation Week.
The real principal, Jeffrey Ostroff, later directed students to their classrooms.
Before it was over, 11th-grader Shannon Sullivan got on stage to sing for Cannon, who pretended to wipe away tears.
Another junior, Kamell-Ann Macalou-Drame, followed up with “Find Your Grail,” a tune from the musical comedy “Monty Python’s Spamalot.”
The 16-year-old singer put her arm around Cannon’s shoulder, drawing another round of gleeful screams.
Macalou-Drame, a Hartford resident, said she found out at the “last minute” Tuesday that she would be performing for Cannon.
“I was like, ‘Oh, um, OK!’ … I love to sing,” she said. “I’m so happy I got to do this.”