Zack Stack, 2008 Oneida High School graduate, needs your help.
Oneida, NY -- A troupe of synchronized Kung Fu dancers, an opera-singing plumber and a teenager who can balance a baseball bat, ironing board, bicycle and step ladder on his nose and chin stand between Oneida native Zack Stack and the America’s Got Talent stage.
The 19-year-old jazz singer is one of 40 finalists competing on Youtube to appear on the talent show Aug. 10. The video receiving the most votes from online viewers will perform for celebrity judges Howie Mandel, Sharon Osbourne and Piers Morgan in Las Vegas.
Stack, who graduated from Oneida High School in 2008, used his laptop to record his version of the soulful standard, "Me and Mrs. Jones." "I just wanted to keep it simple," he said of the video, which was shot in his dorm room at State University of New York at Fredonia. He is a junior philosophy major.
His competition includes other musicians, as well as a ventriloquist, several magicians and a celebrity impersonator whose repertoire includes Bill Cosby, George Burns and Robert DiNiro. "There’s one girl that plays the piano upside down," Stack said. "I could tell the producers wanted a variety."
View full sizeZack Stack submitted a video to the "America's Got Talent" television show. His is among 40 picked for display on YouTube. The performer whose video garners the most votes by midnight Sunday will compete on the show in August.Voters can choose from an 80-second clip of an elderly man performing a striptease or a 40-second clip of a bikini-clad blonde singing a selection from the Broadway musical "Rent." In one video, a teenager plays "Yankee Doodle" on the flute while jumping rope. Another shows a trio of chefs using pots and pans as percussion instruments.
One contestant calls himself the "Diaper Genie" and makes his infant daughter’s dirty diaper disappear.
Last season’s winner, a chicken farmer who sang country music, took home a $1 million prize. Supporters can cast votes once a day through July 4.
Stack said the opportunity could be the big break he dreamed of as a high school student in Oneida. "I can only hope for the best," Stack said. "I have to get as many people behind me as possible. This is the first big step to my passion, my dream."
Vote for Zack
At the America's Got Talent Youtube homepage, click on Voting Gallery, then enter Zack Stack into to search field. Click on his video and then the thumbs up button. You can vote for a contestant once a day through midnight Sunday.
