Discover the next Lena Waithe or Pat Sajak at Columbia College’s Manifest Urban Arts Festival

“Pomp and Circumstance” is so basic, especially for a school like Columbia College.

The Class of 2018 is celebrating graduation weekend the way you’d expect from a bunch of film/music/writing/dance majors. They’re putting on a show: The massive day-long Manifest urban arts festival May 11, noon to 9 p.m., centered along Wabash Avenue between 9th and 11th streets. The party is free and open to the public.

Students will flex their hard-earned creative muscles at more than 100 events — everything from dance performances to poetry readings to fashion shows to film screenings. Who knows, maybe you’ll discover the next Lena Waithe, Aidy Bryant, Pat Sajak or Bob Odenkirk — all Columbia alums.

Grads in technical arts fields get to strut their stuff too.

When singer Ella Mai hits the stage for her performance — the first female headliner in Manifest’s 18 years —Yasmine Mifdal, a trailblazer in her own right, will be running the sound board.

When she started out at Columbia, Mifdal was one of only three female students studying live sound engineering.

“It’s been a boys club, it’s who you know. People assume it’s not a woman’s job,” Mifdal said.

Mifdal has been breaking down those barriers and busting preconceived notions ever since nabbing her first sound engineering gig as a sophomore.

“It hasn’t been smooth sailing. I get a lot of people come up and say, ‘Do you know what you’re doing? Do you know what all these buttons are for?’

Well, yeah, she does. And after graduation she’ll be joining the NASCAR (!) sound crew.

Read the complete story at the Chicago Sun-Times.