Nyack Schools Recognize 5 From 'Parade'

At Tuesday’s Nyack School Board meeting, Superintendent Jim Montesano recognized several youngsters for recent achievements..

“The parents of this community are really producing great kids. (We had an) outstanding musical production Parade,” he said.

This year's Nyack High School musical production of Parade was nominated in five categories in the National Youth Theater’s Seventh Annual Youth Arts Awards and won in three of those categories.

Montesano presented recognized to the following people for their involvement in the musical:

Carl Brooks – Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Musical for his role as Jim Conley in Parade

• Andrew Gmoser – Outstanding Lighting Design for Parade  
• Joseph Egan – Outstanding Set Design for Parade
• Kathy Tappenden—Co Producer
• Meslissa Amarianos—Co Producer

 The other two categories nominated were:  

• Outstanding Production – Parade 
• Outstanding Direction – Joseph Egan

Montesano also recognized the following two for the 2012-13 Nyack School Calendar Artwork:

• Manju Behanan, 7th Grader at Nyack MS
• Jacqueline Mahan, Nyack MS Art Teacher

About Parade

The nationally-recognized Nyack High School Drama Club tackles the issues of racism, anti-Semitism, hatred and the fight for justice head-on as it performs the Tony Award-winning musical Parade for Spring 2012.

Nearly 100 years have passed since the true events that inspired the play with a book by Alfred Uhry and music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown, but the impact of those events still affect us today.

The 1913 rape and murder of 13-year-old Georgia factory worker Mary Phagan led to the heated murder trial and conviction of her boss, Leo Frank, a Jew from Brooklyn, who was lynched by a mob that broke him out of prison after his death sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1915. The murder, the investigation, trial and eventual hanging of Frank sparked the resurgence of the then-defunct KKK and the birth of one of the leading civil rights organizations, the Anti-Defamation League.

The musical was first produced on Broadway at the Vivian Beaumont Theater in 1998. The show was nominated for nine Tony Awards in 1999, winning for best book and best score, and winning six Drama Desk awards. Parade went on a national tour, with numerous professional and amateur productions in both the U.S. and abroad.

The Nyack High School Drama Club, led by acclaimed team of director and set designer Joseph J. Egan, Greg Baccarini Co-director/Music staging, and Kurt Kelley as Musical director is scheduled to perform Parade on the stage at Nyack High School on March 16, 17, 23 and 24 at 8 p.m., with a 2 p.m. show on March 24.

This is not the first time Nyack High School students have taken on sensitive subjects that still affect the nation. In November 2010, the Nyack High School Drama Club performed The Laramie Project, which focused on Laramie, WY, the small town which became infamous in the fall of 1998 when Matthew Shepard, a gay college student, was found tied to a fence after being brutally beaten and left to die. The incident set off a nationwide debate about hate crimes and homophobia.

About the Drama Club

Nyack High School’s Drama Club is an extra-curricular activity which offers students an opportunity to be Actors, Singers, Dancers, Assistant Directors/Producers, Sound and Light Technicians, Set and Costume Designers, Scenic Painters, Prop Designers, Stagehands and Musicians. Each year the Drama Club presents three productions: Fall Drama or Comedy, Spring Musical and Spring One Acts. Family and friends will be delighted in seeing a memorable evening of extraordinary talent.

Some of the club’s most-acclaimed productions include: April 2008 – Phantom of the Opera;  March 2007 – Titanic; and,  March 2006 – Cats.