Stars were rising and shining on Monday night when talent from Monmouth County schools and a few Broadway stars got together Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School (RFH) and sang and danced for a place to call home for homeless teens.
The stage is set for area teen talent and Broadway stars to bring down the house at Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School (RFH) to benefit homeless youth with the third annual Night of FUTURE Broadway Stars.
The proceeds of musical extravaganza set for Monday, April 3 at 7 p.m. go to the homeless youth programs and services offered at Covenant House in Asbury Park, serving Asbury, Long Branch, Keansburg and other shore towns.
Knollwood School seventh-grader P.J. Rawlins performs a piano solo of “Clocks,” a hit song by Coldplay.
Photo/Fair Haven School District
Knollwood School eighth-grader Isabelle Papa performs “Minuet and Allegro” on the flute accompanied by Sara Marino and Karen Hauge.
Photo/Fair Haven School District
An ensemble performance of “Shoshanna” featured seventh-grader Hannah Bates on bass guitar, sixth-grader Ben Plesser on drum set/mallets, seventh-grader Liz Harby on drum set/mallets, and seventh-grader Nora Phillips on clarinet.
Photo/Fair Haven School District
And the middle school musicians played on … in the Fair Haven School District’s annual Chamber Music Recital at Knollwood School recently.
Eighth graders Matt Reulbach (Lefou) and Sarah Dolan (Gaston) rehearse Knollwood School’s production of “Beauty and the Beast Jr.”
Photo/Fair Haven School District
Knollwood School seventh-grader Sophia Barabas as Belle in Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast Jr.” at Knollwood School.
Photo/Fair Haven School District
Featured in Knollwood School’s production of “Beauty and the Beast Jr.” featured are: eighth grader Matt Reulbach (Lefou), eighth grader Aidan Thorp (Beast), sixth grader Evan Callas (Chip), seventh grader Matt Newman (Wolf) and sixth grader Jack McBarron (Narrator), sixth grader Antonio Darcy (Maurice), and sixth grader Jake D’Angelo (Monsieur D’Arque).
Photo/Fair Haven School District
A “tale as old as time” came to Fair Haven’s Knollwood School’s stage when 40 young middle school students performed a production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast Jr. a few weeks ago.
The Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School (RFH) Tower Players are in full swing rehearsal mode, setting the stage for their production of Disney’s Tarzan.
Thespians at Fair Haven’s Knollwood School are getting set to go on with a show in March — Beauty and the Beast Jr.
The 60-minute stage version of the 1991 Disney animated film and 1994 Broadway musical and is designed for middle-school aged performers.
The cast at Knollwood’s production is comprised of roughly 40 sixth, seventh and eighth graders.
The show tells the story of Belle, an adventurous young girl, and the Beast, her grisly captor, who is actually a young prince trapped under a spell. In order to break the spell, the Beast must learn to love another and earn love in return.
With the help of the staff at the prince’s castle, including a loving teapot, a charming candelabra, and a nervous mantel clock, Belle and the Beast find uncanny friendship and love. Beauty and the Beast Jr. features classic songs from the Academy Award®-winning film score such as “Be Our Guest” and “Belle,” as well as original songs from the 1994 Tony®-nominated Broadway musical.
The March 2 Knollwood performance will be presented in the Knollwood School all-purpose room at 7 p.m. Admission is free, and donations of nonperishable food items for local food banks would be appreciated.
— Edited press release from the Fair Haven School District
“An Experiment in Loneliness” by RFH senior Maggie Boyce-Blanchard.
Photo/RFH
A pencil drawing by RFH sophomore Klayton Dal Pra.
Photo/RFH
“Bar Scene” by RFH senior Jack Kreuzberg.
Photo/RFH
There’s a new arts-inspired initiative at Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School (RFH) that is casting a bright spotlight on students’ artwork.
The RFH National Art Honor Society (NAHS) and the RFH Multiple Disabilities (MD) Program have teamed up to provide artisan frames for the display of creations by RFH students. Featured will be paintings and photography by NAHS and MD students. The collection will be rotated regularly and be featured prominently throughout the school building on an ongoing basis.
Photographs of works by RFH art students at all levels will also be enlarged and placed above the student locker areas.
“This project has brought warmth and enhanced the school climate,” said Special Services teacher Jennifer Dellett. “Our goal is to have all three floors at RFH filled with stimulating artwork by the end of the school year.”
The purchase of 40 frames was made possible by a grant from the RFH Education Foundation. The grant request was written and submitted by Dellett and Art teacher Kristen Lanfrank.
For those who would like a closer view of the artwork, an event dubbed Community Art Opening is planned for the spring of 2017.
As part of the event, students involved in the program will provide community members with a tour of RFH and a discussion of all the art and images on display.
— Edited press release from Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School (RFH)
He’s a Fair Haven police officer. He’s a Middletown firefighter. He’s a husband. He’s a dad. And he’s a fighter for what he feels is the right thing to do. But, John Waltz will tell you that the latest volunteer project he was involved in was not about him or his fight at all. It was about kids all over the country and the fight to find a cure for childhood cancer. He just played a small part in the much bigger scheme of the cause and its hopeful end. Now he, and the others involved, are asking for your one-two punch in the fight as well.
In August, Waltz, along with fellow firefighters and a host of children with cancer, adults and others, fought their part of the good fight by participating in a music video aptly dubbed Fight and sponsored by Infinite Love for Kids Fighting Cancer filmed at Middletown Fire Department’s Fire Company 1, Station 8.
The video, released today, features the song written by singer/songwriter Taylor Tote and filmed by Right Stuff Studios. Its message is a simple, poignant one of the day-to-day fight.
“I have to say it was truly moving to be a part of it,” Waltz said in August after filming. “I couldn’t believe the suffering of these poor children and seeing how hopeful they are. Seeing the pain they are in made me very sad. But they are such heroes.”
Tote, after being chosen as the band for the next Infinite Love fundraiser, forged a friendship with non-profit founder Andrea Gorsegner’s children Natalie Grace and Hannah Rose Gorsegner.
Natalie Grace was the inspiration behind Infinite Love. Now 6 and in complete remission since 2014, she was diagnosed in August of 2012 with high-risk acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The family launched into an effort to fund childhood cancer research and raise awareness of the disease.
“About two months into Natalie’s fight, the Gorsegners quickly started discovering the ugly truths behind childhood cancer, like for one that it’s the number one disease killer of our children in this country,” an excerpt from the Infinite Love website says. “As one shocking stat after another began to unfold they knew that they had to do everything that they could to raise both awareness and funding for research, and so they began campaigning via Natalie’s Facebook page asking that everyone send them just a single dollar to go towards childhood cancer research. In just three short years the family has raised nearly half a million dollars with every penny having gone towards fulfilling research grants!”
Funds have been raised and donations made to the cause in every way from personal family contributions, such as time and talent, to a $1 drive for the cause to bake sales and even firefighters just passing hats.
Mom Andrea “was the driving force for this project. She was determined to raise awareness and funds for childhood cancer research,” Waltz said. A photographer, Andrea, for instance, has offered free photo sessions for cancer patients and families. There have been classic galas and more. Anything and everything for the cause, the kids, the research, the cure.
Now, the latest effort is the video.
“I was absolutely honored to be a part of this and I really didnt know on such a large scale that children were so affected and I took a stance and a promise to Andrea that if she needs anything or I can help in any way with future anything she does or needs I am in the game 110 percent,” Waltz said. “I was truly touched, saddned and honestly honored to be part of a collaboration that hopefully raises tons of money and the video goes viral.”
And that’s the goal.
The challenge is to make spread the word, purchase it from iTunes and spread the word. All proceeds from the iTunes purchases benefit the cause. So, getting it to go viral is the goal. To care, all you need to do is share … the video, Waltz said.
The Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School (RFH) Tower Players’ fall production, the farce Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, is set for its debut on the school’s stage soon.
Author Mary Beth Connor Gibson’s story started with her mom, a walk to her hometown library, a passion for books and her own writer’s pen.
She took that walk 57 years ago, in May of 1959, to the Fair Haven library with her mom. The native Fair Havenite said she knew something special was about to happen. And it did. She, a then 6-year-old, got her first library card and the first glimmer of what turned out to be enduring, loving support from her mom to live her dream and love of books and become an author.
She is now what she dreamed of then — and has been for a while now. And, most recently, she took a long walk (OK, ride) back to her hometown on Sunday — but not to the library this time. That trek had already been taken more than half a century ago. This journey back home was one to the Fair Haven Firehouse, a Connor family home-away-from-home anchor for the siblings and longtime members, with family and friends for a book signing of her novel Aroon.
The parents Mary Ellen and Joe were there in spirit and pictures hanging on the walls.
And the journey to authorship was remembered as one taken with a mom and family ’til the end.
Mary Ellen Connor Photo/Mary Beth Connor Gibson
Connor Gibson’s mother lived her dream with her, supporting her little girl all grown up every step of the way, on another walk to another part of the country.
But it started like this … “I knew by her (Mom’s) enthusiasm that something special was about to happen,” Gibson said. “Once we reached the library, she leaned over and said, ‘You are now old enough to have your own library card.’ I can still feel the pride in my heart as I checked out the first stack of books in my own name. My passion for books is just as strong today.”
Eventually Connor Gibson emigrated from home and ended up living in South Carolina.
“Living in South Carolina, Mom accompanied me on several research trips, like Savannah’s Ships of the Sea Maritime museum or the Redcliffe Plantation,” she said. “She passed away before I finished my book, but she was always encouraging.”
She was encouraged along the way by people other than her mom, but Mom was the mainstay.
“My second grade teacher, Mrs. Pauline Gibson, was the first to encourage my writing, allowing me to read a fairy tale I wrote for the principal, Mr. Petrisin. I think it was about a goat,” she said.
That elementary school goat rather than fairy tale manifested in a dabbling in short stories and such over the years.
But, “when approaching 40, I decided to go for it and write children’s books. Later, I expanded my subject matter to adults, giving me the freedom to explore the challenges and struggles of all classes of people. After learning of the martyrdom of an 18th century Tipperary priest, Nicholas Sheehy, I decided to focus my first novel during that time period.
“The title, Aroon, is the Anglicized version of the Gaelic, a rún, which literally means ‘my secret’ while it’s also used as a term of affection. I interpret it as “my secret love,'” Connor Gibson explained.
Aroon, already an award-winning novel, is set in 18th century Ireland, where jealousy, lust, and oppression lead to gruesome visions with only one way to stop the torture — a killing. So goes the description of the book.
It’s not a spoiler. It’s a delicate tease, as Connor Gibson sees it. She’s not giving away any of the intricate plot. You’ll have to read the devil in the details for yourself.
Here’s a bit of a tidbit more …
“Richard Lynche, anguished heir of Duncullen, clashes with his overbearing letch of a father. The lad’s only solace, the arms of homesick new maid, Eveleen, becomes his greatest agony when he finds himself terrorized by grisly apparitions. The result? One cold corpse.”
“Years of research took me places I’d never guess existed. Bringing it all together dramatically has been extremely gratifying,” said Connor Gibson. “I plan to release the sequel, Harps Upon the Willows, early in 2017.”
So, what’s a little Fair Haven girl to do with a cold corpse, some torture, solace, jealousy, lust and oppression on the mind? Mix the elements in the mind with some notes and thought after a long walk … to the library.
It may not be Oz, but there’s no place like home and the memory of a walk and a mother’s support for the writing of a book and the wrapping of it all up in a signing with lots of hugs and smiles as this author sees it.
About Aroon and Mary Beth Connor Gibson …
Aroon has been awarded the Carrie McCray Literary Award for Novel First Chapter and was a finalist in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Contest for Historical Fiction.
Her first chapter, printed in the anthology, The Petigru Review, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Gibson dedicated more than three decades to teaching adolescents in rural South Carolina everything from literature to mathematics to conflict resolution. She passionately believes in the value and dignity of every human being, which she’s carried from her classroom to the pages of her books.
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