Tag Archives: feature

RFH Wins Big with Basie Award Nominations

They got the callback!

The 2024 Basie Award nominations have been announced; and, Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School (RFH) performers, directors and crew got thunderous audition applause with 17 chances at award wins for on-stage and behind-the-scenes work in two shows.

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Retro Spring Chillin’ RFH Style

RFH students of the 1970s take some free time outside in the nice weather. Photo/George Day
RFH students of the 1970s take some free time outside in the nice weather.
Photo/George Day

A reprise of a very popular Retro Pic of the (George) Day that pays homage to spring — RFH style … Now where were these RFHers? Word has it that they were far off campus … 

Spring has truly sprung. In fact it’s bloomin’ bouncing into seasonal warmth lately, save for a few bad days.

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Living the Dream: Staying Authentic with Another Memoir from RFH Grad Rossi

Does the world really need another memoir?

It’s a question with which famed New York City caterer, author and playwright of The Raging Skillet known as Rossi — we’ll get to her real name later — grappled. Originally, the wild child and Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School (RFH) graduate of a different kind figured the answer was a hard “Yes.” After all, when it’s all about how a gay Jewish punk rock queen plucked the jewels out of her own crown, who could resist?

After ingesting too many opinions like a bad bowl of matzo ball soup — as if there could be such a thing — it was Rossi’s healing try at third-person fiction writing of her story that opened a buried crown-induced wound leading to a full-on bleed-out. It was when she doused the wound in hydrogen peroxide’s purifying sting that its authenticity got an air-out healing in what became her second memoir — The Punk Rock Queen of the Jews.

After all, she figured, the world could really use a good dose of what it takes to pull those jewels out of the crown of a 1981 Crown Heights experience as a not-so-good Jewish girl. Who couldn’t use a story of endurance and hope simmering under a heap of authenticity?

So, the second Rossi memoir, sans recipes and the more silly, albeit unbelievable, misadventures, was launched last week with a reading in New York. Now Rossi is coming home again to the Rumson-Fair Haven area with a reading, signing and gathering of hometown friends and townies at River Road Books in Fair Haven on Thursday, May 2, from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m..

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Scene Around: RFH Tower Players Playing & Winning

Five, six, seven, eight … and curtain up! Every player plays. But, behind the glaring spotlight on every Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School (RFH) Tower Players stage performer is a lot of rehearsal and skill honing.

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Rumson-Sea Bright Bridge Travel Advisory

Rumson-Sea Bright Bridge construction work remains status quo, with a lot of road realignment work on the Rumson side continuing. All construction continues this week on the usual 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. schedule though Friday, weather permitting. And the weather forecast, so far, looks cooperative, calling for mostly sunny days.

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Scene Around: A Local Paperboy, Musician, Actor/Writer and a Street Naming

Call it an esteemed happening in their hometown.

They’re three Middletown-raised celebrities in their own right — famed news anchor Brian Williams and brothers Stevie and Billy Van Zandt. But it was all about the Van Zandt brothers on Friday. Middletown honored the duo in their hometown with the naming of the street where they lived, Wilson Avenue in the New Monmouth section, after them — Van Zandt Way. Williams was there to host and bask in it all with the brothers. He, as a youngster, was a paperboy for the now defunct Courier newspaper.

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Retro RFH Batty Gym Suit Home Run

A reprise in honor of the girls, baseball season and not having to wear these horrific mandatory gym suits anymore! Strike! The suits are out! Phew! Remember the fun and the horror with us … (Be sure to CLICK on one photo to enlarge and scroll to fully experience the horror. Ha!)

It’s just plain batty! Batter’s up at RFH as baseball season is in full swing. But, looking back at some RFH 1970s games, you have to wonder when or why, exactly, there was ever a season of the ol’ gym suit, baseball or softball aside.

Really. Ponder it. Those things that made girls look like Stay Puff marshmallows, or, worse, a big baby with a onesie that had enough space for a diaper or, well … you get the picture.

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Retro Little Tykes’ River Time

Fair Haven river dwellers of the Drake family
Photo/courtesy of Robin Drake Fitch

Quality river time. It’s a rite of passage for any Rumson-Fair Haven area kid.

When the spring air hits, the banks of the Navesink and Shrewsbury Rivers call to kids like mythological Sirens. And they burrow themselves in the sand and tides like hermit crabs.

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Scene Around: RFH Stage Mom Standing Ovation

Call it stage mom magic.

There’s nothing like going on with the show from behind the scenes. And most don’t realize what’s really happening behind those scenes with the parents who birthed and backed their teens’ talent with infinite pats on the back and a pushes into that spotlight.

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Rumson-Sea Bright Bridge Travel Advisory

Rumson-Sea Bright Bridge construction work remains status quo, with a lot of road realignment work on the Rumson side continuing. All construction continues this week on the usual 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. schedule though Friday, weather permitting.

Continue reading Rumson-Sea Bright Bridge Travel Advisory