Bee was the Best!

Performing Arts at the Frankel Jewish Academy has come of age and then some.  While the play has come and gone, it is never too late to give praise where it’s due. The buzz in the halls about  The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee was electric  – strong and beautiful singing, exquisite comedic timing, hilarious, and 100% fun.  Can you spell T-A-L-E-N-T? Our kids sure can.  The show, which premiered Off-Broadway before breaking records and finally making it to the Great White Way, couldn’t have been any more fun in the Big Apple than it was in the JET.

The dimension you get in high school theater that you don’t on Broadway, is that we know these kids. They are ours and yet on stage they become someone we might never have seen but for their acting. High school theater is about transformation — shy kids discover their comedic side; the musically adept hone their skills; talent is discovered and so are new passions. FJA is big enough to draw real and raw talent from the student body, yet we’re still small enough to give seasoned actors and first timers the personal attention that takes them from good to great.  We have roles for stage managers and a solid lighting crew.

FJA Performing Arts has a tradition — seniors are given a tribute from the stage after their last play.  At Bee the tradition was thrice repeated as the cast roasted and toasted their departing classmates, ending with a moving tribute to the melody of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.”  The moment was classic FJA — gentle ribbing, unabashed emotion, well-practiced skill.

For those of you who stayed home, get out of your hive! You’ll have one more chance this year… Evening of the Arts II, May 24th, 2010. 7:00, in the JET.  Music Ensemble is performing “A Look Back Over the Years” –  show tunes drawn from a decade of FJA performances.

Don’t let the end of the year crazies and excuses of “too much to do” keep you away. Be entertained. Be astonished. Be spellbound. Be there.

Welcome to Our Blog

Back in the beginning when FJA was JAMD and the trailers were home, the small community meant parents had a sense of the school’s pulse and felt integral to the creative and energetic things going on within the school’s walls. Then JAMD became FJA, the trailers became our beautiful new facility and with the school’s growth to 211 students, keeping a finger on the pulse is not as simple as it used to be.  Enter The Pillar At FJA.

This weekly blog will feature “fly-on-the-wall” moments, special events at school, and highlights of the happenings that make FJA what it was in the “trailer days” and still is today — a community where teachers and students work in partnership; a place where Jewish students from different religious backgrounds come and learn together with respect; a high school whose graduates enter the nation’s top-flight colleges and universities and go on to make a true difference in the world.

L’hitraot,