Our Director, Sarah Gavin whose combined teaching and theater background worked wonders with our 5 th grade cast. This is her third year as our Director and in minutes she manages to make it feel like she has known every one of these kids for a decade. She motivates and champions our cast. She listens and acknowledges their needs. They have flourished under her guidance, and we are grateful for her patience and talent.
Our Music Director, Jonathan Rosenthal, who also has a lengthy combined teaching and theater background and is also in his third year with us. He was always on the ready with a genuine compliment, kept our singers confident, and offered endless positive reinforcement. He made the process light and fun, gently pulling the courage and talent out of each and every kid.
Our Choreographer, Madison Kornbliet, is in her second year with us and is the Director of A Broadway Kids Company ~ Framingham by day (and night). She is akin to a local superstar when its choreography day, where the kids light up at the prospect of busting a move under her great guidance. She brings the energy, along with a fun loving and patient demeanor that we all admire.
Our parent producer, Sarah Pawluczonek, we owe such a debt of gratitude to her superhuman efforts! Without Sarah‘s dedication, this amazing experience couldn’t happen for our kids. An ultra busy full time working mom of 3, she worked day and night - and on weekends - planning, coordinating, and executing every aspect and logistic of this production. From working closely with our production team, school leadership, teachers, custodial staff, and Explorers staff, to shopping at thrift stores, procuring costumes, props, and set pieces, to making sure we had snacks for our Cast, and enough parent volunteers to make it all happen, and always keeping us on budget and on task - Sarah has been completely invaluable. She does it all with a sense of humor, always ready with a compliment and smile, and a genuine love for serving the Hemenway community. We bet your bottom dollar you couldn’t find a more capable person to take on this massive job! She is pure magic and we‘re lucky to have her! From the bottom of our hearts, thank you, Sarah!!
We must sincerely thank School Principal Dr. Marguerite Lackard and the Hemenway Elementary School Administration for permitting us to have the play here at the school, giving us space and letting us get quite loud at rehearsals. Every request we asked for (and there were many) was granted without hesitation, from CORI processing to student dismissals to classroom/hallway space and much more. The collaboration was thoughtful and seamless and we are so fortunate to have the Administration and Teaching staff that we have here at Hemenway. Speaking of the teaching staff, and especially the Fifth Grade team, who totally redesigned their dismissal process to accommodate us and were the communication bridge between ourselves and caregivers. A special shout out to Mr. D’Amico and Mrs. Kaplan who let us invade their classrooms and rearrange their furniture. Thank you to every teacher who had to wade through the human sea of spirited fifth graders just to get to the exit at the end of an already long day, we solute you!
A much deserved thank you to Seth and the Custodial Staff at Hemenway, as they worked around our sometimes messy and backpack cluttered hallway/lobby without complaint and worked extra shifts so that we could be in the school after hours.
We owe a huge thank you to Hadiya Severin and the entire staff of the afterschool program, Explorers, who gave up their space in the cafeteria and on the stage. They, without complaint, navigated around our human/backpack barrier as we flooded the front lobby totally impeding their dismissal process. We could not have rehearsed on an actual stage without their consistent collaboration and generosity.
We would like to express our deepest thanks to our Volunteers, who are the unsung heroes of the whole process. So critical in fact, that we need to break down our appreciation further: A very special thank you to parent volunteer Jess Cox, who has been a welcome fixture at rehearsals, keeping watch over the cast and making sure dismissals go off without a hitch. She is a full-time working mom of two who has dedicated countless hours to these great kids and took on a lot of other responsibilities such as Cast Party Planning, Set Work and T-shirts. A person with great ideas, organizational skills and humor. We appreciate her tremendously.
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