January 2006
Contact: Dorothy Wills-Raftery
(845) 255-1400 xt. 1209

Ulster BOCES New Visions Students Explore Careers in the Arts

Students in the new Ulster BOCES New Visions Performing and Visual Arts Career Explorations program are learning first-hand what it takes to build a career in the arts as they explore set design and building, lighting, costuming, theater performance, and stage production. The 11-member company, “Left Foot Forward,” recently provided a sampler of their work to family and friends in the group’s first production, “An Evening of Scenes.”

“It was awesome,” reported Danica Ankele, acting teacher for the Performing and Visual Arts program. “The students worked so hard and it’s truly a pleasure working with them. I don’t think when they signed up for the program they realized all of what they were getting into, but they have totally risen to the occasion.” Ankele, along with the show’s director Chris Karczmar, a professional stage and film actor for 20 years, coached the students through an intensive 10 weeks of study, exploring the many facets of theater production and performance.

The Ulster BOCES New Visions Performing and Visual Arts program is being offered for the first time this year, with support from the Mill Street Loft, a Hudson Valley multi-arts center. One of five New Visions Career Exploration programs, it provides students with the opportunity to explore the rich range of career options in the performing and visual arts.

The Ulster BOCES New Visions Career Exploration programs offer motivated college-bound students an alternative to the traditional fourth year of high school. The programs place high school seniors beside professionals, giving them an opportunity to witness the translation of knowledge into performance, providing students with the information necessary to make a career choice by design, not by default. Students earn four high school credits for successful participation in the program and have the potential to earn up to nine college credits through special arrangements with SUNY Ulster.

In preparation for “A Night of Scenes,” students worked alongside experts in the field as they created stage sets, memorized their lines, and fine tuned their acting techniques in rehearsals that often ran late into the night. On opening night, the group revealed the product of their hard work in a variety of scenes borrowed from popular Broadway performances, including The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller, and Oh Dad, Poor Dad Mama’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feeling so Bad by Arthur Kopit. They also performed scenes from Class Action by Greg Selight, The Odd Couple by Neil Simon, and A Lonely Impulse of Delight by John Patrick Shanley.

The students worked with lighting designer Zack Jacobs, stage manager and assistant technical director at the Bardavon 1869 Opera House in Poughkeepsie and illustrator Carol Zaloom, who has designed sets for Broadway productions.

The students also worked with their counterparts in the New Visions Communications and Journalism program on marketing, public relations, and filming the production.