March Madness 2005
It had nothing to do with basketball but March Madness was clearly evident at Scotch Plains Fanwood High School on the second weekend in March. In less than 48 hours the high school was the scene for two very different events that kept the seats in the auditorium warm and the support staff busy.
Friday night March 11 was opening night for the latest presentation of the SPHS Repertory Theatre, their rendition of “West Side Story”. This was the twenty ninth season for the group and the final under its current producer, Laurie Wellman who has produced the last ten. Also the choral director at the high school, Wellman is retiring from the school system
The school was a whirlwind of activity and a jumble of nerves as
months of work and preparation were now going to be on display.
It has been written that running a marathon is a celebration that the exhaustive training has been completed and in the marathon that encompasses the endless rehearsals, it was almost a relief that the finished product would be on view.
The late winter storms that had so altered everyone’ schedule
had cut into much of the last minute preparations but the threat of Friday night snow luckily did not transpire. The show must go on and it did before a nearly packed auditorium.
From the early reviews the play was a huge success. Most of the audience left the high school amazed at the inherent talent on display. Many of the performers were veterans of last year’s ambitious “Les Miserables” and many had also been around for “Footloose” two years ago. As always, there were newcomers but Wellman and returning director Tom Pedas blended it all together.
The last candy wrapper had barely been removed when the high school was transformed into a scene out of the movie “The Candidate”. Hundreds of enthusiastic political operatives braved the early morning chill to fill every inch of space in front of the high school with campaign placards as Union County Republican convention met to select which Republican Gubernatorial candidate would get top billing on Union County's primary election ballot June 7.
One candidate, Robert Schroeder brought a campaign bus with his name in big letters on the side that was parked by the entrance amid numerous lawn signs for him. Another candidate John Murphy and the well known Doug Forrester also had numerous signs crowded along the curb
The auditorium, which twelve hours earlier had been filled with the words of Steven Sondheim and the music of Leonard Bernstein was now filled with the rhetoric of a party desperate to regain its footing in a state that seems more and more out of reach.
“We just can’t say that we’re honest and they’re not ,” boomed Westfield’s own Brett Schundler, the party’s last standard bearer in 2001 when he lost to the now disgraced James McGreevey.
“We need to clean things up before it’s too late ,” chimed in Doug Forrestor, who seemed set to become US Senator in 2002 until Frank Lautenberg came in at the eleventh hour to rescue the aborted campaign of incumbent Robert Torricelli.
Surprisingly the name “George W Bush” was rarely heard and neither was McGreevey. Most of the speeches centered on property taxes and cleaning up government waste.
The big event was actual voting in hastily arranged voting booths.
In a surprise of sorts the outsider Murphy finished second in the first round to Forrester and since both got more than twenty percent of the vote a run off ensued. Forrester narrowly won but Murphy felt like the big winner of the day. The event ran longer than expected but just as quickly as the high school was transformed everybody put away their placards and by 8 pm that evening it was back to Broadway on Westfield Road. There would be another matinee on Sunday
Friday night March 11 was opening night for the latest presentation of the SPHS Repertory Theatre, their rendition of “West Side Story”. This was the twenty ninth season for the group and the final under its current producer, Laurie Wellman who has produced the last ten. Also the choral director at the high school, Wellman is retiring from the school system
The school was a whirlwind of activity and a jumble of nerves as
months of work and preparation were now going to be on display.
It has been written that running a marathon is a celebration that the exhaustive training has been completed and in the marathon that encompasses the endless rehearsals, it was almost a relief that the finished product would be on view.
The late winter storms that had so altered everyone’ schedule
had cut into much of the last minute preparations but the threat of Friday night snow luckily did not transpire. The show must go on and it did before a nearly packed auditorium.
From the early reviews the play was a huge success. Most of the audience left the high school amazed at the inherent talent on display. Many of the performers were veterans of last year’s ambitious “Les Miserables” and many had also been around for “Footloose” two years ago. As always, there were newcomers but Wellman and returning director Tom Pedas blended it all together.
The last candy wrapper had barely been removed when the high school was transformed into a scene out of the movie “The Candidate”. Hundreds of enthusiastic political operatives braved the early morning chill to fill every inch of space in front of the high school with campaign placards as Union County Republican convention met to select which Republican Gubernatorial candidate would get top billing on Union County's primary election ballot June 7.
One candidate, Robert Schroeder brought a campaign bus with his name in big letters on the side that was parked by the entrance amid numerous lawn signs for him. Another candidate John Murphy and the well known Doug Forrester also had numerous signs crowded along the curb
The auditorium, which twelve hours earlier had been filled with the words of Steven Sondheim and the music of Leonard Bernstein was now filled with the rhetoric of a party desperate to regain its footing in a state that seems more and more out of reach.
“We just can’t say that we’re honest and they’re not ,” boomed Westfield’s own Brett Schundler, the party’s last standard bearer in 2001 when he lost to the now disgraced James McGreevey.
“We need to clean things up before it’s too late ,” chimed in Doug Forrestor, who seemed set to become US Senator in 2002 until Frank Lautenberg came in at the eleventh hour to rescue the aborted campaign of incumbent Robert Torricelli.
Surprisingly the name “George W Bush” was rarely heard and neither was McGreevey. Most of the speeches centered on property taxes and cleaning up government waste.
The big event was actual voting in hastily arranged voting booths.
In a surprise of sorts the outsider Murphy finished second in the first round to Forrester and since both got more than twenty percent of the vote a run off ensued. Forrester narrowly won but Murphy felt like the big winner of the day. The event ran longer than expected but just as quickly as the high school was transformed everybody put away their placards and by 8 pm that evening it was back to Broadway on Westfield Road. There would be another matinee on Sunday
posted by David Lazarus at 3:09 PM
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