arts and culture

Park Slope Teachers To Perform at Apollo Amateur Night

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This was the announcement on the Department of Education website:

The Office of Arts and Special Projects in partnership with the Apollo Theater is pleased to announce the first NYCDOE Amateur Night at the Apollo to be held on June 2, 2010 at the world famous Apollo Theater to highlight the extraordinary talents of our teachers.

 Auditions for individual or group acts in dance, vocal and instrumental music, spoken word and comedy are scheduled for three consecutive Saturdays at sites in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn.

All you had to be was a current New York City Department of Education public school teacher, a legal resident of the United States
 and available on the performance date, June 2, 2010.

A group of teachers from Park Slope’s PS 321, who perform at school events frequently, decided to audition. Only 16 acts were chosen and this group made the cut.

No surprise there. This is a veritable  super group of PS 321 teachers (some of whom teach music) including John Allgood, kindergarten teacher; Bill Fulbrecht, kindergarten teacher; Elizabeth Heiser, 2nd grade teacher; Adam Lane, 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade music teacher; Frank McGarry, 1st and 2nd grade music teacher; and Joseph C. Phillips, who is a teacher and a serious composer in his own right. He also has a blog and wrote the following about the experience thus far.

Now this was not some group we threw together at the last minute to do the audition. We’ve been playing and performing for a number of years now and actually have done a few gigs. Our repertoire usually consists of old folk, rock, and bluegrass tunes and my role is as clarinet and (sometimes) saxophone player and percussionist. It is great fun and a chance for me to be in the band performing the music instead of in my other musical life, of composing and conducting (although that is great fun as well, just a different experience). So for our audition we performed the song Glendale Train, and things went pretty well. While there were a few judges and one did offer a suggestion after the performance, there was no Simon or Paula critique of our “NYC Teacher Idol” worthiness.

Wednesday is the big night when these teachers step onto the stage at the Apollo and show their stuff. We wish them all the best.

3 thoughts on “Park Slope Teachers To Perform at Apollo Amateur Night”

  1. i wish i had gotten to see more of your band, cause you were all really talented.

  2. hey — this is julie, one of the tap dancers from teachers amateur night at the apollo. i was so appalled by the way the night was run that i wrote letters to the dept of ed, the apollo, and the nytimes. we totally got screwed for going in the beginning. you guys were great!

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