Glamorously dressed BBHS seniors celebrate a Night at the Oscars
May 2, 2024 at 12:02 a.m.
Lights, camera, action! With the high school lobby decorated with a red carpet and the walls lined with headshots, the Blind Brook community gathered, dressed to the nines, at the theater on Friday, Apr. 26 for the second annual Honors Shapers of the World Night at the Oscars. The program was a celebration of senior students to culminate the year and their high school experiences. Over the course of the past two months, students in the class were tasked with reimagining Aristophanes’ classic comedy Lysistrata as a modern 20-minute short film.
The process
The students were split into three groups, with about 14 students each, and were left entirely to their own devices to create their own movies. Students in each group were elected by their teammates to serve as producers and directors, taking on leadership roles amongst their peers as well as responsibility for the final product. Within the groups, other students were assigned various roles seen in the film industry, such as screenwriter, cinematographer, and costume designer. The groups all came together and created a production company, even choosing names that their group would go by.
From left, Chloe Kugelmas, Paige Branca, Arianna Nachman and Kyra Mak show off their black-tie apparel before the ceremony.Courtesy of Zoey Possick and Livia Sherman
Throughout the process, students had to work together to create scripts, shoot lists, and storyboards, learning all of the nitty-gritty aspects of production that must happen before diving into filming. In a project reliant on teamwork and collaboration, actors had to learn to balance their busy lives with the group filming schedule—every person had to be there for the work to run smoothly. In the middle of college decisions, spring sports, and other classes, students were forced to learn a valuable lesson in time management, as well as being a good member of a team.
“This whole project was working together, which is not an easy task and not something that’s expected of you much in high school,” said Jon Ambrosio, the English teacher of the course, partnered with Jessica Cerasoli, who works on the creative side of the class. “You might have had some group projects with much smaller groups, but when you're dealing with 15 kids in a group, that’s a lot of different personalities to tackle.”
The two teachers were entirely hands-off throughout the project, leaving students to finally apply the soft skill lessons they had been instilled with throughout the year.
The films
The original story of Lysistrata took place in Greece during the Peloponnesian War between the men of Athens and Sparta. The women of Athens, led by Lysistrata, became tired of the war and decided to take matters into their own hands; they began a sex strike against their husbands until there was peace. When tasked with a modernization of the story, the three student groups at Blind Brook all took drastically different approaches.
‘Liz and Friends’
“Liz and Friends,” directed by Ian Goldfeld and produced by Alexandra Beatty, transformed the plot into a take on the beloved sitcom Seinfeld. In the Eros Entertainment production, the men’s girlfriends withhold sex from them after they are caught lying about and canceling their plans with the girlfriends to instead hang out with the guys. The film—the only one of three to maintain the theme of sex—kept the comedic nature of the play and perfectly modernized it. From Kosmo’s wild costumes, played and designed by Eli Zimmerman, to the always confused character of Mira, played by Chloe Kugelmas, the crowd was constantly laughing at the movie’s jokes and sexual innuendos.
Daniel Greenspan, who later won Best Actor for his portrayal of Luke in “Liz and Friends,” gives a nod to the paparazzi while walking the red carpet.Courtesy of Zoey Possick and Livia Sherman
“What made it difficult to be a team is that we are all in similar situations where we have sports and other commitments,” said Daniel Greenspan, who played the lead male character of Luke, based off of Jerry Seinfeld himself, “but with this team in particular we had all known each other for a long time, so there was a lot of good chemistry on screen and even behind the scenes.”
‘Fore’
The second film of the night was “Fore,” created by the production company Alabama Gals Productions. The movie, directed by Rose Penan and produced by Ana Savitt, chose the direction of spoofing the Real Housewives franchise, characterizing the story’s women as wealthy housewives, upset by their husbands’ seeming preference of golfing to spending time with them. In creative liberties taken by the production company, the women in “Fore”—led by Cassidy Wohl as Lisa Strada—vowed not to apply makeup, shower, or appease their husbands in any way instead of the original sex strike, even going as far as stealing the men’s golf clubs to keep them off the green. Hilarious moments depicting fights, schemes, and satire tastefully complemented the film’s underlying condemnation of traditional gender roles.
“One of my favorite parts was helping to come up with the idea,” said Penan. “I feel like there were so many ways we could kind of go around the sex strike in Lysistrata while maintaining the humor and comedy. I also loved seeing how everyone really got into their character and learning their individual strengths.” Many of the actors in the film, she mentioned, she previously did not know very well, yet ultimately ended up connecting to.
‘Layla Strata’
The screening portion of the night concluded with the aptly-named Ambrosio Productions’ short film entitled “Layla Strata,” co-directed by Sydney Goldberg and Seth Low, and produced by Paige Garber. In a much different rendition of the story than the other two, “Layla Strata” was centered around the title protagonist, played by Jessie Kron, a highly-acclaimed female scientist accused by her male counterparts of stealing the credit for their creation of a time machine. Feeling disrespected within her field, Strata decides to use the time machine to go back in time and fight for the right for women to have an education much earlier than it was actually accomplished. The film took a powerful stance on misogyny in the workplace, especially in S.T.E.M. fields, shedding a bit of the comedic flair of the original play to highlight its important social messages.
From left, Will Jaffee, Ian Goldfeld, Sydney Goldberg, Daniel Greenspan and Wynnie Choset take in their moments of fame with a smile.Courtesy of Zoey Possick and Livia Sherman
“Figuring out how each scene should run and who needs to be where and when was difficult as director,” reflected Goldberg, finding similar struggles as the other teams when it came to collaboration. “But we ended up coming together and had some especially cool edited parts of the movie, like a scene where Layla snuck into the lab that we created a security camera for. The filming aspect was honestly really fun.”
The awards
The night concluded with the moments everybody had been waiting for: the announcement of the award winners. “Fore” walked away with four awards, the most out of all the movies, taking home Best Cinematography and Best Adapted Screenplay as a production. “Liz and Friends” and “Layla Strata” took three each, with “Layla Strata” getting Best Costumes and Best Editing. For individual awards, Eli Zimmerman, Chloe Kugelmas, and Daniel Greenspan from “Liz and Friends” brought home Best Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, and Lead Actor, respectively. Cassidy Wohl of “Fore” was awarded Best Lead Actress, while Seth Low and Sydney Goldberg of “Layla Strata” took Best Directors.
The most anticipated award of the night for everyone was Best Picture; every student knew full well that whichever movie’s producer went up to accept the award would not only win bragging rights, but a guaranteed 100% on the project, which is worth 600 points and represents a large portion of the final grade in the class. Ultimately, it was my honor as the producer of “Fore” to get on stage and accept the award for Best Picture, something I and my entire team worked extraordinarily hard for.
Each film was the product of months of dedication, and this effort was seen as clear as day in the outcome. “I thought each film had its own qualities that I really enjoyed,” commented Ambrosio, and clearly the Academy agreed. With the awards split as evenly as they could possibly have been, the individual strengths and teamwork of each group shone through.
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