Holmdel Creative Arts Association Hosts It's First Annual Teacher Talent Show

HCAA Hosts it’s First Annual Teacher Talent Show!

On the freezing evening of February 5th, students from all four Holmdel District schools, and their families, came out in droves to support their teachers at the First Annual HCAA Teacher Talent Show. The 600+ audience members came to see if it was true that their teachers, “do much more than teach” as had been advertised by the Holmdel Creative Arts Association (HCAA), hosts of the evening’s event. By the end of the night there would be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the Holmdel teachers, faculty and administrators are an extremely talented group.

The show started with a bang as 15 teachers from Village School performed a glow-in-the-dark dance to thunderous applause and deafening screams. MC of the event, Bryan DeNovellis, the Tv and Film teacher at HHS, kept that initial audience enthusiasm going as teachers from the high school (Corboy and Lewis) and William R. Satz school (Vallo and Tetreault) displayed their vocal prowess. Act One of the Teacher Talent Show also highlighted the dance moves (Kapoor, WRS) and acting skills (Goetke and Connelly, HHS) that can be found among the district’s teachers.After a brief intermission that allowed the exuberant young crowd to refuel with concessions sold by the hustling HCAA members in their “Got Talent?” tee shirts, it was back to see even more talented teachers!

Several amazing duets, soloists and lip synch acts, not to mention a hilarious entre act, kept the audience entertained throughout Act Two. The numbers included teachers from Indian Hill School (Martignoni and Thomas) and Holmdel High School (Goetke), as well as some of the administrators of the various schools. Mr. Ferrarese (Asst. Principal, Indian Hilll) showed off his guitar playing, while Mr. Howard and Ms. Marino (Principal and Asst. Principal, Satz School) stepped in at the last minute to fill a spot vacated by a sick teacher, and knocked everyone’s socks off with their energetic lip synch battle.The “heads” of all four schools, Ms. Duncan (superintendent) and Mr. McGarry (Asst. Superintendent) made an appearance in the last act of the night, as the teachers from Village School came back to demonstrate that Holmdel has some “Uptown Funk”!

The evening concluded with the children in the audience being welcomed on stage to “Be a Clown” for the final song. With confetti swirling, beach balls and balloons flying, and clown noses firmly in place, the children in the finale drove home the message of community spirit, while giving some of the youngsters their first opportunity to appear on stage, much to the delight of their parents.

At the conclusion of the show accolades starting pouring in, confirming to the HCAA members that the months of hard work that had gone into organizing the event had culminated in a tremendous success. Linda Fernand, parent of a Holmdel student stated, “My throat was a little sore from all the screaming and clapping. My daughter and her friends had a blast. They loved cheering for all the acts. All the acts were great!”

Superintendent Barbara Duncan also gushed, “The night was so amazing and I am so happy and proud of the incredibly positive and upbeat faculty morale and community spirit. The teachers love their work and the children, and they know how to have a great time! And you (the HCAA) have tapped into the magic that is in our school community and used it to raise funds and highlight the many talents of our teachers and administrators. Amazing!”

HCAA Co-Presidents, Cindy Manning and Barbara Olinsky, were extremely pleased with both the turn-out and how well the event went. “We couldn’t have done this without a whole lot of help” said Cindy. “We need to thank so many people for helping to make this night so incredible” she continued. “The teachers, faculty and administrators in this town are wonderful, and we obviously couldn’t have done it without them. Mr. DeNovellis was an absolutely amazing MC. Mr. Mester and his crew handled all the technical aspects of the show so well. The custodial staff deserves combat pay for dealing with all this confetti and mess. My fellow HCAA members should all be commended for giving of their time and energy as well as their commitment to the arts. And, of course, we have to thank the Holmdel community for coming out in the cold to support these teachers and the arts in the schools. We’ve had a ton of fun tonight, and raised a good deal of money to give back to the arts departments in the schools. We can’t wait to do it again next year, and show off even more teacher talent. See you all next February for the TTS2!”