Standing Room Only at Renaissance Academy's "Friday Night Live"

Collegeville, PA- On December 5th, 2014, Renaissance Academy Charter School held their seventh annual performance of “Friday Night Live” (FNL) held at the Rock & Roll After School performance auditorium located in the Marketplace shopping center in Collegeville, PA. The night included comedy improvisation by the Renaissance Academy comedy troupe, LOL as well as live music performances by the band, SuperGroup.

Over 230 community members were treated to a fun night of family-friendly entertainment, which was presented in a two team competition, “Team This” and “Team That”. There were guest judges who chose which team won each round. Following the competition, there were a number of awards including the team winner, “Team This”; the senior awards which we won by Andrew Kennedy and Taylor Grubb; and the troupe player who brought in the most fans to the event which was Carrie Baker.

This production was directed by Jenny (Kreyl) Shoeman, Drama Director at the Renaissance Academy who said “This year, we had our highest number of participants in LOL as well as a truly remarkable level of talent. The public, community and parental support of the show was amazing!” In addition to heading up the drama department at Renaissance, Ms. Shoeman is an accomplished actor, playwright and director. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from Temple University, a Master of Education from Arcadia University, a Master of Arts in Theatre from Villanova University, and is an adjunct professor of theatre at Albright College.

Players in the LOL “TEAM THIS” included captains, Alec Cuthbert and Grant Landau Williams, Susannah Cushmore, Cole Geissler AJ Hoy, Joe Kennedy, Kelly Martin, Carson McLaughlin, Rose Newmiller, Nicole Noble, Luke Poltorak, Ben Rabizadeh, and Tyler Robbins. “Team That” included captains, Taylor Grubb and Andy Kennedy, Carrie Baker, Michael Baran, Keely Bennett, Liana Block, Jeffrey Cocci, Samantha Gorman, Spencer Grubb, Gary Hanna, Ryan Hartman, Alex Waskiewicz, Jeremy Wenger, and Jessica Yablonski.

Completing the LOL production company were guest judges, Eric Ness, Steven Swan and Michelle Boyd; technical director, Michael Gallagher; and production assistant, Ben Leibowitz. SuperGroup, which was directed by Michael O’Brien, included Alina Dowdalls, Vocals and Guitar; Kara Glazer, Vocals; Raquel Rosenwald, Guitar; Solomon Wilson, Bass; and Aaron Pignone on the Drums.

The Renaissance Academy Drama Department would like to thank all the community members who helped make this such a wonderful evening! The event was a fundraiser and FNL was able to raise approximately $2000 which will benefit the Renaissance Academy new building fund to create lighting for the new Blackbox theatre classroom.
Established in 1999, Renaissance Academy is a K-12, award-winning, tuition-free, college prep charter school located in Phoenixville, PA. Renaissance Academy was recently listed as the #1 K-12 charter school on the 2013-2014 Pennsylvania School Performance Profile published by the Pennsylvania Department of Education. For more information on the school visit their website at www.rak12.org.