My Friends Spring Giveaway!

   My best friend is a photographer (a really good one by the way) and she is doing a spring giveaway this month. To enter, just go to http://jobekahphoto.blogspot.com/2011/02/spring-giveaway.html,  follow the instructions and hopefully you can get a great gift!

The History of HCT

Holland Civic Theatre first opened in 1959 doing their small performances in the woman's Lit. club. From there they moved into several buildings rehearsing in the rented spaces and moving in to the Holland High auditorium over the weekend and then producing their 4-5 runs of a show. This was hard work because they had to wait until the Highschool was done with its space before they could move in. This made things shaky and unreliable. Because it was a Civic Theatre they didn't have much money and it relied heavily on the donations of kind hearted donors and the income of ticket sales that came from their few shows. They didn't have much choice. So year after year they kept up in their rented spaces, making props and rehearsing.
Then they found their building, an old Episcopal church and with vigor and excitement they plowed into the work ahead to make the old building in to a working play house. For seven years they used their new building for only rehearsals, building props to bring to the highschool and hosting bingo games as a fund raiser. But they finally dropped bingo realizing that it was not worth the effort that they were putting into it. They devoted all their valuable time to the making a better theatre. They made the old sanctuary into an auditorium with raised chair platforms to better help the audience see the stage. They did a thing called ‘Buy a seat for the Theatre’ to help provide the auditorium with seating. They encouraged the public to come and audition. Within months they were adding more performances to their list of things to do.  Many came with knowledge of the theatre and even more without, but with patience and help every one did what needed to be done. Within a year, they were doing more and more shows, going from a mere 3 to a staggering 7 a season. Through out the years the theatre has been helping others to open up and forget about being shy and sometimes to even find yourself in something you love doing.

Baby Showers

   The other day my mom took all the girls in my family to a baby shower being held for a young mother in our church. Because my dad was sanding and painting the floor in our house, we didn't want to leave Tabitha to get in his way. So off we went with almost everyone in tow. On the way over  Tabitha started to pout and after asking what her problem was she answered, " I hate showers!! Do you think I could ask if she has a bath instead?"  Needless to say everyone in the car started cracking up.
  " Yes Tabitha, you can ask her." Mom said, trying to hold in another spiel of laughter.
  Once we were there, Tabitha found a bowl of Valentine heart mints and dug through them until she found one she could actually read. The rest of the night consisted of her shoving mints in lady's unsuspecting mouths and saying, " I love YOU!!"

Love of Ireland

I don't know what it is about your heritage that makes you proud. I've known all my life that I am Italian, Irish, Polish and some Greek, and I have always been proud of it. Well not of the Polish I have to admit. I hate the Polish in me.  But thats not what I was here to say. I, of course, am proud of my Italian heritage ( I still have family in Italy) but I also am proud of my Irish blood. The other day while going through a jewelry catalog, I came across a ring that originates in Ireland. Its called the Claddagh ring. The ring has two hands holding a heart with a crown on top. At first I was puzzled. What did that mean? After reading into it I found that the hands mean friendship, the heart means love and the crown is for loyalty. Legend has it that an Irish young man was captured and sold to a Moorish goldsmith who taught the young man every thing he knew. When, in 1689 King William negotiated the return of the slaves, the man returned to Ireland where he found his love waiting for him still, even over the long wait. As a token of his love and thankfulness, he gave her a ring he made, the hands for their friendship, the heart for their eternal love and the crown for their loyalty. They soon married and never separated. The ring is very popular in Ireland even now. People use it for engagement rings, purity rings and even wedding rings. The way you wear it also means something. If you wear it with the point of the heart towards you, then it means you are taken or romantically involved. If the point of the heart is  towards the tip of your finger then you are available and not with someone. When you wear the ring on your wedding finger, you are engaged or married. I thought it was very interesting and Irish, thus I looked into getting one for my purity ring.  I will proudly wear the Irish ring for a long time.

Look What I Found In the News!

HOLLAND — It sometimes takes some extra work, but the show must go on, said Holland Civic Theatre producer Brian M. Everitt.

A 30-foot awning on the front of the theater at 50 W. Ninth St. collapsed after Wednesday’s blizzard, blocking the stairs and handicapped ramp.

“You have to do what needs to be done to get the show on,” said Everitt, who used sockets and a wench to dismantle the awning just hours before the 7:30 p.m. opening Thursday of the theater group’s new musical “Working.”

A crew lined up to help Everitt and grounds manager William Hoffmann Jr. was unable to make it because of other weather-related issues — like not being able to get out of their driveways.

“It’s just been one thing after another,” Hoffmann said. “At least there’s no snowstorm expected for opening night.”

He and Everitt didn’t get the awning totally removed in time for the show, but it was out of the way of arriving audience members.

The opening night for “Working,” based on the book by Chicago author Studs Terkel, was expected to be near capacity in the 100-seat theater.

Holland Civic Theatre building and grounds manager Bill Hoffmann works to remove the fallen awning before the opening of the show Thursday.

The former Broadway show is about the lives and work of average Americans and runs Thursday through Saturday evenings now through Feb. 19 with a Sunday matinee on Feb. 13.

My Cousin Paul

MONOLOGUE OF HEARTBREAK

"He adored me, and I adored him," said Cindy Furmato. "We love him, we want him back."

Cindy and Paul Furmato met 17 years ago when both were undergraduates at Florida Institute of Technology. They were taking a trigonometry class, and despite earning high marks, "I pretended that I didn't know what was going on and asked for his help," she said. "We had our first date in a Chinese restaurant, and we were in love from then on. It was just him and me. 

"He was my other half, and now I have to go on without him," Mrs. Furmato said, tears in her eyes. "It's the hardest for the children. Their father had always been there for them. "Paul just turned 11 last week, but Daddy wasn't there. Stephanie is 9. She always went fishing with Daddy. She says now every time she fishes, it is for and with him. Theresa is 6. She is very very bright, just like her Daddy. Every morning, I don't want to get out of bed, but I have to, because the children need me.

"He got me this house, and it was our castle. But we only had seven weeks."

Mr. Furmato, 37, was a vice president at Cantor Fitzgerald.

PAUL FURMATO, 37, DEVOTED FIRST TO FAMILY

At 37, Paul James Furmato had started to retool his life. He recently lost 20 pounds, bought a new house in Colts Neck, and was making plans to work closer to home so he could spend more time with his wife and three children. 

While he enjoyed his work as vice president and institutional sales trader for Cantor Fitzgerald Securities, Mr. Furmato knew every minute he spent traveling to the company's World Trade Center office was time away from his family. When the company decided to open an office in Shrewsbury, he jumped at the opportunity. 

"Instead of commuting on the road, he wanted to spend more time raising his kids and being close to home," said his younger brother, Mark. "The office was supposed to be completed Sept. 1, and he would have been out of the building." 

Mr. Furmato was among those working on the 104th floor when a hijacked plane crashed into the North Tower on Tuesday. 

"He was a wonderful husband. He was my prince," said his wife, Cindy. "He raced home every night when the market closed at 4 p.m. His happiest moments were being home with me and the kids." 

At night, he would coach his 10-year-old son's basketball and baseball teams in Colts Neck. On the weekends, you could find him fishing on his boat. 

"He loved boating and fishing with his family," said Mark Furmato, who spent last weekend preparing the boat for the next tuna fishing trip. Mark said his brother always seemed to be moving at a fevered pace so he could find more time to spend with his children: Paul Jr., Stephanie, 9, and Theresa, 6. 

"On any given Saturday, he'd have both his cars washed and waxed before anybody would be up in the neighborhood," Mark said. 

In addition to his wife and three children, Mr. Furmato is survived by his parents, Joseph and Margaret, of Point Pleasant and Vero Beach, Fla.; his brothers, Joseph Jr., of Point Pleasant, and Mark, of Brielle, and sisters Carol DeBenedictis of Point Pleasant and Jill Keough of Westwood. 

Funeral services will be held at 9 a.m. at St. Mary's R.C. Church, Phalanx Road and Route 34 in Colts Neck. A memorial service will follow at the Holmdel Mausoleum. Donations can be made to the American Red Cross, 1540 W. Park Ave, Tinton Falls. 

Awning in the Wind

   I walked out side of the auditorium after watching dress rehearsals and ran into Bill the other night. Bill was just hanging around the place doing odds and ends when he heard a thunk outside the wall. "The wind was so hard outside during the run that the awning blew right off the building!" He said excitedly. Then he pulled me over to the front door and pushed it open letting in a blast of cold snow and air. Through the swirling snow I could see our beautiful red awning twisted to the ground in a heap. Now you may think that its no big deal right? I mean, its just an awning. But to me it was a sad and depressing sight. You see about 2 years ago, my dad, Vincent Bill and I all went to the theatre and took down the ugly green awning and put up the red one. It wasn't easy though. It took hours of standing in freezing temperatures, blinding snow and blasting wind. I remember the day clearly. I remember handing Dad screws, donning another pair of Bills work gloves and Bill kicking me inside until I thawed out. After much work and sweat, (yes we were sweating) we had the awning up. And, if I do say so myself, it looked awesome. Now here I stood shivering in the door way of the theatre looking at the awning lying on the ground.
  "When are you going to put it back up?" I asked. Every time I drove past the theatre, I liked to look at the awning and remember that day and the fact that I had helped put it up.
  Bill smiled sympathetically like he knew what I was thinking ." The wind bent one of the supporting rods. It will have to be bent back into place first." He shut the door and pointed at the inside of it. There was a coating of snow about a foot or two up. " The wind blew the snow in the closed door its that strong right now."

  As I was leaving I looked at the front of the building and saw the awing being held down by straps that he had ran out and thrown on to keep it from going farther. I hope it goes back up soon. Maybe I can help this time too.

Dame Judi Dench - a school article

Judi Dench is best known for her portrayal of “M” in the Bond series, her fierce green eyes and her motherly worn face making a prominent dent on the big screen. Before she was “M” the British actress was large into theatre where she played many Shakespeare plays, and very well at that. The way she embodies her character and makes you believe that she is actually who she says she is, is what made her loved by not only British movie goers but also American and all over the world. She is able to portray a lovable English secretary, (in “As time Goes By”) and yet a scared and worried Lady Macbeth in Macbeth all the way to a harsh yet deep down inside, soft hearted head of Foreign Intelligence (in the James Bond series).
Judi was born in Heworth England December 9 1939 to  Eleanora Olave (née Jones), a native of Dublin, and Reginald Arthur Dench, a doctor who met Judi's mother while studying medicine.
Judi has loved the theatre more than any other form of theatrical arts, even more than sitcoms and films.
She herself describes it like this “I'm more comfortable on stage, where there is an audience to tell a story to, as opposed to a film set where you are not in charge at all. On stage you can hear an audience's reactions. Within two minutes of a play starting you know how the evening will go. On film you're more reliant on the director. The moment he leaves you, you're like a child learning to walk.”
Acting on stage to her is a greater fulfillment and she loves to keep learning. Dench has so many awards that I couldn’t fit them all on this page, so in brief She has won nine BAFTAs (British Academy Film Awards), six Laurence Olivier Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award. The Laurence Olivier Awards is basically for excellence on stage in Britain. The Tony Award is the same thing but only for US Broadway.
When she was asked about growing old and getting replaced by younger actresses, she was quick to make her point that no matter how hold she gets, she will still be striving to do her best. And she stated, “ I know I can sustain a run ( a movie filming) because of my training.” Whereas, she would point out, the younger actors don’t have the experience that she does.
Right now she is filming in a number of movies, another James Bond, the newest Pirates of the Caribbean and a new Jane Eyre. These are just a taste of what she is involved with now and even at age 72 she is still very involved with acting and stage.