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MARCH 15-21, 2018
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Catasauqua High brings Charm of Hollywood Classic to the stage
Allen House, Northampton, Pa.
Northampton Area Historical Society takes Photographic journey Through the past By KERI LINDENMUTH The Northampton Area Historical Society took residents on a journey through the borough’s past during a “looking back” presentation on Saturday, March 10. The council chambers of the Northampton Borough Hall were filled with area residents sharing stories, recalling memories, and uncovering new details about the borough’s rich history. The historical society’s vice president, Larry Oberly, led the presentation, which used images both new and old to tell the story of over 60 borough businesses, past and present. “To me, history has always been a chronical of change,” Oberly said. Oberly and other members of the historical society, including Terry Reppert, combed through Ray Walls’s 1941 publication Northampton: The Town That Wants You, which listed over 241 businesses in the borough.
Plumbers, electricians, butchers, taverns, drug stores, dentists, doctors’ offices, inns, and more lined the borough streets. “We are hard-pressed to get near that today,” Oberly said. However, Walls’s book did not list the addresses of the businesses or how long they were around, leading Oberly, Reppert, Edward Pany, and the rest of the historical society on a mission to shed some light on the borough’s past. They went through old photographs, Thanksgiving football game ads, church programs, and family histories to find where these businesses were and what became of them. Thousands of notecards were filled with addresses, names, and stories, while several flash drives were filled with pictures Pany provided of businesses gone by. Several pictures showed the farms and meat markets of J.H. Continued on page 4
by KERI LINDENMUTH The Catasauqua High School Drama Club presented their 2018 Freddy Awards-contending spring musical from March 9-11, bringing the classic Hollywood film Singin’ in the Rain to life. The musical, based on the 1952 film starring dance legend Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, and Debbie Reynolds, is an ambitious one for any high school to perform, but Catasauqua’s director Brenda McGuire knew her students were up to the challenge. “We asked ourselves, what can we have our kids experience that they have not experienced before?” she says in her director’s notes. She and her husband, assistant director Kerry McGuire, offered students a list of “Old Broadway” classics and the tap-dancing-filled Singin’ in the Rain was unanimously picked by members of the drama club. “Never had any of them tapped before June 2017,” McGuire continues. However, it was hard for audience members to tell that not a single cast member had ever tapped before. In the company number “Broadway Melody,” the high school’s auditorium thundered with the sound of tap shoes and was brightened with the smiles of over two dozen cast members, who ranged from grades seventh through twelfth. Senior Connor McCully starred as silent film star Don Lockwood, played by Kelly in the film. Senior Branden Bilheimer starred as Lockwood’s friend Cosmo Brown, played by O’Connor in the film. Sophomore Noel Cruz starred as Kathy Selden, aspiring actress and
Marcia Hahn Page 5
Lockwood’s love interest, a role that was performed by Reynolds in the film. McCully demonstrated the charm and swagger of Kelly and left the audience cheering after performing the classic number “Singin’ in the Rain.” The number featured real rain falling from the set, which McCully gleefully tap-danced and splashed his way through. Meanwhile, Bilheimer brought the charisma of Cosmo Brown to life and had the audience roaring with laughter during his rendition of “Make ‘Em Laugh.” The intense number filled with slapstick humor and acrobatic dance moves, which infamously forced exhausted film star O’Connor to take to his bed for three days, is a favorite for many fans of the musical and Bilheimer never lost energy as he tapped, jumped, spun, and flipped his way across the stage. Finally, Cruz perfectly captured the kindness and spunk of Selden. Her songs “You Are My Lucky Star” and “Would You” are noticeably slower than the fast-paced tap numbers that fill Continued on page 2
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