Local Drama Students Win National Awards

from OUR TOWN DEKALB (February 2022)

It Was at That Point, the Wheels Came Off

OUR TOWN DEKALB STAFF

Students representing Smoke Rise Academy of Arts won multiple awards at the 2022 Junior Theater Festival in Atlanta, January 14-16.

Over one hundred groups with over 5,000 participants participated in the 2022 festival, both in-person and online. Smoke Rise’s attending group won a Freddie G Outstanding Production award for their performance of selections from “Disney’s Beauty and the Beast JR”; students Sophia Kuechenmeister, Amanda Riedel, and Rayna White Shinault made it to the callback for future video shoots for “how-to” choreography videos; and students Logan Dokes and Harlie Sawtelle were named as All-Stars, an outstanding group of young performers at the festival.

At the festival, each attending group performed fifteen minutes of a Broadway Junior® musical for a group of adjudicators, representing all facets of Broadway talent. Said actor Krystina Alabado (“Mean Girls”) about Smoke Rise Academy of Arts, “Everything about ‘Beauty and the Beast’ - from start to finish - was spectacular, from the complex and inventive staging, to the choreography, powerful sound, and energy from the entire company.”

Smoke Rise Academy of Arts Drama is a theater program representing Smoke Rise Baptist Church. The group does not audition its students, who are in grades 1-12 and come from throughout the Atlanta area. All students who register for the drama classes are in the staged production. 2020 marked the group’s first trip to the Junior Theater Festival Atlanta, and the group won a Freddie G Outstanding Production award and performed for all attendees during the closing ceremony. iTheatrics and the Junior Theater Group produce the Junior Theater Festivals. Based in New York City, for the last decade iTheatrics has established itself as the world’s leading authority on musical theater for young people. iTheatrics works with leading public and private companies around the world - including the Kennedy Center, NBC, and all the leading theatrical licensors - to make sure that young people everywhere have access to quality musical theatre programs.

Local Minister Finds Hope in a Time of Crisis

OUR TOWN DEKALB STAFF

In his debut work, Faith Greater Than Our Challenges, Rev. Tom Edmondson offers a message of hope based on the Apostle Paul’s letters to the Philippians and the writings of psychiatrist and Auschwitz survivor Viktor Frankl. Though separated by nearly two thousand years, both faced certain death—Paul in prison, Frankl in concentration camps. Despite such dire circumstances, each one in his own way affirmed that life has meaning, even under the most extreme difficulties, and inspires hope and patience during this time of pandemic.

The book is based on a series of nine sermons Edmondson delivered at First Christian Church of Atlanta in early 2021, inspired by his rereading during the pandemic of Paul’s and Frankl’s works and a desire to encourage his congregation during the very difficult months of quarantine and isolation. When drafting the sermons, Edmondson referenced the work of authors Alex Pattakos and Elaine Dundon, who in their book, Prisoners of Our Thoughts, distilled Frankl’s work into seven easy to understand principles. He added two principals of his own for the nine sermons, then for the book edited the sermons into chapters and added discussion questions.

“This book is a logotherapeutic reading of Paul’s letter to the Philippians,” wrote Edmondson in the introduction to his book, “…drawing comparisons between what Paul wrote theologically about suffering during his imprisonment and what Viktor Frankl taught psychologically about his suffering and experience in the camps.”

Though the messages were delivered during the COVID pandemic, Edmondson believes the lessons are timeless and applicable to any type of circumstances we may face. “I hope this book helps readers discover a more productive way to cope with real life issues and to discover ‘a faith greater than our challenges.’”

Edmondson is the senior pastor of First Christian Church of Atlanta in Tucker, and leader of the Tucker Community Action Team. Faith Greater Than Our Challenges is available for purchase online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, WIPF and Stock.com in hardcover, softcover and as an eBook. Print copies can also be purchased at the church and at Tall Tale Books in Toco Hills.