Senior Film ‘Gotcha’ Premieres at PaliHi

“How much would a red carpet cost?” Palisades High drama teacher Nancy Cassaro-Fracchiolla asked Walter Borchert of Town and Country Rentals. Her senior drama students had written, directed, acted in, edited and produced a 40-minute film that will premiere tomorrow, May 17 at 8 p.m., and she wanted the audience to walk down a red carpet to a renovated Gilbert Hall on campus.
Opening-night tickets are $20 and will include hors d’oeuvres and sparkling cider.    Saturday’s screenings (7, 8 and 9 p.m.) and Sunday’s (6 and 7 p.m.) are $10 for adults and $7 for students.
Overseeing student film production is a first for Fracchiolla, a Palisadian who has appeared in “Friends,” “The West Wing” and “The Sopranos” under the stage name Cassaro. She also conceived the idea, was a writer and the original Tina in “Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding,” which played Off-Broadway in New York.
This is also Fracchiolla’s first year as a teacher at PaliHi. The day before school started last August, drama teacher Amanda Porter abruptly resigned and left the department in a lurch.
People in the community, including photography teacher Rick Steil, recommended that principal Dr. Pam Magee hire Fracchiolla, who has a theatre degree from Hofstra University and had produced numerous youth musicals around town as well as directing the Paul Revere musical for five years.
Fracchiolla accepted the offer and, after dropping her oldest son John off at the Pratt Art Institute in Brooklyn, she returned home and stepped into the classroom—actually the health room off the main gym because Gilbert Hall (formerly B101) was under construction.
“I don’t think I’ve ever worked this hard in my life,” Fracchiolla said last week, “but I love it.” She teaches four classes—two freshman classes in the drama pod that ties in with English, social studies and drama, plus drama improvisation and theater ensemble.
“We started with the Greeks,” Fracchiolla said about her freshman classes. “I dusted off all my old plays and we talked about how drama was the center of the Greek culture and like a big festival, sort of like Coachella.” She tries to give her students a point of reference, believing “When I make it accessible, I feel like it inspires them.”
Her students have just finished comparing “Romeo and Juliet” and “Westside Story” as they discuss how entrenched belief systems can lead to tragedy.
“If one only sees black or white and not gray, there can be trouble,” she said. “We need to find the middle ground; it means I can look at your life and not be threatened by it. It doesn’t mean I have to agree, but at least there’s a discussion.”
Fracchiolla said that while the classroom setting is new, directing and working on stage and sets are not. “I kind of look at each class as an ensemble and interactive; I avoid the lecture style of teaching,” she said. “We read together and discuss what we’ve read.”
In her improv class, Fracchiolla treats the class like a sit-com writer’s room, where students sit around and discuss the merits of scripts and add quips.
Her classes moved into Gilbert Hall (named for its benefactor, retired English teacher Rose Gilbert) after the winter break. “This is a beautiful room, worth the wait,” she said. “It reminds me of the small theaters in New York.”
Over spring break, Fracchiolla had to spend eight 12-hour days in a row at the high school, overseeing film production.
“PaliHi has a tradition that every year the seniors choose a show, audition actors, direct it and then produce it,” she explained. “But since Mercer Hall was also under construction, this wasn’t going to be possible.”
A student suggested a film. After an informal meeting with 10 senior drama students, Fracchiolla agreed to oversee it. Sarah Freedland wrote the original comedy, about a girl played by Bailey Higgins who transfers to PaliHi the second semester of her senior year. Niki Elyasi, Nik Shaw and Arielle Sitrick assisted Freedland with the rewrites.
Brandon Papo, who played one of the leads in PaliHi’s spring musical “Legally Blonde,” directed the film; Leor Tehrani was the craft and location manager; and Diane Dalla was the script supervisor.
The students rented cameras and lenses, aided by a $3,000 donation from the Booster Club, but Fracchiolla estimates that the film will cost about $5,000. “My credit card is a little heavier than normal,” she said. “I hope this isn’t going to be a first-year teaching mistake.”
The community is invited to view the film this weekend. “It’s inspiring to see something fresh and creative,” Fracchiolla said. “It’s exciting to see what high school students did over spring break and it’s good for the soul to see something besides bad news.”
Fracchiolla’s husband, Chris, is associate pastor at the Palisades Methodist Church, and they also have a daughter, Alice, a junior at Pali.
Walter Borchert, by the way, is charging only $100 for the red carpet—enough to cover the delivery costs. Donations can be made at kickstarter.com/projects/palihighgotcha/fund-pai-high-senior-film-gotcha.