The Inside Press

Magazines serving the communities of Northern Westchester

The Inside Press

Barbecue, Sundae Bar, and a Great Cause: Come Celebrate “Team Amy!”

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Team Amy’s 6th Annual 

BBQ Celebration

‘helping to make the world a better place for us all’

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The more the merrier! Old friends, new friends, family, neighbors, and more! Join us at Crabtree’s Kittle House for our

6th Annual Amy’s Birthday Celebration Fundraiser

to find a cure for Brain Cancer

A fantastic evening of fun, feasting, and great conversation at a

Barbecue Picnic on the Lawn at Crabtree’s Kittle House

Chef Jay will pull out all the stops for a massive barbecue feast along with a sundae bar perfect for kids (and adults!)

Barbecue Ribs, Sliders, Steaks, Summer Salads and Local Farm Veggies, John Fazio’s Chickens, Lobster, Clams, Oysters and Wild Sustainable Seafood of every sort. 

And of course a vast array of Delicious Wines from The Cellar, 

Local Captain Lawrence Beers and 

Amy’s Signature Sangria!

As in years past the Foundation will present checks to four very worthy charities who continue to make great contributions

 to our local community and beyond

 Thursday, August 18, 2016

6:00-9:00pm

$85 per adult

Suggested Donation (no donation is required to attend)

R.S.V.P. 914 666 8044

teamamyfoundation.org

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About Team Amy’s Mission

The Amy Marie Crabtree Foundation, named for John Crabtree’s (owner of Crabtree’s Kittle House) wife (the Amy of ‘Amy’s Garden’) who passed away after a valiant fight with brain cancer in 2009. Amy was a passionate person who felt strongly about causes that helped women, children, and helpless animals. The Foundation raises funds to find a cure for the horrible disease *Glioblastoma Multiforme that took Amy’s life, and provides financial support for the causes she dedicated her life to.

Glioblastoma Multiforme

is a brain disease that attacks even healthy, active people like Amy.

 There is no cure.

Fewer than 5% of the people afflicted with the tumor will survive.

Learn more about The Amy Marie Crabtree Foundations

Second Screenplay Writing Workshop with Ariane Von Kamp

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Ariane Von Kamp

From Concept to First Draft

Tuesdays Oct 25,  Nov. 1, 8, 15, 22, 29

At Scattered Books in Chappaqua

What we will do:  From creative brain-storming techniques to high or low concept development, to outline, treatment and first draft, you will come out with a working first draft for a feature narrative screenplay, TV Pilot or short film script.

How we will do it: This workshop introduces students to utilizing techniques for story development, formatting, problem-shooting and scriptwriting. By the freedom of the unconscious mind, in a relaxed, open and receptive state, we are able to hear and create authentic, unique story. This workshops’ aim is to develop confidence in finding one’s inner voice by which to begin telling story. Then, we will introduce story components vital to story structure, write outlines, treatments and scenes, culminating into viable, completed first drafts.

What to bring: Students are invited to bring story notes, a focused mind, sense of humor, H2O, a journal and writing instruments. Tuition $300 per student, maximum 16 students. If the student wishes to take an advanced workshop, starting in Mid-October (recommended), there is a $100 discount for both. 50% Deposit required prior to class to secure spot, 50% due at time of the first class.

About Ariane: Ariane is a native New Yorker and Los Angeles transplant. She studied acting and writing at the New School for Social Research’s MFA program with the Actors Studio in New York City, Yale School of Drama in London and The Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-Upon-Avon.  She is a member of SAG-AFTRA, WGA and The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. She has been seen on The Late Show with Jay Leno, Anchorman with Will Ferrell and the comedy series STRIP MALL.

Her mentors include, Mitzi Shore of the Comedy Store,  Charlie Laughton, Elizabeth Kemp and Martin Landau of the Actor’s Studio and Screenwriter/Director Shane Black (IRONMAN 3, LETHAL WEAPON).

After success of her play “Trials of the Fire,” which premiered in NY, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue film studies as a Screenwriting Fellow at the American Film Institute, were she was mentored by Frank Pierson (DOG DAY AFTERNOON) and Leonard B. Stern (GET SMART).

Ariane has worked for Creative Screenwriting Magazine, The Screenwriting Expo and Random House Books. Conversely, Ariane is Co-Founder of Theatre ARK in Manhattan, NY with James Kloiber of the Actors Studio. Ariane is a private Script Coach and WGA Writer For Hire. She has held improv workshops at Groundlings School Training Center and taught Improv Comedy to kids at Hollygrove Children’s Home, with Diane Keaton’s Dream Street’s Summer Camp for Kids and Lincoln High School’s after school writing program. As a natural Producer, Ariane has produced and performed comedy in Los Angeles at The Improv, The Comedy Store, Stand-Up NY and, produces webisodes and short films.

Ariane currently lives with her Papillion, Gigi and is a Judge for NATAS Emmys 2016. She has worked on NBC’s Maya & Marty in Manhattan with Maya Rudolf and Martin Short, and while on haunts is drafting a comedy feature film for Anna Farris and a collection of comedy industry adventures, “Call me Dagmar, Please.”

Ariane grew up in Chappaqua and went to Horace Greeley High School, SUNY Albany and Yale School of Drama at Oxford University’s British American Drama Academy. She is excited to be back home to work with creative minds and fellow writers in Chappaqua. THE SUBLIME, her first book, a treatise on the Nature of the Sublime from Longinus to Van Gogh will be available in Barnes & Noble in December, and, can be purchased in First Edition, at Lulu, Press, Inc.

“The first time I saw Dead Poet’s Society and Breakfast Club, I think it was while I was a Junior at Greeley. I thought, that’s the job I wanted to do, but where do you go to write for movie school? Is that even a thing? Do movies come out of the woods or magically appear out of thin air? So, I started studying acting at the Actor’s Studio and I was reading for parts where the women’s dialogue was so unnatural or stereotyped. Women were one-dimensional and unintelligent. There was a horrible gap between the women I personally knew and the women portrayed on TV and in Film. That’s really why I started writing. To share my perspectives and find an authentic voice, not only for only women characters, but to create complex, whole, sometimes tarnished, but always genuine voices. I find no better place to write and ponder than Chappaqua, looking out into the woods by Whippoorwill Pond, sipping a freshly brewed Cappuccino from Susan Lawrence  and taking a stroll through Gedney Park. What more inspiration do you need? ”

 

Why the Worst?

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By Michael Levin

Michael-Levin11Okay, I’m out.

I won’t lie.

I’d hoped Donald Trump, once the Republican nomination was secured, would awaken from his macho fulminations and realize that he was just a heartbeat from the Oval Office.

That he would pivot from dog whistles and bluster and Mexican walls and Muslim bans and recognize that the leadership of the free world was his for the taking.

But he didn’t.

Because he couldn’t.

I’m old enough to recall the 1970s Donald Trump, the one who deserves much of the credit for saving midtown Manhattan.

Remember the Daily News headline, “Ford to New York: Drop Dead”?

New York City was dying economically.

The city was dangerous.

Commuters went home at night and left Midtown’s streets empty.

Tourists went elsewhere.

It was Cleveland on the Hudson.

And then the renaissance began, when a young Donald Trump – admittedly abetted by his father’s political connections – put together a deal to transform the failed Commodore Hotel.

It had been a giant massage parlor hard by Grand Central Station, and Trump turned it into the Grand Hyatt.

That deal triggered the resurgence of midtown Manhattan and sparked a building boom that continues to this day.

But then the brilliant builder became the bloated ego.

Then came all the bad deals – the casinos, the failed airline, the schlock, the broken marriages, the failed multilevel marketing scheme, Trump University, and, of course, “You’re fired.”

The one thing Trump possessed as the 2016 Presidential campaign began was an ear attuned to the populist desire for an outsider.

An outsized outsider, one who could restore pride to a nation made Lilliputian by the incumbent.

A man with a can-do spirit, a disregard for the rules, and Teflon skin.

Just right for the times, as he vanquished 16 Republican contenders any of whom might have had a shot at the White House in a normal year.

But he couldn’t grow up.

Instead of letting Hillary’s email scandals dominate the headlines, he had to go after a judge of Mexican heritage.

And he put on a clown car of a Republican convention, where no one took five minutes to vet his wife’s speech, and where his biggest opponent, Ted Cruz, demonstrated a selfishness that rivaled
only that of Trump’s.

And now, our Republican nominee proves to have the thinnest skin in all of politics, applying his “hit me once, I’ll hit you ten times” to the parents of a young Marine killed in battle.

I hoped for more.

We didn’t get it.

Now, it’s been said that “Hillary is to secrecy as Bill was to bimbos.”

No one less than FBI director James Comey, a universally respected man, branded her a compulsive liar.

And yet, for Republicans and conservatives, suddenly she’s Plan B.

Don’t ask me if I’m going to vote for her.

But I’ll tell you whom I can’t vote for.

The worst political candidate in America in my lifetime.

Worse than Wallace.

Worse than Goldwater.

Maybe even tied for worst with David Duke.

Are you sure there isn’t a legitimate third party candidate somewhere in the wings?

Jimmy Carter named his autobiography, Why Not The Best?

Well, my fellow conservatives.

We could write a book.

It’ll be called, Why The Worst?

Because he didn’t pivot from immaturity to maturity, from narcissist to President.

Because he can’t.

And the damned thing is, he still might win.

A registered Republican, Michael Levin is one of the most established ghostwriters in the nation. A New York Times best-selling author, Levin has written, co-written or ghostwritten more than 100 books, of which eleven are national best sellers. Visit www.businessghost.com

 

Newtown Film Captures Community Pain — and Resilience

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(L-R): Daniel’s parents, Mark and Jackie Barden; filmmakers, Kim Snyder and Maria Cuomo Cole; Congressman David Price, Vice Chair of the House Democrats' Gun Violence Prevention Task Force. A panel discussion followed the screening of "Newtown," which was moderated by Hunter Schwarz, National political reporter, Independent Journal Review.
(L-R): Daniel’s parents, Mark and Jackie Barden; filmmakers, Kim Snyder and Maria Cuomo Cole; Congressman David Price, Vice Chair of the House Democrats’ Gun Violence Prevention Task Force. A panel discussion followed the screening of “Newtown,” which was moderated by Hunter Schwarz of the Independent Journal Review.

By Grace Bennett

Philadelphia, July 27 — When a parent who lost a child to the Sandy Hook massacre speaks of the need for us all to move forward, it is impossible not to feel your own resolve turn to steel.

The Bardens lost their six year old son Daniel, one of 20 first grade children and six educators gunned down on December 14, 2012 by Adam Lanza, who had easy access to military style assault weaponry in his home.

It seemed the entire world mourned and the surviving families where inundated with letters, drawings, etc.. But despite the intense outpouring, a raw pain still plagues the survivors interviewed; and some feel ready to reconcile that it may be an impossible one to erase. The parents describe how they struggle to maintain connections to the very spirit of their children, who live on inside them. One mother pointed to a room full of boxes of the letters and gifts that she is just starting to look at three years later. “We go on for the (surviving) children,” who are “miraculously still smiling and playing,” another parent related.

The movie’s powerful impact was not via graphic descriptions of what transpired in the classroom where the children died but rather achieved by conveying the intense pain and conflicting emotions–and also the dreams…the dreams…ones in which their children are still alive or one mother’s dream that she died holding her child (“at least I could be with him”). An emotional roller coaster may best describe the daily lives and consciousness of the survivors, surviving neighbors, siblings and good friends, and of the community at large.

Newtown FullSizeRenderFilmed over the course of three years, the filmmakers were granted unique access. There was never before heard testimony to depict the aftermath of the 2012 deadliest mass shooting of of school children in U.S. history. In Newtown, 12/14 is a day that changed…everything. But many, like the Bardens, continue to fight the gun lobby through the efforts of www.weareallNewtown.org and other advocacy groups, members of which were in attendance too.

“We are hoping for a ripple effect from this film,” commented Newtown’s director Kim Snyder. “We are using the film to reframe gun violence as a public health issue.”
Producer Maria Cuomo Cole called Newtown a “metaphor for what has happened to communities around the country. The unfortunate series of events since…people are scared in an unprecedented way.”

“I don’t see how anyone can see this film without being moved,” said Congressman David Price, vice chair of the House Democrats’ Gun Violence Prevention Task Force. The issues surrounding gun prevention violence, he said, “have become a front and center, major presidential issue.”

Indeed, President Obama addressed gun violence in his speech last night, and his heartbreaking feelings of helplessness following Sandy Hook in particular. The issue–and a promise to never quit fighting the NRA–has been a prominent part of the Hillary Clinton campaign in her bid to be elected president.

Mark Barden urges everyone to get involved and described how he and his wife became “accidental advocates. I’m not proud that it took the loss of our little Daniel. Like so many Americans, we were disengaged. Now we will do whatever we can to prevent others from experiencing this kind of pain.”