Kudos…

Brandon Russo, student thespian,
trodding the boards at Stepinac.

...To Brandon Russo of Yonkers,  a senior at Archbishop Stepinac High School in  White Plains, who has won a $1,000 Bob Fitzsimmons Scholarship Award for excellence in theater arts.

Russo’s stage performances in Stepinac’s acclaimed Drama Club have included a range of notable character roles, most recently  the jovial gangster in the “Drowsy Chaperone” and Sydney in “Curtains,” which won critical praise at  the Edinburgh Fringe Festival two years ago.

In Stepinac’s 100th production, Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast”— which will be staged at the school’s Major Bowes Theater in May— he will play the role of LeFou, the sidekick to Gaston.

The award is named after the late Fitzsimmons, a graduate of Stepinac (’72), who was a gifted actor, producer, writer and a director of stage productions.

Founded in 1948, Archbishop Stepinac High School’s mission is to offer young men a highly competitive academic and extracurricular program that will prepare them for college and leadership roles. Thespian alumni include Alan Alda and Jon Voigt. stepinac.org.

….And to the Purchase Jazz Orchestra, conducted by Grammy Award winner Todd Coolman – what a great name for a jazzman – which will perform April 11 at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola in Manhattan as part of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Saxophonist Eric Alexander is the special guest. (212) 258-9595, jalc.org
After this, the student orchestra takes to the road. It will be at the college’s Performing Arts Center on April 20, the Blue Note in Manhattan on April 25 and The Falcon in Marlboro, N.Y. on May 6.