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photos courtesy of Boyd Loving’s Facebook
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Elmwood Park NJ, a two-vehicle collision on Wednesday, February 5, in the 200 block of eastbound Broadway led to a full road closure while emergency crews worked to rescue a trapped driver from an overturned vehicle.
Continue reading Serious Crash Closes Broadway in Elmwood Park; Firefighters Rescue Trapped Driver
photos courtesy of Boyd Loving’s Facebook page
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Fair Lawn NJ, in a dramatic turn of events early Tuesday morning, the driver of a red Toyota Corolla escaped injury during a collision that left the vehicle totaled. The accident occurred on July 23 in the 40-00 block of Broadway, Fair Lawn.
Continue reading Driver Escapes Injury in Fair Lawn Collision
photos courtesy of Boyd Loving’s Facebook page
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Fair Lawn NJ, three (3) occupants of a Ford Edge escaped injury late Saturday afternoon, 06/15, when their vehicle crashed through a fence and into a tree while attempting to park in the lot of an IHOP restaurant located on Broadway in Fair Lawn. A flatbed tow truck removed the vehicle from its predicament. Fair Lawn Police responded to investigate the crash.
Continue reading Parking Goes Wrong ,Vehicle Crashed Through Fence at IHOP in Fair Lawn
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Ridgewood native Ali Stroker made history Sunday night as the first actor in a wheelchair to capture a Tony Award. She earned the trophy for her portrayal of Ado Annie in Daniel Fish’s dark revisionist revival of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic “Oklahoma!
The 31-year-old Stroker, who was the first person in a wheelchair to appear on Broadway back in 2015 in “Spring Awakening,” was paralyzed from the chest down due to a car crash when she was 2.
Stroker said when she sings, she has “no limitations.”
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Ridgewood native Ali Stroker, staring in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! has been nominated for a Tony in the Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical category.
Stroker is no stranger to rewriting history. With her 2015 Broadway debut in “Spring Awakening,” she became the first actor in a wheelchair to perform on Broadway . Three years later, she’s back onstage in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma!” as Ado Annie, the flirtatious local who splits her affections between a resident cowboy and a peddler from out of town. Stroker, who earned a nod for featured actress in a musical, is making her mark again, this time as the first wheelchair-bound performer to be nominated for a Tony Award.
Continue reading Ridgewood Native Ali Stoker Nominated for a Tony Award
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Elmwood Park NJ, the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office is *** Seeking information about identity of individual struck by vehicle in Elmwood Park. ***
On October 19th at approximately 10:00 pm Elmwood park Police responded to the intersection of Broadway and Orange Avenue on the report of a pedestrian struck by a vehicle. Upon arrival, officers found the victim who is still unidentified, had been struck by a 2014 Ford Explorer that was traveling east bound on Broadway. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene.
file photo
August 6,2018
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Fair Lawn NJ, according to the Fair Lawn Police department , on 7/13/18 at 4:32pm, Fair Lawn Police had responded to Columbia Bank, 25-00 Broadway, on a reported bank robbery where a dark-skinned male had presented a note to a bank teller that stated “10K or You Die” while the robber grabbed his hip, making the teller believe that he was holding a weapon. The robber was last seen fleeing on foot from the bank with $10,000 in proceeds.
Det. Brian Rypkema & Det. Anthony Lugo continued the investigation and on 8/1/18, were able to identify and arrest Jose Cuevas, age 22 of Paterson, on East 28th Street in Paterson after observing him walking near his residence. A 27-inch machete was found on his person upon arrest. The proceeds from the robbery were not recovered.
Cuevas was charged with robbery, theft and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, then was sent to Bergen County Jail. His first appearance in Superior Court in Hackensack is scheduled for today (8/2/18).
Chief Glen Cauwels stated all defendants, are presumed innocent until proven guilty. If there are questions in reference to the above news release, media personnel can contact Sgt. Brian Metzler at the Fair Lawn Police Department at (201) 794-5365 or by email at bmetzler@fairlawnpd.com
photos courtesy of Boyd Loving’s Facebook
March 16,2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Fair Lawn NJ, No injuries were reported in connection with a Wednesday afternoon, 03/15, rollover crash on Broadway in Fair Lawn. The vehicle involved, a 4-door Saturn sedan, was righted and removed from the scene by a hydraulic lift tow truck. Fair Lawn FD Company #3 and Fair Lawn Heavy Rescue responded to assist Fair Lawn PD. A Paramus PD ESU unit helped with traffic control. Traffic on a service road feeding Saddle River Road southbound was detoured until the crash scene was cleared.
April 21, 2016
“An Open Conversation and Master Class with Ali Stroker, Broadway Trailblazer” will be presented on Friday, April 29 by the Shen Curriculum for Musical Theater at Yale, in partnership with the Provost Committee on Resources for Students and Employees with Disabilities.
The event, which is part of the Fridays @ Five series, will take place from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Ballroom at 220 York St. It is free and open to the public.
The class will include a conversation and Q&A with Stroker, after which she will give a short performance and lead a master class with Yale performers.
Stroker recently appeared in the acclaimed revival of “Spring Awakening” on Broadway. When she was cast in the Deaf West Theater’s production, she became the first actress in a wheelchair to appear in a Broadway show. Stroker has been paralyzed from the chest down since the age of 2 when she was injured in an automobile accident. Alterations to the Brooks Atkinson Theatre were made so that Stroker could use the backstage areas of the theater. On stage, the actress used a specially constructed “period” wheel chair to fit in with the late 19th-century setting of the show. Stroker participated fully in the show’s elaborate choreography, using her chair to dart around the stage and substituting “wheelies” for some of the leaps called for in the dances.
https://news.yale.edu/2016/04/21/broadway-trailblazer-lead-master-class-campus
JANUARY 31, 2016 LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, JANUARY 31, 2016, 1:21 AM
BY ROBERT FELDBERG
RECORD COLUMNIST |
THE RECORD
Tony-winning actor Robert Sean Leonard is experiencing not one, but two homecomings.
The more literal is his return from California – where he played Dr. James Wilson in eight seasons of “House” — to Ridgewood, where he was raised.
“My brother, who’s a cop in Ho-Ho-Kus, called about two years ago to tell me that he heard that this lovely old Victorian house near where we grew up was for sale. So I just called the owners, cold, and asked if they were thinking of moving,” Leonard said, with a brief look of mortification on his face as he recalled his audacity. “They said they weren’t, but I told them that if they ever did want to sell, to give me a call.”
A year ago they did, and last month Leonard, his wife Gabriella and their two daughters, Eleanor, 7, and Claudia, 3, moved in.
In the midst of unpacking boxes, though, Leonard was often absent, because of his other homecoming – his first role on the New York stage since returning from Los Angeles.
He’s appearing in “Prodigal Son,” which was written and is being directed by John Patrick Shanley, the author of “Doubt.” Now in previews, the drama opens Feb. 9 at the Manhattan Theatre Club’s off-Broadway space at the New York City Center.
With a kind of full-circle neatness, Leonard, whose breakout role was a prep-school student in the 1989 film “Dead Poets Society,” portrays a prep-school teacher in the play, which is based on Shanley’s own experience as a working-class Bronx boy attending a New England private school.
“I was told that Shanley was interested in me,” Leonard said. “I read the script and I liked it; it’s a very unique play, very surprising. Kind of like a ‘Twilight Zone’ episode.”
Leonard, who started out as a child actor, is known for his enthusiasm for stage acting, and he’s built an impressive list of Broadway successes.
He made his debut replacing Matthew Broderick in Neil Simon’s “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” and his subsequent plays have included “Arcadia,” “The Iceman Cometh,” “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” and “The Invention of Love,” for which he won his Tony. During a break from “House,” he came to New York to do “Born Yesterday.”
Many of the plays he’s done, on Broadway and elsewhere, are revivals of classics, which, he said, made “Prodigal Son” a different kind of challenge.
“Working with an author who’s breathing is an unusual experience for me,” he said,
At 46, Leonard still has an enormously engaging boy-next-door quality. He’s unstintingly praising of other actors, enthusiastic, good-humored and unassuming — he kept apologizing for being late for our interview at the theater (he hadn’t seen the message moving the start time up a half-hour), and he good-naturedly posed for a photographer right after walking in, without even a glance at a mirror.
courtesy of Darlene Gidney Facebook page
DECEMBER 25, 2015 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 25, 2015, 12:31 AM
BY BETSY MURPHY
CORRESPONDENT |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Darlene Gidney sat in a booth at Daily Treat one recent morning happily sharing the Board of Directors Award she received from AUDELCO at Symphony Space in New York City last month for outstanding service to the theater community.
“It’s the black Tony of theater,” she said proudly of the award, from Audience Development Committee Inc. Gidney has put a lot of work, and a lot of love into the dedication that earned her this coveted award.
Born and bought up in the village, where her great-grandfather started Glidewell Taxi, later Ridgewood Taxi, she moved back to Ridgewood when her sons, Yates and Edward, were about to enter the fifth and first grades. Today, Yates Gidney is in the U.S. Navy and Edward Blair IV will graduate from college in 2016.
Gidney acknowledges her own “good strong foundation from the community of Ridgewood,” where she was “always encouraged to explore other things.” Among her mentors she counts Ella Rae and Dudley Saunders, who owned Colonial Post and who were among the founders of Order of the Lamp. Many Ridgewood students benefited from scholarships from Order of the Lamp.
DECEMBER 18, 2015 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2015, 12:31 AM
BY AIMEE LA FOUNTAIN
CORRESPONDENT |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Ridgewood resident Christie Kim, now 7-years-old, has played the role of Princess Ying Yaowalak in Lincoln Center Theater’s “The King and I” more than 200 times since the show returned to Broadway earlier this year.
Christie is one of only three members from the original cast who hasn’t missed a show since it opened. “I want to make it to the 300th show. I just don’t want to miss a show because I’ll miss the people there,” she said. “It feels different each night because there’s always a new audience.”
Christie and the cast of “The King and I” performed the song, “Getting to Know You” at the 2015 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. “It was pretty early,” said Christie, who had to arrive on location at 5:15 a.m. for the performance. “Some people were nervous, some people were cold.” She enjoyed meeting the cast of “On Your Feet” while participating in the parade.
Christie had another early morning for the cast’s appearance in the 69th Annual Tony Awards last June. “It was cool. I had to wake super early, but I liked seeing all these different and new people there,” she said. “There was a big audience.”
While backstage at the awards, Christie got to interact with such Broadway stars as Kristin Chenoweth and Neil Patrick Harris. “I liked talking to people from ‘On the Town’ and ‘Something Rotten,’” she said.
Another television appearance was for “LIVE with Kelly and Michael.” “It was exciting,” Christie said. “It was a very short moment, but I got to meet Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan.” She also talked with actress Rebel Wilson behind the scenes and took a photo with her.
It was a surreal moment for Christie to watch the segment on TV later. “It was good,” she said. “It felt like there was two of me.
October 8
12:21 AM2015
by Michael Dale
SPRING AWAKENING’s Ali Stroker caught the acting bug at age seven, five years after being paralyzed from the chest down in a car accident.
“I was a little girl in a wheelchair. And then when I started to perform, I felt like I was now an actress and a singer. And it gave me another identity. And it made me feel really good.”
Stroker talks with CBS Evening News about her road to Broadway.
By Laura Herzog | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
“I have dreamt of this since I was 7 years old (and saw “Beauty and the Beast”). I have wanted to be on Broadway my whole life,” said Stoker, who now lives in New York. “A lot of the Broadway theaters are not (wheelchair) accessible back stage. There were many sorts of obstacles I feel like, but obviously, when I got this opportunity, it felt like everything aligned in the most perfect way.”
https://www.nj.com/bergen/index.ssf/2015/09/actress_from_nj_may_be_broadways_1st_using_a_wheel.html
Ridgewood girl lands role in King and I
APRIL 17, 2015 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, APRIL 17, 2015, 12:31 AM
BY AIMEE LA FOUNTAIN
CORRESPONDENT |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Christie Kim
Six-year-old Ridgewood resident Christie Kim is making her Broadway debut as an ensemble member in Lincoln Center’s production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “The King and I”
The musical, which is directed by Bartlett Sher and opened on Thursday night, tells the story of an unlikely relationship between British schoolteacher Anna Leonowens and the imperious King of Siam.
Christie was thrilled to learn she was cast in the show.
“I was jumping up and down and I almost fell off my chair at dinner,” she said.
Christie auditioned for the show at the suggestion of her vocal coach, Jackie Moro.
“Because I’ve been involved in the entertainment business for a long time, I know what kind of child can go through the audition process,” Moro said. “I knew that Christie was the type of child who had the right stamina and work ethic.”