��Ƶ Magazine - ��Ƶ

Finding the Funny

vanessa_dezorzi@concordacademy.org — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 14:40:20 +0000

��Ƶ students create a sitcom from scratch

Story by Vanessa De Zorzi
Portraits by Cole and Kiera Photography
Candid photo by Natalie Cherie Campbell

In ��Ƶ’s Centennial Arts Center (C.A.C.), a small soundstage has been transformed into a vintage diner. Café tables and chairs sit atop a checkered floor, and rust-colored barstools are lined up along a counter whose chrome edge gleams in the warm glow from overhead lights.

One student crouches behind a camera, adjusting focus. Another lifts a boom mic into place. An actor runs a few last lines at the counter. Then the student director calls out, “Rolling!”

“In case you haven’t noticed, business hasn’t exactly been booming lately,” the actor deadpans.

A beat. Then, on cue, a tumbleweed drifts across the floor.

Chuckles, snorts, and full-throated laughter erupt from the audience, and also from the crew behind the cameras. It doesn’t take long for the boundary between spectator and participant to dissolve in a flurry of rolling takes. To the side, a monitor plays a live feed of the action. Tension builds as a crew member flashes cue cards—“laugh,” “aww,” “gasp!”—every few seconds.

“Cut!” the director yells.

The crew resets for a second take. Chatter ripples across the audience. A curated playlist kicks in—managed, like everything else about this production, by students. “I love this song,” an audience member exclaims as a Billy Joel track blares through the speakers. At the diner counter, an actor grabs a spatula and, for a moment, turns it into a microphone, crooning along.

“Quiet on set,” the director calls, and the next take rolls, the scene now familiar but still funny.

This is Cackleberries, a sitcom ��Ƶ students wrote, acted in, directed, and filmed this year, following a process modeled on professional TV production. A collaborative effort through and through, the series involved more than 30 student artists.

From Premise to Pitch

In fall 2025, ��Ƶ launched the new class the Sitcom Project: Writing and Acting for Television. Teaching a section each, film teacher Justin Bull P’25 ’28 and theater teacher Shelley Bolman P’27 guided students through the process of writing episodic stories. This winter and spring, a group of students, including many from the class, brought several of those scripts to fruition on screen.

The Sitcom Project builds upon the Feature Film Project, a course ��Ƶ offers every other year in which students create a feature-length film. The resulting films have spanned multiple genres, and Bull, who teaches the class, saw sitcoms as a natural next step given their popularity on streaming platforms.

As the C.A.C. was under construction, Bull’s idea was likewise taking shape. The new facility’s Spencer and Colton P3 (Process, Presentation, and Production) Lab introduced a setting ideal for filmmaking, with grid lighting, dedicated space for a standing set, and the Rasmussen Digital Production Lab.

When the film program moved from the Math and Arts Center to the C.A.C. this academic year, Bull also saw an opportunity for interdisciplinary collaboration. “The sitcom is an interesting Venn diagram of film and theater,” he says. “There’s a traditional rehearsal process, a live audience, and it’s shot chronologically.”

To bridge these programs, Bull turned to Bolman for his expertise in acting and directing. The two aligned closely on curriculum and execution, drawing from a course on writing for television that Bull and English teacher Andrew Stevens offered several years ago and incorporating lesson plans from Bolman’s playwriting class. The 24 students enrolled in the 15-week course began by learning the fundamentals of sitcom writing. They analyzed scripts from popular sitcoms, including Seinfeld, Freaks and Geeks, and Black-ish, to identify plot structure, character archetypes, and objectives.

Early in the semester, both sections met together during a daylong symposium to develop a story. Bolman led acting exercises that emphasized the importance of ensemble work, giving students the beginning and end of a scene, for example, and asking them to improvise the middle.

“That physical approach to acting really sparks ideas, while giving people the freedom to be playful, take risks, and fully embrace the fun,” Bolman says.

The students generated hundreds of ideas, which they organized on a digital whiteboard before narrowing them down. After much debate and several rounds of voting, they determined a tone, a cast of characters, and the setting: Cackleberries, a struggling diner in a New Hampshire resort town.

After the symposium, Bull and Bolman compiled a “show bible” that outlines each character’s defining traits: Nina, an MIT grad, channels her passion for science into concocting elaborate coffee drinks. Blair, the hostess, is more interested in cultivating her Instagram following than serving customers. Trent, a delivery driver, adds oddball energy that unites the crew. Unemployed Ray, a regular customer, practically lives at Cackleberries. And Jo, the fiery short-order cook, keeps the operation running with tough love and her catchphrase: “Get the hell out of my diner!”

Back in class, each student brainstormed an “engine,” or premise, for an episode, which they pitched to their peers. They wrote “cold opens,” the short scenes that hook the viewer before the opening credits, then drafted a full script of about 30 pages, or around 15 minutes.

The Punch-Up

The 12 members of Bull’s class flip to the first scene of a script they will discuss today. “Terminally Online” is an episode about Danny, a waiter and aspiring writer, whose growing fixation on online criticism is driving him into a spiral of self-doubt. The conversation heats up quickly:

“What if the whole situation escalates into something totally absurd?” one student asks.

“What if the person he mistakes for the internet troll at the diner is a child?”

“What if he tries to confront the little kid and it turns into a full-blown showdown?”

This revision process, known as a “punch-up,” is where the story comes to life—outside the brain of a solitary writer, with input from the entire team.

“The writers’ room requires that you work with everybody, that you trust everybody, and that you are willing to put yourself in somebody else’s shoes.” — Shelley Bolman P’27, theater teacher

The students’ approaches to humor went far beyond superficial jokes, he adds: “They brought their personal experiences to bear through the medium of comedy. One of the things comedy does is disarm us; it makes us more open to what we’re hearing.”

Students crafted storylines around timely issues in ways both funny and relevant. In one episode, when the diner faces a corporate takeover, the colleagues turn against one another, competing to keep their jobs. Other episodes tackle the threats of artificial intelligence and social media addiction through the lens of absurdity.

Grace Goodman ’27, who played Jo, the cook, wrote “Terminally Online,” drawing from her experience leading ��Ƶ’s No Social Media November student movement. She says the writers’ room format challenged her, but made her a better writer: “It forced me to consider all angles. I had to take a big-picture idea and condense it into a short episode that could carry a message and connect with people. ”

Bull and Bolman say all 24 completed scripts were strong; based on cast size and set limitations, they selected the eight best suited for filming.

Places, Everyone

Beginning in winter 2026, the Cackleberries cast and crew of around 30 students plunged into a demanding after-school production schedule, filming an episode every week for two months. Mondays and Tuesdays were devoted to rehearsals, Wednesdays and Thursdays to three-camera-format taping, and Fridays to table readings for the next week’s episode.

Actors largely self-directed their rehearsals, receiving periodic feedback on blocking and delivery from Bull and Bolman. Many of them, used to performing on stage, faced a new challenge in acting for film as well as a live audience. They had to adjust their approach for the camera, delivering more nuanced performances.

It took a team to create a cohesive set, with guidance from faculty members, including sound advisor Nate Tucker, technical director James Williston P’28, and set designer Jessica Cloutier-Plasse. Wesleyan University student Micah St. George ’25 designed the lighting that gave the show its distinctive mood.

China Santos ’27 designed props and costumes. In the wardrobe, she worked closely with actors to align outfits with each character’s personality. To determine which props were needed, China carefully analyzed scripts, then sourced or crafted the set pieces. The most complex object she created was a retrofuturistic A.I. robot fashioned from a torn-apart tape editor, tubes, an old keyboard, and an LED-lit screen.

“The experience gave me a lot of confidence in my creative decisions,” China says. “It was really fun to make things and find solutions to the problems we had.”

Bull served as the showrunner, the lead creative and production manager who ensures consistency across episodes. He began the process by organizing a weeklong “sitcom bootcamp,” helping students learn to use the cameras and sound equipment through mock tapings.

Olivia Kim ’26, who wrote the episode “Running out of Steam,” served as a technical director. From the control room, she operated the video switcher, selecting camera shots, graphics, and video feeds to shape the story in real time as the taping took place. “I had a lot of fun working with Justin, who’s been in the professional film industry, and just seeing how everything works on set,” she says. “I thought it was incredibly impressive how we were able to put each episode together in a week.”

Sometimes the schedule was even tighter than that. Weather-related delays and illnesses created compressed timelines within an already tight academic calendar. After back-to-back snow day cancellations, the team shot the final two episodes in a single week.

They had the equipment to pull it off. The crew used sound-canceling headsets to communicate, and they adjusted camera angles on the fly. “The process taught me that so much depends on collaboration,” says camera operator Daniel Peregudov ’27, who also co-wrote the final episode. “Even when it seems like it’s mostly about technical skills, that’s not the whole picture. Everyone has to work together seamlessly.”

Over the eight weeks of filming, ��Ƶ students, faculty, staff, and alums joined the audience. Some also made cameo appearances in various episodes.

Each week, after taping wrapped, Bull led post-production, the final stage of filmmaking. Working from a rough cut assembled by the technical director, he selected the best takes and created a complex sound mix, then handled the credits and color grading, polishing each episode for its debut.

Greenlit

��Ƶ released Cackleberries episodes weekly on YouTube from January 23 to March 27. By the end of the school year, the series premiere alone had been viewed nearly 1,000 times.

“We’re so proud of the tremendous amount of expertise and dedication our students and faculty across departments have put into this experience,” says Sarah Yeh P’24 ’27, associate head for teaching, learning, and faculty. “It’s been stunning to see students operating cameras like professionals.”

This spring, the school greenlit the Sitcom Project as a staple of ��Ƶ’s film program, to be offered, in alternate years, along with the Feature Film Project. The feature-length filmmaking experience, spearheaded by Bull and fellow film teacher Ben Stumpf ’88 is open to juniors and seniors, as is the Sitcom Project. Interspersing feature-length and serialized comedy formats will allow older students to take part in both, increase their opportunities to get involved in film during their time at ��Ƶ.

Bull is eager to evolve the Sitcom Project. In the future, he plans to begin the semester by providing students with a complete story bible to ensure consistency and maximize their writing time. He also sees opportunities to involve students in the musical score and film editing.

“I find great joy in making art with others, and that’s why I love filmmaking,” he says. “I hope students step away from this process realizing that when collaboration, communication, and creativity come together, you can bring even the most impossible ideas to life.”

WATCH THE SERIES

concordacademy.org/sitcom

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��Ƶ Bids Adieu to Retiring Staff and Faculty Members

heidi_koelz@concordacademy.org — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 20:08:11 +0000

Jackie Decareau

At ��Ƶ, a day doesn’t get off to a good start without a chat with Jackie Decareau. That widely shared sentiment has reflected Decareau’s approach to her role as assistant to the Student Life Office. Given her deep respect for students and families, her unwavering attention to detail, and the warmth and compassion she brings to every interaction, it’s no surprise that many students have thanked her in their senior chapels. Decareau has also left a lasting impression on her colleagues, who wish her well in retirement after 23 years at ��Ƶ.

Annie Bailey P’25 ’27, director of residential life, calls her a “beacon of light.” To Renee Coburn, chief of staff, she’s been “the heartbeat of this school.” And Student Life Office Manager Georgia Cassidy says she “communicates with so much grace, kindness, and patience; she has truly inspired me and brought so much joy to our team.”

With a background in human resources, Decareau has always been focused on people. Before coming to ��Ƶ in 2003, she administered benefits at a marketing company; previously, she was an employment counselor for a regional bank. She initially joined ��Ƶ part time to track student attendance, and over the years she extended her hours as her duties expanded to include coordinating everything from bulletin boards and class rings to laundry services for boarding students and commuter-rail passes for day students traveling from the city.

Decareau says that when she first arrived, she didn’t feel like she was dealing with high school students: “They were so mature, they felt more like coworkers.” That hasn’t changed, she says. The check-in systems she initiated have adapted over the decades, thanks to her diligence in ensuring students were safe and their whereabouts known.

“She made sure that every student knows someone cares where they are—that literally every student at ��Ƶ is seen, every day,” says Grant Hightower, assistant head for student life.

Decareau says she couldn’t have asked for a better job: “The kids kept me feeling younger. And getting to be here every day with wonderful, smart, educated individuals who are always learning—for me, that hasn’t felt like work.”

While she looks forward to a slower routine with more time for walks with friends, book group chats, and volunteering at her local food pantry, her quiet influence at ��Ƶ can’t be replaced. And it won’t be forgotten.

“Jackie is a beautiful person, a beautiful soul,” Hightower says. “She is selflessly devoted to service and has been one of the most significant binding agents when it comes to the spirit of our institution. I’ll miss her dearly.”

Sue Johnson P’20

After more than a decade at ��Ƶ and 40 years dedicated to sport and education, Athletics Director Sue Johnson P’20 has hung up her jersey. “Her impact on the ��Ƶ community and the field at large has been significant,” says Head of School Henry D. Fairfax. “Sue was disciplined about making sure every decision was made through an equity lens. Not only did she support student-athletes of all genders at ��Ƶ, but she was instrumental in ensuring that same equity in the Eastern Independent League (EIL). This is legacy work that will live on for many generations to come.”

Johnson evolved many facets of ��Ƶ’s athletics program after arriving in 2015. She expanded the physical education, intramural, and subvarsity offerings and created a supervised, well-equipped fitness center. During her tenure, ��Ƶ saw marked improvement in competitive success within EIL play and in New England Preparatory School Athletic Council (NEPSAC) postseason tournaments. While serving on the NEPSAC executive board, Johnson also helped draft its original gender identity inclusion statement, and in her first year at ��Ƶ, she guided the EIL’s transition of wrestling to an all-gender sport.

Under Johnson’s watch, the school amassed a fleet of banners and trophies, but she remained focused on raising the caliber of the athletics program in alignment with ��Ƶ’s mission. Throughout her tenure, she prioritized the life skills and values learned through athletics and centered the transformative experience of team sport.

“Sue fostered a positive and supportive environment that made staff, coaches, and students feel valued,” says Laurie Baker, former assistant athletics director. “Her leadership will truly be missed.”

Nancy Boutilier and Christa Champion

Nancy Boutilier joined ��Ƶ’s English Department in 2016 following a career teaching and coaching in independent schools on both coasts of the U.S., as well as at Oberlin College. Before long, she became integral to ��Ƶ athletics and residential life as well. A poet, activist, and fierce competitor, Boutilier encouraged authentic engagement and expression, inspiring students and colleagues alike to approach the world with a sense of wonder. She helped establish ��Ƶ’s Writing Center, laying a foundation for peer mentorship and writing feedback. And her famous “sophomore letters” have been a treasured delivery to senior students as they near graduation.

“Coaching is teaching, and teaching is coaching with Nancy,” says Sarah Yeh P’24 ’27, associate head for teaching, learning, and faculty. “In the classroom, everything she does is in the spirit of helping a student find their place, their confidence, and their voice. On the basketball court, she models what it means to be an athlete, a teammate, and a community member at every step of a practice or game.”

The ��Ƶ community will also greatly miss Boutilier’s partner and fellow house faculty member, Christa Champion, whose boundless energy and zest for track and field infused her coaching of throwing and pole vaulting. Former track and field coach Jon Waldron says Champion’s expansive vision of sport and ability to integrate her experiences as an athlete, engineer, poet, and teacher made her a transformative coach and mentor at ��Ƶ.

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A Basketball Star at ��Ƶ, Kevin Benjamin ’91 is Paying It Forward as a Mentor

heidi_koelz@concordacademy.org — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 19:44:50 +0000

By Nancy Shohet West ’84

When Kevin Benjamin ’91 arrived at ��Ƶ from Queens, N.Y., the academic rigor and dorm setting were new to him, but the basketball court was familiar. Having honed his skills as a kid in New York City, he was the only 9th grader to make the varsity basketball team. “Some great players took me under their wing,” he remembers. “Corwin Allston ’88 was like a big brother to me.”

His parents and aunt, Karen McAlmon ’75, had encouraged him to apply to ��Ƶ through the A Better Chance program, recognizing that his academic potential exceeded the opportunities he was likely to have if he stayed in Queens. At ��Ƶ, he found the intellectual stimulation he was seeking. Just as important were the social relationships that led to personal growth.

Outside of basketball, he connected with peers through Harambe, an affinity group for students of color. With them, he felt immediate kinship. “We were able to relate to one another and to build some semblance of home away from home,” he says. He also made new friends whose backgrounds were unlike his. “One of my freshman roommates was from Indonesia, and the other was Korean-American,” he says. “We all came from very different walks of life. But we became a close-knit group, sharing our cultures and experiences.”

Benjamin captained the varsity basketball team for the next three years, and he upheld the team culture created by those older players who had helped him through his first year. League championships followed, but it was always more about the fellowship than the score, Benjamin says.

Then came a pivotal game. ��Ƶ was playing Lexington Christian Academy, whose roster included a young superstar the college scouts were watching. Benjamin scored 44 points, helping ��Ƶ pull off a narrow victory. The scouts’ eyes turned to him. He was soon drawn to Pomona College in California, where he could continue playing basketball while pursuing an excellent education.

“I knew I was never going to be in the NBA, so I set my sights on a strong academic institution where I could continue my basketball career,” Benjamin says. He played varsity basketball for two years at Pomona, then completed his degree at California State University, Northridge, where he majored in cinema and TV.

After 15 years in film production and screenwriting, ultimately in the role of senior manager for distribution operations with Disney Entertainment, in 2025 he started his own company, Razzle Dazzle Entertainment. Currently he is working on a documentary honoring his younger brother, Casey Benjamin, a Grammy Award-winning musician, songwriter, and producer who passed away suddenly in 2024.

Basketball still plays a major role in his life, now through Venice Hoops, a community partnership he co-founded with other weekend warriors that offers drills, tournaments, skills camps, and scrimmage opportunities for basketball enthusiasts of all ages on Venice Beach, near his Los Angeles home.

“Sports have always been a big part of my life,” Benjamin says. “Venice Hoops is a chance to promote the fellowship and mentorship that has meant so much to me as an athlete. Whether in New York City, in Concord, at Pomona, or on Venice Beach, basketball has helped me learn how to communicate, how to demonstrate dedication and hard work, how to deal with pressure and make good decisions under stress. Those are skills that help in business, in family, in all segments of life.”

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Stunning Steinways

vanessa_dezorzi@concordacademy.org — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 19:40:38 +0000

Three Steinways have joined ��Ƶ’s piano fleet in the Centennial Arts Center (C.A.C.). The new Model D in the Recital Hall in the Fields is a full-sized 9-foot concert grand—the first the school has ever owned. “We wanted to give our students access to this caliber of instrument,” says Linda Coyne Lloyd Performing Arts Department Chair Michael Bennett. “Our advanced pianists are always eager to play it.”

Because Steinways are handcrafted, no two are exactly alike. In September, Bennett and Sarah Yeh P’24 ’27, associate head for teaching, learning, and faculty, visited the Steinway & Sons factory in Queens, N.Y. There, they observed the precision that goes into the instruments’ construction, and they tested five pianos. “I thought it was going to be difficult to tell them apart, but each was very different,” Bennett says. Knowing the concert grand would be needed for solo recitals, chamber music, and chorus accompaniment in ��Ƶ’s medium-sized hall, he adds, “we went with an instrument that had the clarity and projection necessary, while still being able to create more intimate tone colors.”

Two generous ��Ƶ families also donated pre-owned Steinways. A Model B classic grand piano was moved into the Hammett Ory Theater when the C.A.C. was completed in spring 2025. It was in use throughout the year for orchestra and chorus rehearsals and performances, the mainstage musical, and Music Café. In September, a Model O, a living room grand with a custom macassar ebony finish, part of Steinway’s “Crown Jewel” collection, arrived from Singapore, a gift from Jaehee Koo and Tong Buhm Tommy Kim P’26. It’s now used regularly in the Jasmine Music Practice Room for piano lessons and chamber music.

At the end of its first year, the C.A.C. is home to all-new pianos: seven grands, four uprights, two digitals, and a keyboard lab. “Students now have reliable access to new, fully functional, and pedagogically appropriate instruments,” Bennett says.

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Beyond the Familiar: Katherine Bucknell ’75 Supports Study Abroad

vanessa_dezorzi@concordacademy.org — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 19:27:49 +0000

Katherine Bucknell ’75 recalls the “thrilling freedom and challenge” she found as a student at ��Ƶ. Encouraged to experiment “seriously and safely,” she says, “we were invited to do anything that fascinated us. Everything was available if we approached it with rigor and discipline.”

Throughout her school days, she found much that fascinated her. Long stretches at the pottery wheel offered “beautiful oblivion,” she remembers. Outside the studio, she played hockey, basketball, and lacrosse. Music—piano, guitar, and singing—accompanied it all. She was equally immersed in academic exploration. In her junior and senior years, she joined an economics tutorial built around conversation and sustained interrogation of ideas.

“You could imagine you were Joan Baez with the guitar, and then an economist,” she says. “Without pressure to measure yourself against others, you got to try on a lot of hats.”

The freedom was real, but so was the expectation that each experiment be taken seriously. “You couldn’t fake it,” she says.

Bucknell went on to Princeton, studied English literature at Oxford, then earned her doctorate in English and comparative literature from Columbia University. She built her life in England as a literary scholar and novelist. Her experience in Europe reshaped her perspective. “America is so insular,” she says. “Living in a foreign country is both humbling and expanding. That bit of abrasion as you gain a broader understanding is healthy.”

For many years, ��Ƶ receded into the background of Bucknell’s life, but that changed at her 50th reunion last year. She found herself connecting with classmates she had not known well. Listening to their stories, she says, she was struck by how they had “lived their lives unafraid and authentic, not flinching from getting older and wiser.”

Having seen how her peers had held to their values, Bucknell grew interested in reengaging with the school. In conversations with Head of School Henry D. Fairfax, she found that ��Ƶ’s mission still resonates with her. “I recognized it,” she says.

As a way to bolster that mission, she established the Katherine Bucknell Maguire ’75 Study Abroad Fund, which helps students take part in weeklong travel programs or attend school for a semester or year outside of the United States. She especially intends this endowment to support students who might otherwise be unable to afford to study abroad.

Bucknell hopes they’ll benefit from a balance of freedom and challenge, just as she did—and that they’ll be open to seeing where experiencing a different culture might lead them.

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Working Knowledge: Natalia Winkelman ’11 Has Her Dream Job

heidi_koelz@concordacademy.org — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 19:17:35 +0000

Freelance film critic Natalia Winkelman ’11 has been reviewing movies for the New York Times since 2019. As a writer and producer, she has also helped create award-winning documentary podcasts, including The Plot Thickens for Turner Classic Movies, about what it took to make iconic films such as The Bonfire of the Vanities and Cleopatra. We caught up with this film buff about what it’s like to watch and respond to movies for a living.

When did your passion for movies start?

I’d always enjoyed movies, but I had never thought about them in an academic context until I started taking classes with Justin Bull P’25 ’28 and fell in love with film at ��Ƶ. Justin had all of these Film Comment magazines, and I just loved reading the film criticism in those. My best friend, Dani Girdwood ’11, and I did an independent study to make an unscripted hybrid documentary-narrative short film. We were going to grow up and be directors (she just directed her first feature, by the way). My skill set was more in writing, but I applied to college as a film major because of Justin’s classes. It’s so rare to have a full film program in high school. When I tell people about it now, their jaws drop.

How did you break into this field?

When I took a film criticism class in college, I remembered, oh, that’s something a person can do. I had figured I’d end up in academia or work in the film industry in some capacity, but film criticism was the dream. I went back to school and earned a master’s through a cultural reporting and criticism program at NYU. Then I got my first big entertainment writing job at the Daily Beast.

What’s it like to be a film critic?

It’s lots of fun. I go to screenings and some film festivals and cover for various outlets, not just the Times, though I’ve had a weekly assignment for seven years. I watch a lot of documentaries, but it’s a total hodgepodge. The more you watch, the more well-versed you are in the current film landscape and in film history, so it’s been kind of a project: to watch everything I can. There’s a robust film scene in New York. I see myself in the world of film enthusiasts—thinking about films, analyzing how one piece works in the larger cultural landscape.

How do you approach reviewing?

I don’t think about being a tastemaker. It’s just my take. I’ve studied film and bring some expert knowledge, but I also bring my own sensibility and biases. I’m making something when I’m writing, just like the filmmaker is making something. For the Times, I usually have only 250 to 300 words, sometimes longer for a big movie. I had to train myself to write that short. Now it’s become a precision exercise to pick the most salient things to say. One of the guiding rules of criticism is to take a movie on its own terms. My voice will start to echo the tone of the film. If it’s a comedy, I can be more playful. If it’s a serious drama, I’ll take it more straight. The only movies I really go hard on are huge studio releases. I would never be cruel to a first film or an indie.

What’s the best writing advice you ever got?

When I was in graduate school, a lot of people were saying there are no writing jobs, there’s no money. Someone told me, “There are never any jobs, there’s never any money, but there is always a dearth of good writing. So if you have a strong voice, your writing will be read.” That really helped me refocus on improving my writing rather than positioning myself for a job, which was a lot healthier for me. Just focus on the work and what you love doing.

Describe an ideal trip to the cinema.

I’d watch an Ernst Lubitsch movie, To Be or Not to Be. It’s an audacious, hilarious World War II comedy. I’d bring all my friends. From the concession stand, I’d get Sno-Caps, Junior Mints, and a large Diet Coke. You know, this movie is so underseen. It would make a good ��Ƶ class, about how Lubitsch approaches comedy: The Lubitsch Touch. I’m going to pitch this to Justin Bull.

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��Ƶ Students Examine the Psychology of the Self and the Neurobiology of Consciousness

vanessa_dezorzi@concordacademy.org — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 19:16:47 +0000

She organized this new advanced biology course, Psychology of Self, around three central questions: What is the biological basis of selfhood? How do our brains perceive ourselves in the world? And what happens when our behavior conflicts with our sense of self? This last question particularly interests Kopelman, who also supports students in ��Ƶ’s Academic Support Center as they strengthen executive functioning skills.

“My mission is to get kids to be independent learners,” she says. “I want to put them into situations where they have to figure out how they learn and communicate their understanding.”

Students took part in discussions, hands-on activities, and experiments. They analyzed brain studies and gave presentations. Each week, one student would prepare a slideshow on a scientific article about the brain and a topic such as personality, perception, brain injury, coma, or sleep.

Kopelman enjoyed seeing the way her students responded to each other’s presentations. “I’m so impressed with the beautiful, thoughtful questions that they asked each other, the grace they’ve given each other, and how deeply they listened,” she says.

She wanted to ground the course in philosophical frameworks of self-perception, but she acknowledged this would be a learning experience for her as well. After a coincidental meeting, she invited Ollie Longo ’21, who earned his bachelor’s in philosophy from Wesleyan University in 2025, to join her in her classroom. Drawing on his experience tutoring, he came on several days to guide discussions with students, exploring and contrasting the mind-body dualism of René Descartes, the skeptical empiricism of David Hume, and the concept of stream of consciousness coined by William James.

Longo says the students’ engagement impressed him: “All of the things they were interrogating were really central ideas. Exploring complicated issues can be disorienting, frankly, but I think that disorientation is one of the values of philosophy.” He credits his ��Ƶ education, particularly his English classes, with cultivating his interdisciplinary intellectual interests and says he’s interested in teaching, “potentially at the high school level, where I was most influenced.”

The class included a neuroanatomy practical exam—dissecting a sheep’s brain. Longo returned afterward to talk with students about animal ethics and the moral worth humans assign other animals based on our perceptions of degrees of sentience.

Seeing the structures of the brain during this dissection made a big impression on Luke Schumacher ’26, who plans on a premed track in college and says this course made him consider majoring in psychology. The final project for the class was a self-directed research paper. Luke chose to study how antihistamines and decongestants can alter consciousness. First-generation antihistamines, such as Benadryl, he explains, cross the blood-brain barrier and can produce sedative effects and, in some cases, hallucinations.

The topics other students chose for their final projects varied widely. Zuri Gonzalez ’26 researched how the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder can interrupt self-awareness. She wanted to know: Are you still conscious if you’re experiencing a symptom of PTSD? She was initially interested in a study that showed playing puzzle games can prevent the development of PTSD, and she broadened her lens as she learned about the condition’s many manifestations in mood changes, flashbacks, and emotional repression, eventually focusing on studies of women who had experienced repeated childhood abuse and dissociative symptoms. She learned that patients benefit most from individually tailored treatment modalities. “Even if two people go through the same thing, the way they respond is going to be different,” she says.

She enjoyed the interweaving of philosophy and experimentation in the course. “It was so fun and free,” she says. “I liked that I could have my own ideas and that the topics were so broad, I could find my own way of exploring consciousness.”

For her final paper, Emilia Deng ’27 compared human consciousness with artificial intelligence, animal consciousness, and plant consciousness. She was struck by studies demonstrating that plants learn, changing their behaviour in response to repeated experience. “I think that part of what makes us such a great species is our ability to have empathy,” she says, “but when we don’t extend that empathy outside of our own species, it gets really difficult to ascertain where the line is between right and wrong.”

For a presentation, she researched predictive processing and the predictive global neuronal workspace theory. “Every time you encounter something, your brain is firing the neurons that fired when you had a similar experience,” she explains. “Learning about the way my brain is functioning in every moment has led me to see that everything is literally physically interconnected.”

She also researched the therapeutic uses of AI, which she personally avoids as detrimental to her learning. She learned about a specific AI application that showed some benefit for patients with schizophrenia through generating images of internal demons patients design as avatars, to externalize what they are seeing and hearing. “I still think it is harmful when you place AI in the role of a human, for example, the therapist,” Emilia says.

She remains skeptical about the technology’s effects on human consciousness more broadly. “The language we use for AI is so much more blunt than what we would use with humans, and that kind of change in language can carry over to human-to-human interactions,” she says.

Emilia says this course made her more aware of how she engages with others. “I’ve been more intentional with the way I treat language and my interactions, understanding that we can’t ever know everything that’s happening, just use what we can intentionally and take in the world around us in a more empathetic way.”

For Celeste Bogan ’27, the combination of science and philosophy in the course helped her feel OK with not knowing while considering a range of theories. She appreciated how receptive Kopelman was when she chose an out-of-the-ordinary topic for her final paper: accounts from scientific journals of young children reporting memories of past lives. Celeste was struck by the sheer number of cases from different cultures around the world, their similarities, and how many involved verifiable evidence. “I felt like I was going to get some funny looks,” she says, “and the fact that Kim just reviewed the foundational science and gave me this leeway to get hypothetical and still be taken seriously—that was so big.”

Celeste also presented on quantum consciousness research. To understand it, she had to give herself a crash course in quantum mechanics, a fundamental principle of which is superposition, or the concept that at a subatomic scale, quantum particles exist in multiple states of potential at once, but at the moment of observation settle into one reality.

“New research is coming out that the collapse of multiple realities into one may be what causes consciousness,” she says. “It requires a different mindset than the materialistic worldview the scientific community relies on now, but through a quantum lens, consciousness comes before the physical world, exists outside of our brains and bodies, which brings me full circle to my past life memories research. The implications are mindboggling.”

Celeste says the course has fundamentally shifted her understanding of consciousness, and that the most rewarding part has been simply the encouragement to pursue her own questions. “I’ve learned a lot about myself and my worldview, my thoughts, emotions, and experiences,” she says, “and that’s very special to get in a class.”

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A Critical Time for Queer Media: Adam Goldman ’04 Has Started a Foundation to Support LGBTQ+ Creators

heidi_koelz@concordacademy.org — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 19:07:18 +0000

By Nancy Shohet West ’84

“In my career, my successes have come from making things that should have existed,” says writer and director Adam Goldman ’04.

An avid theater student at ��Ƶ, once called “iconoclastic and contrary,” he realized he was better at creating works than reading parts in plays. Goldman graduated from Bard College with a BFA in theater and has created a web series, a scripted podcast, and, in 2025, a foundation to support the next generation of queer filmmakers.

His first major project, The Outs, appeared on Vimeo for two seasons beginning in 2012. He describes it as a simple story about an emotionally wrenching breakup between two men. More challenging at the time than writing a series featuring gay characters was selling the public on the idea of a streaming series. “It was a moment when people were saying to me, ‘No one wants to watch TV on their laptops,’” Goldman says. But he and co-creator Sasha Winters disagreed, and they “made a bet that if you make something good, people will want to watch it.”

Netflix launched House of Cards, considered the first major success by a streaming network, a little less than a year after The Outs debuted, and Goldman had his proof. Not only did people watch his show, they also responded to it on a profound level. Goldman’s early fan mail included a note from a Mormon teen in Utah. “He said that watching The Outs showed him a version of life that allowed him to imagine a possible future for himself,” Goldman says.

He soon learned that The Outs had at least one very high-profile fan after stage and film icon Alan Cumming tweeted about it. “I freaked out,” Goldman says. “Once I calmed down, I tweeted back to Alan, and we made plans to get together for coffee.” Cumming asked to be written into a scene, and the two have been friends ever since. When Cumming co-hosted the Tony Awards with Kristin Chenoweth in 2015, Goldman was a scriptwriter for the broadcast.

Goldman’s next major project was Hot White Heist, a scripted podcast series picked up by Audible in early 2020. “Right after we shook hands on it, the pandemic lockdown began,” Goldman recalls. “Suddenly, all of these major actors were trapped at home with time to do smaller projects. We put together an incredible cast that included Bowen Yang, Cynthia Nixon, Margaret Cho, Tony Kushner, and Sir Ian McKellen. It started out as a very silly and jokey premise, but underneath it was a serious question about what queerness means and how it is evolving.”

Despite the high visibility of stars like Yang and Nixon, as well as the popularity of series that center on gay relationships, from Schitt’s Creek to the recent breakout hit Heated Rivalry, a tide of repression has been sweeping through the media and the arts, Goldman says. Major studios including Disney, Amazon MGM Studios, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery are publicly dialing back their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and even critically acclaimed shows from queer creators haven’t been renewed. GLAAD’s 2025 Studio Responsibility Index reports that the top 10 major film and TV distributors released 250 films in 2024, of which 23.6% include at least one LGBTQ+ character—a decrease of nearly 4% from the previous year.

Timing is critical. That decrease in investment in queer film and TV now will impact the next several years of media production. “Queer media is in crisis,” Goldman says. “It isn’t enough just to write roles for queer characters. We need to make it possible for young, early-career queer filmmakers to break into an industry that is increasingly hostile toward them.”

This realization led him to embark on his most recent endeavor, the Necessary Foundation, which provides funding and mentorship to emerging filmmakers in the LGBTQ+ space. “I was in a state of utter despair after the second election of Trump,” Goldman says. “And then I came up with the idea of starting a foundation.” Cumming signed on as a co-founder, as did Yang and actor, writer, and producer Lena Waithe.

The Necessary Foundation aims to help creators reflect the full spectrum of experiences for the queer community. It will provide financial support for young filmmakers to tell the stories they want to tell, without worrying about appealing to the mainstream. Grant recipients will also gain on-set production experience. “We will help them to get into film festivals and generate publicity,” Goldman says.

The foundation’s focus is still on fundraising, but the founders’ vision is that the community will rapidly grow into one that can sustain itself, with past recipients helping future ones. Goldman says, “We will help these artists grow into industry-leading talents.”

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Serving on the International Sound Awards jury, Rithik Kundu ’22 Traces His Love for Emerging Music Technology Back to ��Ƶ

heidi_koelz@concordacademy.org — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 18:57:05 +0000

This year, Rithik Kundu ’22 is serving on the jury of the International Sound Awards (ISA), an annual competition dubbed the “Oscars of Sound.” One of 25 jurors, the recent New York University graduate joined this multinational panel of audio experts while still a college senior. Already building a career advising companies on emerging music technology, Kundu is now evaluating ISA nominations in categories as diverse as corporate audio branding, gaming music, interactive voice response, audio startups, and acoustic design for museums and other public spaces.

His interests converge in the intersection of music and artificial intelligence. At NYU, Kundu founded the GenAudio & AI club, an interdisciplinary group that studies the intersection of AI and music technology. GenAudio established partnerships with commercial music tools to encourage creative use of generative AI technologies at the school.

Music technology is also his research area. For his capstone project in NYU’s Music Technology program, he conducted a pilot blind-listener survey to compare perceptions of human-made and AI-generated music, using songs from one of his advisors, Grammy winner Mr. Sonic, in the genres of Latin trap, reggaeton, cumbia nortena, and garage pop. He also presented the methodologies at Sony’s technology conference in March. While this research is still ongoing, Kundu found that in certain genres, some listeners may prefer AI-generated music “because it feels more unique,” but that many still nonetheless favor a touch of humanity. Regardless, he adds, “what we’re seeing is that people do have ideas about what AI-generated music is going to sound like.”

Will AI overtake artistry? “You have to approach that question with nuance,” Kundu says. “There are legitimate concerns, particularly around data scraping and copyright. It’s a very complicated issue, but there are also creative benefits.”

As a digital music producer, he points to the creative assistance that AI offers, for example, for creating a melody or drum pattern. More important to him is assistive production technology, which extends to mastering and mixing tracks. “If you’re an artist who knows how to compose a song but not how to make it label-ready, let’s say you use a mastering algorithm that’s tailored to you, trained on reference tracks you select,” he says. “Suddenly, you have a near-record-ready release that you can then send out to people who can help your career.”

Kundu began producing digital music in his 9th grade year at ��Ƶ, where, in addition to programming and engineering clubs, he was active in the Producers Club. He had been playing piano for years and sang in a cappella groups, but he says creating digital music became an ideal creative outlet as he adjusted to his new school and tried to find his place.

Early on, Kundu assumed he’d go into computer science or become a mechanical engineer. His trajectory shifted midway through that first year at ��Ƶ, when he released his first song. “My friends would play my song in the Pit, and I’d get embarrassed, but it was nice. There weren’t that many people who released music, so I became someone who was known for that.”

He remembers an influential film scoring class he took with Nate Tucker as well as a class on digital storytelling with Kirsten Hoyte P’22 ’24, where he explored how sound interacted with other media. “I wasn’t sure what I was transitioning into, but I had a lot of support from my friends and the faculty,” he says.

“I’ve always been on the train that music tech is the way to go,” he says. “If it weren’t for getting introduced to Ableton through the Producers Club, I wouldn’t have developed this skill set.”

He advises students interested in music technology to follow their curiosity. “Try to take as many classes as you can, but also don’t be afraid to explore on your own and show what you’re doing to other people,” he says. “And post publicly about the work that you’re doing. This helped me a lot in cultivating recognition of GenAudio and the other initiatives I’ve been part of.”

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In Its First Year, ��Ƶ’s Positivity and Light Society Recognizes the Impacts of Student Service

heidi_koelz@concordacademy.org — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 18:39:23 +0000

At a ceremony in May, ��Ƶ’s new Positivity and Light Society (PALS) recognized 60 students for contributing more than 2,000 collective hours of service to local communities. Spearheaded by Robyn Bostrom P’24, PALS was established through the generosity of a group of parents and organized in collaboration with a committee of student ambassadors, faculty, and staff.

Families gathered in the Centennial Arts Center to celebrate their children’s commitment to helping others in need. The ceremony also honored the living legacy of the alum who inspired the society’s creation, Axel Bostrom ’24, who died following a car accident in June 2025.

Axel grew up volunteering. For the Bostroms, a military family, service was a shared value and a way to get to know each community they entered. Axel’s Eagle Scout project benefited Bethesda Cares, a Maryland organization that helps people experiencing homelessness. In Massachusetts, he participated annually in A Shot For Life, a basketball challenge that raises money for brain cancer research. And in his everyday interactions, he consistently took the initiative to care for others, including helping new students acclimate to ��Ƶ.

Having heard an outpouring of stories of Axel’s generosity from his friends and the ��Ƶ community, Robyn says that as she and her husband, Paul Bostrom P’24, considered how to honor their son’s memory, “positivity and light were the two words that came to mind.” By the end of the summer, they knew they wanted to encourage service.

In ��Ƶ, whose only award is given to alums for service, Robyn saw philosophical alignment. She wanted to recognize the service ��Ƶ students already engage in through clubs and weekend volunteer outings organized by the Student Life Office, provide more resources to broaden those volunteer opportunities, and make service more visible alongside academics, the arts, and athletics at ��Ƶ. She hoped to create new student leadership positions and encourage additional aid to local communities by developing a resource any ��Ƶ club, team, student, or faculty member could use to organize service trips. She wanted all students to have an opportunity to participate, and she hoped to give those who knew Axel a positive way to channel their grief.

“I think of Axel like a prism,” she says. “He shined his light, and it refracted on everybody who ever met him. To me, service is like that. One person’s gift of time and attention can impact so many people.”

That’s why in May, she presented a crystal prism to each of the society’s first 20 members, who had all given 100 or more hours of service. Additional students were recognized for meeting an inaugural “Six for ’26” spring-semester challenge and for 10, 25, 50, and 75 hours of service.

At the ceremony, Grant Hightower, assistant head for student life, reflected on Axel as a standout scholar and athlete and a role model for his dedication to his communities. “To bring positivity and light requires only that you recognize those around you as worthy of receiving yours,” he said. “Light and positivity are infinite resources. When you care to use your light to illuminate your neighbor’s path, your flame does not flicker or fade. Instead, the road simply gets brighter. By choosing to serve, you aren’t just performing a task. You are refusing to let the darkness of isolation win. You are proving that when we stop trying to blend into the unseen and dare to reflect one another’s brilliance, we don’t just see the path ahead, we become the way for others to find it as well.”

The PALS Planning Committee had asked students to submit reflections on their volunteer journeys. Many attested to the profound personal impact of their service.

At ��Ƶ, Lyle Waldek ’26, an inaugural PALS member, co-headed the Lawrence-Concord Action Partnership, organizing student trips to Lazarus House Ministries and outdoor cleanups in Lawrence, Mass., and ��Ƶ Notes of Compassion, a group that performs at senior living residences. Over time, he wrote, “I have been able to see that service of any kind is much more complex, collaborative, and beautiful than I believed it to be.”

Many other students recognized by PALS had previously spent years volunteering. With experience at Project 351, Cradles to Crayons, Rise Against Hunger, and the YM��Ƶ, among other local organizations, Melina Petropulos ’28 is a teen ambassador at her local food pantry in Newton, Mass., as well as a PALS student ambassador and one of the society’s first members. “I’ve come to think that empathy without action is incomplete,” she wrote.

For others, service was a new step. Christopher Choy ’27 recognized that, living in Boston, he’d been conditioned to view the unhoused community through the social stigma that goes unchecked in mainstream media. “I wanted to confront the stereotypes about homelessness and learn more about how the unhoused could be cared for instead of stigmatized,” he wrote.

The personal interactions he had while volunteering at the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter in Cambridge, Mass., revealed his similarities with residents and helped him understand the complex systemic factors that contribute to homelessness and inequality. He will serve as a PALS student ambassador during the 2026–27 school year.

Gavi Miller ’27 wanted to see her fellow ��Ƶ students more involved with the Concord, Mass., community. This fall, she started a reading buddies partnership with kindergarteners at Alcott Elementary School. “Now, every other week, I get to watch my vision come to life: students just starting their academic journey looking up to ones with experience,” she wrote. “They learn from us, and we learn from them.”

In the first year of PALS, ��Ƶ students showed their commitment to communities in Concord and beyond. By being so motivated to serve without any graduation requirement, Robyn says, they set a “gold standard.” She’s proud to have created a pathway at ��Ƶ to recognize their contributions and, just as importantly, to have opened up more opportunities for them to experience the joy of lending a helping hand.

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