Oakwood News

"Reserve Your Seat" in The Spencer Family Theater with a custom seat plaque and support Oakwood through your purchase! On the occasion of Oakwood's 100th Anniversary in Poughkeepsie, our theater in the historic Lane Building has been renovated to meet the needs of our school community in 2021 and into the future, funded by generous alumni, parents, and members of the Board of Managers. 

Oakwood commemorated its 100^th year on its Poughkeepsie campus with a celebration September 24 – 26, 2021.  The weekend events began on Friday with the Annual Carolyn “Dash” Davis Gleiter '51 Lecture on Social Justice presented by former Oakwood history teacher Michael J. Steinberg, Director of the Civil Rights Litigation Initiative at Michigan Law School. Saturday’s events included the Alumni Association Annual Meeting, receptions, art projects and testimonial videotaping for returning alumni and visitors.

Alumna Irene Yee from the Class of 2005 was recently featured in National Geographic while on assignment in Smith Rock State Park in Oregon. Learn more about her adventurous career combining her passion for photography and rock climbing! 

Congratulations to Humanities Chair Stephen Miller on the publication of “Intentional Disruption: Expanding Access to Philosophy”. Stephen found the contributors, guided the focus of the chapters so they connected as a complete book, wrote the first chapter and edited the whole text for content, style and references.

Students from Oakwood Friends School and the Spackenkill community came together to paint a collaborative Black Lives Matter mural created by high school senior Mary Haddad.  Using a unique paint-by-number design style, this inclusive project involved students from both communities at the middle and high school levels. Never having met before, the students collaborated on this project that took over 320 hours in two and a half months in the hopes of combining their efforts to make an impact in the fight to stop racism.

The Oakwood Friends School Spring Musical Production will be a unique experience this year! Rather than one full-length production, the Music and Drama Departments in association with Music Theater International will be producing four ten-minute musicals. These four plays, The Answering Machine, A Most Average Musical, The Hipster Sister, and The Facebook Fighter will be performed for the school both in-person and via stream Friday and Saturday, May 21st and 22nd at 7:30 PM. 

Continuing our Arts Lecture Series, we will welcome painter Fredericka Foster on April 22^nd at 7PM. Fredericka is primarily a perceptual oil painter, using imagination to explore the rhythms and forms that appear on the canvas. The colors she chooses are arbitrary, and paint is layered until she sees movement and life. The interaction of water and light is what interests her, and by painting water without a horizon, she is able to capture its abstract nature.

We're continuing our Virtual Arts Lecture series on April 1st at 6:30 PM with Jhanaë Bonnick, a Caribbean-American AEA Stage Manager and Administrator based in New York City.