A member of the New Jersey Youth Choir since the second grade, she has practiced once a week with the group for six years. And she has gotten to perform at an array of impressive venues, including Disney World, the Kennedy Center, and Carnegie Hall. Not bad for a once-timid singer who says she used to tremble when faced with solos (although, in Grade 5, she managed to make it through a starring role in Pingry's Alice in Wonderland Jr. just beautifully). 

She credits the rich offerings of the Music Department, including the Middle School Chorus, led by music teacher and mentor, Mr. Winston, and several vocal concerts a year. "There are so many opportunities to be a part of music at Pingry," she says. Though she doesn't consider herself an actor, and prefers choral groups to musicals and plays, she appreciates that Mr. Winston singled her out in the Middle School Choir and encouraged her to try out for solos, not to mention for the NJMEA Honor Choir. 

As a freshman, in addition to her work with the Balladeers, she now moves up to the high school chorus of the New Jersey Youth Choir, and may get a chance to perform with them at the White House, where her hands may—or may not—be trembling, just a bit. 

Brandon also keenly appreciates that no two pieces of pottery ever turn out the same. Two pieces of clay, applied with the same glaze, will inevitably look different when they exit the reduction kiln. Oxygen, the heat thrown by the fire, and time all work their distinctive magic, he explains. The #1 wrestler on Pingry’s varsity team—who earned a top-12 ranking in the state last year—Brandon is quick to point out parallels to the sport he is so ardent about.

“For me, it’s all about pursuing my passions however they manifest themselves,” he says. “In claymaking, you can try to make a single bowl five or six different ways over the course of two months and none seem to work. And then that seventh time, it works! There are just so many different factors. With wrestling, you can try the same move or the same defense 10 different ways before you find the one that works. In both, you have to experiment with different techniques and keep trying.”

It is the lesson of that magic formula, unique to every piece of pottery, every wrestler, and, Brandon says, every Pingry student, that he will take with him to college, no matter his pursuit of the arts. “Every student at Pingry has the opportunity to express themselves in their own way, and find what they’re meant to do.”

At Pingry, Ariel’s inspiration comes in a different form. For example, sketching with a graphite pencil are the medium and tool most comfortable to her, but in Art Fundamentals last year, Mrs. Mack-Watkins challenged her to try something different. “We were assigned a project in which we had to recreate a small portion of an artist’s painting, but we had to select a work that focused on the concept of color theory, and we had to use acrylics,” she explains. “I chose a little piece of red robe from The Death of Germanicus. I really enjoyed it because with graphite, you’re only working with one color; you’re not mixing. But with acrylics, you have to be careful to get not only the right color but the right shade. The project really forced me out of my comfort zone.”

Also a source of influence is Mr. Sullivan, Ariel’s former Middle School advisor. He was always very encouraging of her work, and some of her “messing around” drawings can still be found on his classroom walls. “I can only see my mistakes, but having someone else look at your work and say that it’s good fills you with a sense of pride,” she says. “I started to actually be proud.”

When it comes to her future, post-Pingry endeavors, Ariel, who also loves biology and the sciences, is considering following in her mother’s footsteps and becoming a dentist. “She has always told me that dentistry is a form of art because you’re helping to perfect someone’s smile. I love drawing portraits, so I think it might be a good fit.”

Since that first show, he has performed in (or behind the scenes of) 14 productions, 11 of which have been at Pingry. His freshman year, he won the Drama 1 Monologue Award. He is already plotting his Independent Senior Project (a two-person musical), which is still three years away, and dreams of his culminating, senior-year Drama IV performance.

Aside from the sheer joy he feels when he’s on stage, Josh says Pingry’s tradition of welcoming special needs children to attend dress rehearsal before opening day performances is a real highlight. In fact, he recalls one such performance, after which a young boy asked to meet him in person, as “one of the best moments in my life. . . Here was a small child actually wanting to meet me, even though I was just an eighth grader.”

Off-stage, English is Josh's favorite class. He credits his former teacher, Dr. Reid Cottingham, with fostering his love of reading, writing, articulating, and engaging in healthy debate, like when his freshman-year English class read and acted out parts of Othello. All of these skills, he notices, translate into his acting. “I used to be so shy, but now I’m a lot more confident. People are different when they’re in their happy places.”

Ajuné has been drawing since preschool, and fully intends to continue to pursue visual arts through the Upper School. Like many Pingry students, she is multi-faceted, however. Her other main interest: chemistry.

Middle School art teacher Jane Kunzman is one of Ajuné’s greatest admirers and promoters, agreeing to her creative mandala project even though it didn’t meet the assignment’s exact requirements. In turn, Ajuné often shares even her private sketches with her teacher. “Mrs. Kunzman always keeps an open mind about our ideas and lets us bend the rules a bit,” she says. “She encourages me to follow my ideas, suggesting that maybe the result will turn out to be better than what I originally imagined.”

“They are intricately connected. All actors should be able to dance, and all dancers should be able to act,” she says. “In musical theater, if you feel strongly about something, you speak it as a monologue. If you feel more strongly about it, you start singing, but if you feel so passionately about it that speaking and singing can’t contain it, then you dance—it’s a more heightened form of expressing emotion.”

Ms. Wheeler’s drama and dance courses cover multiple age groups, giving her tremendous satisfaction as she watches students grow and mature through the drama curriculum. For the Middle School, she teaches Drama 6 (Character and Movement, in which students learn to watch, react to, and take cues from one another), Drama 7 (Devised Theater, her creation, in which students create their own stage pieces, build ensembles through trust, and study Aristotle’s six elements of a play*), and Dance Rhythms. In the Upper School, she leads Movement for Actors (to get students “out of their heads” and “into their bodies” to focus on the present) and Introduction to Dance.

When guiding students about stepping into their roles, Ms. Wheeler prompts them to consider the characters’ feelings, attitudes, and life circumstances. “You’re bringing a character to life, so you have to know what motivates them. How is the character the same as and different from you? You have to connect with a character—you can’t play someone who you don’t ultimately have sympathy for or care about.” And if the character is a bad guy? “Even bad guys have motivations. With them, you can do things on stage that you can’t do in real life, so students can go big, explore, and not get in trouble—they should look like they’re having fun playing the bad guy!”

Ms. Wheeler acknowledges the inherent challenges in much of her work—the impact of technology on a discipline that requires human interaction; continually developing her knowledge of dance—but perhaps the most visible is choreography. “I want students to do as much choreography as possible so they own it, but it’s challenging to get it ‘right.’ It has to come from a moment and help tell the story. Just like they’re speaking for a reason, they’re moving for a reason.”

* Aristotle’s six elements of a play: plot, character, theme, language, rhythm, and spectacle

Meet More Pingry Artists

Meet More Alumni Artists