Twenty-five years ago I attended P.S. 29's whole-school production of "The Shooting of Dan McGrew," directed by Jacques D'Amboise. (And I do mean the whole school, including the janitorial and cafeteria staff.) It was a great production, but something went wrong about a third of the way through, and D'Amboise stopped the action, yelled a little, and made them start the scene over. He held everybody to professional standards -- and they rose to the challenge. So did your kids, apparently, but this is not unprecedented. It is what the theater is all about!

I got into the music class because of a new school opening where blacks and whites were being mixed for the first time in our area.The new school IS 144 was to join CO-OP City in the Bronx with other local schools in the area. To appease all the white parents in the neighborhood we all got to be in the music class with every musical instrument under the sun. The head of the music department was a DR Brown who also ran the Bronx boro wide band where kids that where really good in my school played with other kids from around the boro on weekends. I got into the boro wide band and played all through out high school. One year we were chosen to play at Carnegie Hall much to the delight of my parents. I look now at the state of music programs in this city that Billionaireberg has pretty much killed and wonder where would I be without the music classes I grew to love.