NYCEA Memories: Friday Night Entertainments

Happy Monday! To continue our "NYCEA Memories" series of posts, NYCEA board member Scott O'Neil offers a few remarks about the Friday night entertainments that have long been one of the conference's most popular features. In Scott's words:

One of the things I most look forward to at NYCEA every October is the Friday night entertainment.  After the conference dinner, the host puts on some sort of entertainment.  What makes this so great is the fact that you literally never know what you might see.  My first NYCEA (2010 at St. John Fisher), the entertainment was an interactive performance workshop on medical humanities run by Stephanie Brown-Clark.  We’ve also had readings from authors like Eric Gansworth, and our most recent conference featured a brilliant performance-based “Blues musical” that engaged in the history of music and race in America.  While there have been a wide array of entertainments, I think my favorite was the one in 2014.  That year, everyone who indicated that they would be attending the conference dinner was asked to bring along a poem.  After dinner, in a fun, whimsical move, we became the entertainment, putting on an impromptu poetry reading featuring works that touched on school and education in some way.  There were amusing pieces, serious pieces, historical/archival poems, and the occasional original work.  That’s one of the thing I most love about NYCEA.  It’s not “stodgy” or stereotypical.  It’s more like a group of friends getting together every year.