Posted on Dec 11, 2005

The 29 Union students who traveled to New Orleans over winter break to help victims of Hurricane Katrina had some unexpected company – members of the local media.

Rebuilding efforts by the students were the subject of an extensive Sunday (Dec. 11) feature by Albany Times Union staff writer Tom Keyser that started on the front page and jumped to three inside pages.

Staff photographer Michael P. Farrell documented the trip with 11 striking images – several of which showed students in goggles and other hazardous materials safety gear. A head shot of each student was also included.

“They expected to see recovery, but they found devastation. They also found insight into themselves,” read the introduction to the articles, titled “Lessons in the Ruins.”

The trip to New Orleans, Nov. 29 to Dec. 6, gave students – including Laura Eyman '08 of Zachary, La. – the chance to rebuild homes, schools and other facilities in a district where Eyman attended school.

The volunteers were accompanied by Director of Residence Life Todd Clark and Rev. Viki Brooks-McDonald, campus Protestant minister. They stayed in homes offered by Eyman's father, Carl Eyman, and a neighbor.

The Times Union story documented, in vivid detail, the landscape of downed trees, broken traffic signals, closed stores, abandoned vehicles and “dungeon-like homes” thick with mold, pervasive smells and debris.

‘The students aren't prepared for what they see. They expect New Orleans and surrounding communities to be well on their way to recovery. Instead they find homes still in ruins, homes residents haven't come back to, even though Katrina struck Aug. 29, and it's now nearly Christmas,” Keyser wrote. “And it's not a few homes on isolated streets. It's all the homes in neighborhood after neighborhood, for miles and miles and miles.”

The newspaper account also cites the indelible impact the trip made on the volunteers, like John Moore, a junior from Westport, Mass., now certain he wants to enter the Peace Corps after graduation, and senior Amy Seusing of Merrimack, N.H., who feels motivated to help needy residents of Schenectady.

A Union graduate who requested anonymity donated the majority of the $15,000 required to fund the trip. Other alumni donations, student fundraising efforts, and personal contributions made by students, their families and Interim President James Underwood also made the trip possible.

Reflecting on the experience, sophomore Corinne Simisky of Shrewsbury, Mass., said, ‘‘I don't feel like I'm in America. I feel like I'm in the Third World.”

For the full text of the Times Union story, please see: http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=428663&category=REGIONOTHER&BCCode=HOME&newsdate=12/11/2005

Note: The Chronicle will update the Union community on progress of students' documentation of their trip through journals, photos and a video.

Posted on Dec 11, 2005

First published:  Dec. 11, 2005

Upstairs somewhere, the actor Tim Daly is yelling, his familiar voice shaded with fright and a hint of panic. “Cassie! Cassie!'' he shouts.

Mary-Beth Taylor involuntarily winces, her head ducking slightly, although she's one flight away and has heard Daly call out several times before. She laughs at herself.

“It scares me every time he yells,” she says, then whispers, mock-conspiratorially, “I guess we really are making a scary movie here.”

Daly shouts again, his character summoning another as a scene is shot, “Cassie!”

Taylor flinches and rolls her eyes. She says, “He got me again.” She's in a downstairs parlor of the Batcheller Mansion, the familiar High Victorian Gothic house on Circular Street in Saratoga Springs that is serving as one of the main locations for “The Skeptic,” a supernatural thriller written and directed by Taylor's husband, Tennyson Bardwell.

In the film, a lawyer played by Daly inherits a house from his aunt and is plunged into a mystery of flashbacks, a repressed abusive childhood and spectral presences. Besides the Batcheller Mansion, “The Skeptic” has filmed scenes in Buskirk, at the Saratoga courthouse, on the Northway, in a graveyard, at Skidmore and Union colleges and a laboratory set built in a warehouse in Ballston Spa.

Even as the Taylor-Bardwell couple has worked 12- to 18-hour days on “The Skeptic's” eight-week shoot, likely to conclude this week, their attentions could not be exclusive. Their first movie, “Dorian Blues,” a sweet coming-of-age story about a gay teen that was also shot locally, is showing up at an increasing number of screens nationwide this fall following award-winning appearances at more than a dozen film festivals.

Four years after the Ballston Spa-based Taylor-Bardwells completed principal photography on “Dorian Blues,” the picture is finally reaching audiences in New York City, Los Angeles, Denver, Washington and elsewhere; it should arrive in the Capital Region this month or next.

“If you'd told me four years ago that I'd be doing another film but still dealing with `Dorian,' I would've thought something was seriously wrong,” says Bardwell, chatting recently over lunch during a break in filming. But, says the director, “at least I'm doing another film.”

Up a flight

And it's a film that is a significant step up from “Dorian Blues.” Besides Daly, the cast includes such recognizable, respected B-list actors as Edward Herrmann, Robert Prosky, Tom Arnold, Aida Turturro and Zoe Saldana. The last was most recently in “Pirates of the Caribbean” and played Ashton Kutcher's girlfriend (and Bernie Mac's daughter) in “Guess Who.” An in-demand actress who has worked in a dozen films in the past few years, Saldana plays Cassie, a psychic helping Daly's character understand his haunted house. The crew totals 40, the cast half that.

“It's an amazing cast. For a second-time writer-director to get a cast like this is almost unheard of, and it's all a testament to the quality of the script,” says David B. Silipigno, one of the film's executive producers. The Saratoga financier founded and is funding Saratoga Studios, a production company created to be a vehicle for Bardwell's future films and, eventually, other projects. Silipigno's fellow executive producer and Saratoga Studio's executive vice president is Paul Bardwell, the director's brother.

Silipigno and Paul Bardwell are partners in Saratoga businesses including mortgage and title companies and a venture-capital firm. On a set populated by scruffy-faced electricians, grips and production assistants wearing T-shirts, fleece pullovers and cargo pants, the two stand out as moneymen, their suits even sleeker than their grooming. Furthering their image is their transportation: Silipigno's 2006 Bentley, a $180,000 car.

Saratoga Studios is the first commercial cultural effort for the pair, but Silipigno, through his David B. Silipigno Foundation, which he started in 2004, has made more than a million dollars in philanthropic contributions, including sponsoring this year's Larkfest in Albany to the tune of $20,000.

He is also a convicted felon, having pleaded guilty in 2003 to federal wire fraud in connection with the misappropriation of millions of dollars while trying to keep afloat his now-defunct mortgage bank National Finance Corp.

Capitalizing on talent

Speaking of himself and Paul Bardwell, Silipigno says, “We followed the success of (`Dorian Blues'), and we approached Tennyson and Mary-Beth with the idea of creating a studio around him. We recognize Tennyson's talent, and we want to capitalize on that. I'm here strictly for business reasons, but filmmaking is more exciting than the mortgage business.”

He continues, “I see great things for this project. You've got a talented, on-the-cusp-of-greatness writer-director matching up with aggressive businesspeople at the perfect time. We were told that we had no shot at getting a lot of the actors we eventually got. I credit all that back to the quality of the script.”

Says Paul Bardwell, “As people were reading it, as it was going around, this movie never got a door slammed in its face.”

Herrmann, an actor with 80-some credits, from Martin Scorsese's “The Aviator” to Dodge TV commercials, was the first to sign on, according to Taylor, followed by Daly, Prosky and Arnold. The presence of name actors helped collect a crew of New York City and Los Angeles professionals, and cast and crew alike are working for well below their usual scale. The film's cinematographer, Claudio Rocha, for instance, who has shot dozens of films, is getting less than half his regular paycheck, according to Taylor.

“We didn't overpay for this; it's truly an independent film,” says Silipigno.

No one involved in “The Skeptic” will discuss the film's budget except in comparative terms: It's “way more” than the $185,000 “Dorian Blues” budget but “way, way under” the $10 million ceiling usually affixed to the “independent” category, says Taylor. Somewhere in that huge range is what it will cost to get “The Skeptic” ready for submission next fall to the January 2007 Sundance film festival.

Large-scale films can be made faster, but indies like this one often take a couple of years to arrive on commercial cinema screens.

“We have to deal with budget realities,” says Paul Bardwell. “There were some big-name people interested who just couldn't step down to our level of budget.” Adds Silipigno, “And there were some other big-name people who did want to do it, but Tennyson just didn't feel were right.” Again, he, Paul Bardwell and Taylor all refuse to be more specific. But later, on the set, Tennyson Bardwell can't help himself and is overheard confiding to a crewmember that among the actors he considered were Liev Schreiber, Sam Rockwell and Alec Baldwin.

On the scene

Upstairs in the Batcheller Mansion, a bed-and-breakfast the production rented for the duration of its shoot, Bardwell is sitting on a bed in a small back bedroom while, in a larger, brighter bedroom next door, a child is being beaten with a curtain rod. Bardwell intently watches the scene, intended to be a flashback, on a small monitor. As the camera rises from behind a chair, the view is across a broad bed toward a boy of perhaps 5 or 6, grimacing and trying to stifle his screams in a pillow as a woman whacks away at his backside. Eleven seconds pass.

“Cut!” Bardwell calls through the wall, and the word is repeated by crewmembers. Bardwell goes into the other bedroom, offers instruction to the actors and returns to his perch in front of the monitor for four or five more takes. Each time the woman strikes savagely, the shadow of her sweeping arm large on the wall, the child screams, looking for all the world like an abused kid who will grow up into a tormented adult, not a pretending boy, about to laugh minutes later as a protective pad, hidden from the camera, is untied from the back of his pants.

“Good, good, good,” says Bardwell. “Let's move on.”

Posted on Dec 10, 2005

Erika Eisenhut (Mohawk, NY/ Mohawk) joined forward Cassandra Mariani (Boonton, NJ/ Morris Catholic), midfielder Molly Flanagan (Simsbury, CT/ Loomis Chaffee) and goalkeeper Julie Gawronski (Dunkirk, NY/Dunkirk) as Union's representatives on the NSCAA/adidas Northeast Region team. Eisenhut's first team all-region selection earned her honors as a national All-American on the third team. Mariani and Flanagan both received Second Team All-Region recognition while Gawronski was the goalkeeper on the third team.

Eisenhut was a two-time Liberty League Offensive Performer of the Week. In the 22 games this season, she had 13 goals, 10 assists, 36 points, 77 shots and a .169 shot percentage. Mariani led the team in goals with 17. She was also named Liberty League Offensive Performer of the Week twice this season. Mariani had seven assists, 41 points, 105 shots and a .162 shot percentage. Flanagan, the 2005 Liberty League Women's Lacrosse Player of the Year, led the Dutchwomen with 12 assists in the season. All three players had also earned Liberty League First Team honors. Gawronski, a Liberty League Second Team recipient, was a two-time Liberty League Defensive Player of the Week. She started all 22 games and posted a 0.51 goals against average. She had 55 saves and allowed only 11 goals all season. 

The NYSWCAA (New York State Women's Collegiate Athletic Association) named five players to the all-state team. Eisenhut and Mariani were the forwards, while Flanagan was joined on the midfield list with senior teammate Marissa VanWoeart (Schenectady, NY/ Schalmont). Union senior defender Lindsay Capecalatro (Orange, CT/ Loomis Chaffee) was also selected to the NYSWCAA team. VanWoeart started 21 of the 22 games at midfield this season. She had five goals, four assists, 14 points, and 33 shots. Capecalatro helped lead the backfield that had allowed just 129 shots in the 22 games.

Posted on Dec 10, 2005

Tom Arcidiacono's fifth 200+ yard game of 2005 came in the NCAA playoffs vs. Ithaca.

Along with these major awards, the Dutchmen featured five additional players on both the ECAC and D3Football.com regional all-star teams. Arcidiacono will be honored at the annual Eastern College Football Awards Banquet presented by FieldTurf at the Pegasus Restaurant at the Meadowland Sports Complex in East Rutherford, NJ on Tues., February 6, 2006. D3Football.com selected all-star teams for the first time.

Audino led Union to the Liberty League Championship with a perfect 10-0 record,  including a 7-0 mark in league play, and 11 wins as the team advanced to the second round of the NCAA playoffs with a first round home win over Ithaca. The undefeated regular season was the first for Union since 1993 and ninth in the program's illustrious history. He had also led his staff to the Liberty League Coaching Staff of the Year honor.

The Liberty League leader in rushing and the league's Offensive Player of the Year, Arcidiacono ran for a school record 1,954 yards, and a school regular season record of 1,616 yards. He rushed for 20 touchdowns on the year. Arcidiacono ranked fourth in the nation in rushing yards per game in the latest NCAA Division III statistics, which continue to include the NCAA playoffs. Arcidicano was a two-time selection as Liberty League Offensive Performer of the Week and was also twice named to the D3football.com National Team of the Week. He led the nation in rushing for two weeks in October, and had five 200+ yard rushing games in 2005.

Joining Arcidiacono on the ECAC Northwest Team were five Union teammates. WR Steve Angiletta (Plantsville, CT/Southington) had 1,612 yards on 99 catches with 11 touchdowns, and is the first receiver in Union history to post 1,000 receiving yards in a season. He ranked fourth in receiving yards per game and fifth in receptions per game in the latest NCAA stats. Jim Masso (Pontre Verde Beach, FL/Episcopal) and Elliot Silverstein (Ft. Lauderdale, FL/Peddie) were both named to the team on the offensive line. Union allowed only six sacks in 10 regular season games and the team ranked 17th in total offense and 31th in passing offense in the playoffs. Both players were key contributors to Arcidiacono's record breaking season. The defense featured DL Dylan Walton-Yedlin (Seattle, WA/Lakeside) and DB Chris Nappi (Scotia, NY/Niskayuna), while LB Vito Pellerito (Pompano Beach, FL/St. Thomas Aquinas) received honorable mention honors. All of these players had also received Liberty League all-star team awards.

Walton-Yedlin had 16 of the team's 72 tackles for losses, and had 59 tackles and nine sacks. He was named to D3football.com National Team of the Week and won back-to-back Liberty League Defensive Performer of the Week honors in October. Pellerito led the team in tackles with 81 and solo tackles with 65. He was a two-time Liberty League Defensive Player of the Week and two-time D3football National Team of the Week. Nappi had 69 tackles and 54 primary hits, and led the Dutchmen with five interceptions (for 24 yards) and nine pass deflections.

On the D3football.com All-East Region Team, Arcidiacono, Angiletta, Masso and Nappi were first team selections, and Silverstein and Walton-Yedlin were named to the second team.

Posted on Dec 8, 2005

Although he was elected Tuesday, Thursday was Jim Tedisco's first day on the job as New York State Assembly minority leader, and he was still working out of his old office near the Capitol.

The staffers there were people who have been with him for years, such as executive secretary Shirley DeMartino and Howard Becker, the former staff director and newly minted counselor to the minority leader, who was taking bites out of DeMartino's chicken salad sandwich.

They both go as far back as James N. Tedisco's first campaign for the Assembly in 1982, when he beat three other Republicans (Betty Bean, Mugsy Buhrmaster and Paul Tocker) in the primary and then bested his fellow Schenectady City Council member Dave Roberts in the general election. He succeeded Republican Clark Wemple, who retired.

Tedisco was fond of pointing out last week that he is Schenectady County's first Republican leader in the Legislature since O.D. Heck, who served as speaker from 1937 to 1951.

But he won't have anything like the power of Heck, or the current speaker, Democrat Sheldon Silver of Manhattan, or Tedisco's fellow Republican and Capital Region resident, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.

The Assembly Republicans can only muster 42 seats at the moment, although they may pick up a few that are currently vacant. They have been losing ground in recent years in this heavily Democratic state, and Silver's ranks have grown to 105, giving him a vetoproof majority.

Tedisco, though, is full of his customary fire. “Finally, I've been validated,” he said about last week's unanimous vote by “the 42 people who know me best” to make him minority leader.

Tedisco sees the new post as vindicating his career, his long advocacy of governmental reform and his success – even as a minority member – in getting some version of legislation he has advocated adopted. The pay delay for legislators when budgets are late, and the “Buster bill” toughening animal cruelty penalties, both owe something to Tedisco.

As a leader, he aims to use some of the same techniques, “being imaginative in all our approaches.”

Jack McEneny, a Democratic assemblyman representing Albany, said, “It's always good for the Capital Region to have your people rise.”

Tedisco, obviously, has the same opinion. “As one of the leaders,” he said, “I'll have access to others, and members,” to get support for funding and measures to benefit his constituents.

The minority leader's job became available when Assemblyman Charles Nesbitt announced his resignation the day before Thanksgiving to take a post in the Pataki administration. That day and evening, working the phones in a Republican Party conference room below his district office at 12 Jay St. in Schenectady, Tedisco lined up enough votes from his colleagues to ensure his election.

The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reported Nov. 24 that Nesbitt, during his tenure, worked “behind the scenes . . . to get Republicans a bigger share of money for pet projects in their districts.” However, majority members still get much more.

As an assemblyman, McEneny said, “Jim plays to the gallery quite a bit,” noting that the two of them disagree on criminal justice issues.

For a leader, McEneny said, the interests of his members could suffer “if the cordiality of the house is torn apart because of headlines.”

Tedisco, McEneny predicts, will adapt as his predecessors as minority leader adapted. “Jim's a smart guy, a political survivor. . . . He's going to want to be effective.”

Some might question the effectiveness of prior leaders who have presided over the loss of Republican seats. And some conservatives question what New York Republican leaders stand for. But Tedisco sees plenty of distinctions between the parties, and regards the current GOP debate about next year's statewide candidates as healthy.

But haven't Republicans been running up the state's debt? Only because the Assembly's Democratic majority has insisted on more spending, Tedisco said, holding up budgets until they get what they want.

Yet Tedisco said he himself gave credit to Silver earlier this year for adopting legislative reforms, some of which had long been advocated by the Republican assemblyman. And he wants more of them.

Nor is he afraid that the “more aggressive” approach he envisages the Assembly minority adopting will hurt its members. “I think we'll do better if we let the speaker know exactly where we stand,” he said.

Still, the new minority leader realizes that even if he grows the minority, it will not soon become a majority. But New York could turn, he says, “a lighter shade of blue.”

The speaker's office put out a statement warmly praising Nesbitt after he announced his resignation. Eileen Larrabee, a spokeswoman for Silver, said the speaker called Tedisco to congratulate him on his election. She said “there has been significant bipartisan cooperation in the past couple of years. Among the most notable achievements were the joint efforts to reform the rules and operations of the Assembly.”

Republican Assemblyman Marc Butler got a bill through the Assembly this summer regarding Fulton County assessments, despite opposition from the Office of Real Property Services. It also passed the Senate and was signed into law, and at that time Butler said the legislative environment in the Assembly has been a productive one recently.

Tedisco noted that he and Silver shared a youthful dream of becoming professional basketball players. A picture of Tedisco shooting a basketball in a Union College uniform is prominently displayed behind his desk. A short man, Tedisco was nonetheless a star for Union, and went on to get a graduate degree from the College of Saint Rose, then becoming a guidance counselor, teacher and coach.

Tedisco grew up in Rotterdam, where his 90-year-old mother still lives. He went first to Draper High School and then to Notre Dame-Bishop Gibbons in Schenectady, where he graduated in 1968.

He was renting apartments until 1985, when he bought a house on Guilderland Avenue in the Bellevue neighborhood of Schenectady. Engaged twice, for the past several years he has dated Mary Song. A few years ago, she ran for mayor of Saratoga Springs, which is in Tedisco's district .

His new job will mean a raise. Assembly members make a base salary of $79,500, and the $18,000 “lulu” Tedisco was making as an assistant minority leader under Nesbitt had brought him up to $97,500. Now he will make $114,000 per year, according to Josh Hills, communications director for the Assembly minority.

Posted on Dec 8, 2005

Boston Camerata and Joel Cohen, director, will perform at Union College's Memorial Chapel on Sunday, Dec. 20, at 8 p.m. as part of the Union College Chamber Concert Series.

The Boston Camerata, directed by Joel Cohen

The Boston Camerata's performance entitled “An American Christmas” will include: carols, hymns and spirituals. This marks their 18th annual appearance for one of the most well-know American early music ensembles.

Founded in 1954, The Boston Camerata was associated until 1974 with the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Since 1968, Joel Cohen has directed the ensemble's teaching, research, recording and concert activities.

Camerata began touring overseas in 1974, and has maintained an international presence ever since. In recent seasons, Camerata has been heard in Canada, England, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands, Singapore, Israel, Mexico, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Japan.

Tickets are $20 for the general public and $10 for students; at the door one hour before the performance or available at the College Facilities Building, call 388-6080. For further information, call 372-3651 or visit the Union College website:

http://www.union.edu/concertseries