BELLPORT-NY.COM

Just a brief announcement for those who have not noticed already, BellportFootball.Com has begun reconstructing the old site. While it is still not complete as of yet, it looks like they are doing a great job with it. Their are updated schedules, scores and stats as well as upcoming sections for news, blogs and videos. The site is a little bare right now, but the direction they are headed looks good.

I really can’t wait to see how it turns out. I’m looking forward to more content being added. We wanted to cover Bellport Football here a bit more but time constraints have kept us from doing as much as we would have liked. But now we don’t have to. So go check it out and see whats new. We are all Clippers fans here as well so you can be sure we will let you know when the site is complete and has some more content.

YOUNG TELEVISION STARLET TAKES HER FINAL BOW ON THE GATEWAY CHILDREN?S STAGE, WHERE SHE GOT HER START

Gateway 60th Season Celebration continues with the long-standing classic – The Wizard of Oz.

(Bellport, NY) Gateway Children’s Theater welcomes a long time student and television actress, Teresa Celentano to its roster of young talent in The Wizard of Oz, opening Friday, August 7th, and running through to Saturday, August 22nd, at Gateway Playhouse in Bellport.

Gateway Children’s Theater is a way for children, many of whom study year round and for many seasons at Gateway’s Acting School Division, to perform in a professional environment. Teresa Celentano who will be playing the coveted role of ?Dorothy?, started her theatrical journey following in her brother and sister’s footsteps taking acting classes and auditioning for young roles on Gateway’s Main Stage and in the Children’s Theater. Explains Teresa, “My older brother and sister did a lot of the Main Stage Shows, and I remember seeing the shows and wanting to be in them so bad. I begged my mom, if I kept playing the violin that she would let me audition for a production of Here’s Love, and she did! So, right away I started practicing, so she would let me audition.” When asked if she still played the violin, she replied with a smile, “No, I dropped that a long time ago.”

Here’s Love was Teresa’s first Main Stage show at Gateway from which she went on to perform in South Pacific, Fiddler on the Roof and as ?Baby Louise? in Gypsy. The lovely brunette actress won the role of ?Lydia?, playing the daughter of Elizabeth McGovern on the ABC Family Series, ?Three Moons Over Milford? which aired in 2006-7. It was a lucky break that resulted from many years of training, her own passion and desire, and, recalls Robin Joy Allan, her teacher and Gateway’s casting director, a tremendous amount of talent. “Teresa, very much like her older brother James, has something very special. When she performs, it is hard to look elsewhere.”

Teresa was enrolled in the advanced classes at Gateway in 2005 when Robin began Gateway’s Showcase program, where competitive students are given a chance to perform for agents and casting directors in Manhattan. It was from this program, that Teresa was able to land an agent and begin her auditioning which eventually led to the series. “I coached for the role of Lydia with Robin, it was for my third callback. She tuned and polished everything,” Teresa remembers. Robin recalls, “Teresa was already on the right path, she had the callback and we had already read the scene in class, and I knew she was right for it, and actually she was doing pretty well on her own, but there were just a couple of things missing, things that I knew she needed to think about.? We asked Teresa what it was like to move to Canada and work full time on a TV show at a young age. Our reply from Ms. Celentano: “It was really exciting, it was my dream basically. But, it wasn?t that challenging because I was so excited, I had so much energy, and I felt really prepared from Gateway? I knew everything that I needed to know.? Teresa has also appeared in high profile National Commercials, her last one still running, for BING.COM, in which she asks her dad if he?s found her a new cell phone.

For this production of The Wizard of Oz, she?s working with a lot of other students who she?s worked with at the Gateway Acting School since she was 9 years old. Now, at 18, they?re moving on and taking their next steps in life. ?It?s really scary, but when we think about it, it is like a goodbye. I?m just trying to enjoy it, and try not think about that.?

When asked about the role of ?Dorothy?, and her approach, she replied, ?Basically it?s just a girl who doesn?t realize what she has until it?s gone. I think everyone can sort of relate to that a little bit. It?s about her journey home and, learning to love what she has.?

After The Wizard of Oz, Teresa will pursue theatre when she attends Pace University in New York, and will continue auditioning for her next TV or Film project.

The Wizard of Oz opens on the Bellport stage, Friday, August 7th with performances through Saturday, August 22.

We had our first taste of snow here in the Village of Bellport today. It started out kind of slushy but then turned into a full on snow for an hour or so. We got just enough to coat the ground, maybe an inch, just enough the kids to go out and play in. All reports are calling for more precipitation through tonight and into tomorrow, but mostly of the slushy kind. Temperature highs for tomorrow are predicted to be in the low 40’s so a slight shift in that could give us some more snow. That’s probably just wishful thinking though.

The snow was a welcome sign of winter and got me to thinking about building a snowman. That reminded me of a contest that we had planned on sponsoring here at BELLPORT-NY.COM. This seems like as good a time as any to announce it. It has been a family tradition of mine to have a snowman building contest any time we get a good enough snow. This year I get to extend that tradition to all of you, and open the contest up to the public.

Anyone living in the Village of Bellport and North Bellport area can enter. As soon as we get a good snow just get out there and make your best snowman. Send us the pictures and you are entered to win. I will announce more details about prizes, rules, etc. on the Contests page, later in the week. I will also make further announcements about it in the news section as we go along, in case anyone forgets. Now we just need more snow!

*Update

Looks like we are going to have plenty of snow this week. When you are out there taking pictures of the snowmen that you have created just put a piece of paper or cardboard in the picture with “BELLPORT-NY.COM” written or printed on it. This way we know all photos are recent and original. That’s all you have to do to be eligible to enter. Prizes and so forth to be anounced.

I just want to give our members here a quick update on the progress of the image sharing section (pics pages). We had some issues early in the week. In particular we were having problems with users uploading their pictures to share on this site. Long story short we are rebuilding that code from scratch so it will be another week before you will be able to share your pictures here. On the plus side everything is good with the gallery end of it, so we will be publishing our Bellport pictures this weekend, right on schedule. I will keep you posted as to whats happening with the rest of it. In no time we will all be able to share and upload our photos here on BELLPORT-NY.COM

I am also working on getting some Flash Animation games integrated into a page on this site. I have a fair collection of games that are pretty amusing if you lack anything better to do. I figured I would just throw that in for the heck of it. There are always some fun little games that come out around the Holidays. We plan on adding allot of fresh new content here. Tons of it. A little something for everyone, be it local Bellport news or just your daily dose of those Flash games. We want you to be able to find it here. So once again I will repeat; If there’s something you want to see here, tell us all about it. We might even put you in charge of it. In fact we are always looking for stories or articles from local writers. We would like to branch out into a broader variety of categories here, but that requires someone to fill all those categories with something of value, something useful.

If you are a local Bellport resident who enjoys writing and being an active participant in your community, let us know. You can just drop us a short note over at our contact page, letting us know your interested and we will get back to you right away. Know someone who may be interested in writing a column or regular article? Tell them about BELLPORT-NY.COM. Send em on over here. As we have always said, our goal here is to be a true community site in every sense of the word. An online community for the community of Bellport New York. As a member you have a hand in steering the ship here, if you will. It is my belief that this is the only way to truly serve our community in an online presence. That’s what we do.

I have been doing allot of complaining lately about the lack of content to be found about Bellport on the internet. I think it is only fair to mention the one other site out there that does have some interesting and useful stuff on the subject. There is a lovely site dedicated to the Village of Bellport Bellport.com, which does fit the bill in certain areas. In fact I notice that they have just done a redesign of the entire sight and I must say I am impressed. They updated their navigation so that now you can actually find some of the treasures that were previously buried there. You guys are doing a wonderful job over there and I hope you keep it up for many years to come.

Unfortunately sites like that are a diamond in the rough. We need more information out there, and not just about the Village of Bellport. I understand Its hard for a legitimate site to cover everything and still maintain a certain level of quality. You need a dedicated group of writers and researchers to make that happen. That will usually cost you a nice chunk of change, and unfortunately there’s not a fortune to be made in the business of a community website. That’s why we rely on the participation of fellow citizens and members to keep us abreast of whats going on, so in return we can keep the rest of you up to date. If everyone contributes a little, there will be allot to share.

We are working hard to provide a home for that sharing to take place. Our team has made great strides over the last couple weeks in filling in the information gaps, but there is still allot to fill. I can assure you of one thing, we are up to the challenge and will continue to provide you with valuable and pertinent information here every single day. We have been updating the Bellport News section 2 to 4 times a day, so if you dont see what your looking for now, come back in a few hours and chances are we will have you covered. In between covering local news and events, you will notice that our other featured sections are growing and growing. Now go take a look at what they have done over at “that other Bellport website”, and see what you think. Just make sure you stop back here on your way out to see whats new. Thank you once again for joining us, hope to see you again soon.