When Roslyn High School alumnus Andrew Hertz learned that his former theater director Brad Frey would retire at the end of the 2014-15 school year, he had an idea — to throw a party.
“When I heard he was retiring,” he said, “I thought, what better send-off than we do a cabaret kind of party?”
Hertz then sprung into action: He contacted Jay Pilnick, Roslyn High School’s assistant principal, to secure the auditorium, and then logged onto Facebook to round up old classmates and friends from his days with Roslyn’s Royal Crown Players theater group for a musical reunion the night before Mothers’ Day.
“There are very few teachers, you can count them on one hand, who inspire you to pursue what you want to do with your life. Frey is one of them,” said Hertz, a Class of 2000 graduate who organized Saturday’s concert, called “A Tribute to Brad Frey.”
Alums from Frey’s 32 years with Roslyn returned to perform one final time, resurrecting medleys from the finales of shows performed by the Royal Crown Players in the last three decades.
Accompanied Saturday by his family, Frey took no role in producing the concert.
This time, he sat back and enjoyed the show.
“I cannot thank all of you enough for attending and being part of such a special event that can or never will be duplicated,” Frey later wrote in a Facebook post. “You came home for one glorious evening. And for that I will always be grateful. I love you all my friends you are one amazing legacy.”
Outside the auditorium, playbills from Royal Crown Players productions lined a series of tables, some yellowing with age.
Alums as wide-eyed as the freshmen they once were wandered the hallways, marveling at how much different Roslyn High School looks now that they’re no longer students there.
Some wrote messages for Frey on a corkboard that Hertz said will be framed and placed somewhere in the school’s theater wing, replacing a wall that was once signed by graduating performers but painted over in recent years.
“You always hear about teachers who changed lives,” said Andrew Werner, a Class of 2005 Roslyn High School graduate. “You look around this room and it’s only a fraction of the lives he’s changed.”
Hertz called Frey “the least pretentious person I’ve ever met,” a teacher who “understands there are things even he can learn from his students.”
“We had people who flew in from Germany,” he said. “He’s one of the most well-respected teachers in the school, and if you ask the other respected teachers in the school, they’d say they respect him too. He’s much more than the cool teacher who everyone loves.”
