Miss Landay, an art teacher here at BPHS, will be choreographing this year’s spring musical, “The Addams Family,”  for the first time.

Miss Landay is in her second year of teaching at BPHS. She currently teaches Science in Art, Art Ⅰ, Painting Ⅰ, and Sculpture.

She danced for around 19 years, starting at the age of 3 doing recreational performances and dances all throughout high school and college. She performed at different venues, traveling to malls, nursing homes, and festivals.

The roots of her love and passion for dance started within her family.

“My older sister danced and my family decided to sign me up for classes as well,” she said. “I loved it so much, I never stopped!”

As she progressed in her dance journey, she learned all kinds of dance, including tap, ballet, jazz, lyrical, modern, hip hop and pointe.

She participated in her dance studio’s production of the “Nutcracker” for seven years! Miss Landay also took part during all four of her high school years in Moon Area High School’s Spring Musicals. She danced in “Cinderella,” “Guys and Dolls,” “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” and “Grease.”

She started her choreographing journey when she attended Penn State University.

“I was heavily involved in a student-run dance organization,” she said. Through this organization, I was able to perform in showcases each semester. They needed choreographers to create and teach individual dances for each showcase and I choreographed each semester during my 4 years in college.”

She really enjoyed this time in her life.

“It was an amazing experience that I am so grateful for and probably one of the major highlights of my time at Penn State,” she said.

Though she loves the art of choreography, she still faces challenges in her creative process. While at Penn State, she only would be working on a maximum of two dances at once with a maximum of 20 dancers per piece. For “The Addams Family,” she is working with more than four times that number, with five or more dances at once and with duets or up to as many as 80 students at once. 

When asked how this affects her, she said: “This is definitely much more than I have ever choreographed at one time! Sometimes, I have to have multiple rehearsals with different groups of students and then piece it all together for a final dance.”

She also mentioned that she is extremely grateful for the help of her dance captains throughout the whole process.

Miss Landay claims that her biggest challenge when creating choreography is the preparation.

“I will imagine something in my mind and then realize it doesn’t work on stage or it wasn’t quite what I had pictured. I have to change what I originally planned and figure out how to adapt quickly,” she said.

She found out that she would be choreographing “The Addams Family” back in October. Before she started teaching, she was always interested in possibly being involved with the school’s musical. It’s a dream come true for her to be able to pursue both her passions of art and dance while teaching.

“I am so happy to be able to now say that I am both an art teacher and choreographer at BPHS,” she said. “This is definitely an exciting accomplishment for me!”

Miss Landay has lots of love and appreciation for all of the staff and students that she gets to work with. She sees it as an amazing opportunity that she is glad to be a part of.

When asked more about her fellow staff and students in the musical, she said, “I have been having a blast getting to know all of the featured dancers, leads and ensemble members and already know how proud of them I will be, seeing them perform in my first choreographed musical.”

She also said that she would be interested in continuing to choreograph the musical in the future.

Make sure that you catch “The Addams Family” here at BPHS March 15-18 to see all the hard work from the students and staff in action!

“You won’t be disappointed,” Miss Landay said. “Even though the members of the Addams Family probably would hope that you were!”