Franklin Academy - Palm Beach Gardens is a public charter school located in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. The school's Performing Arts Program brings quality drama education and performance opportunities to its elementary and middle school students through its membership in the Educational Theatre Association, Florida State Thespians, and its award-winning performing arts program. 

                           Drama Team

Mary Caperna is the director of Franklin Academy PBG's Performing Arts Program. She founded the school’s drama program and its award-winning Jr. Thespian Troupe #89244 during the school's first year of operation with only two middle school students. Today, the program boasts more than 50 students and has proudly produced five successful musicals at the Kravis Center, including Cinderella, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Lion King, Jr., and Beauty and the Beast, Jr. and The Addams Family.  Mrs. Caperna believes that Franklin’s Drama program is a reflection of the school’s motto, “Building Better People, Every Day.”  In addition to helping students develop their acting, singing and dancing skills, the purpose and focus of the program is to help students develop skills that will help them be successful academically and personally, and which will empower them to use their voices, skills, and talents to make a difference in their community and the larger society. 

 

Cristina “Neena” Caperna is the artistic director and choreographer of Franklin Academy PBG's Performing Arts program and musical theatre director at Bak School of the Arts. Neena is a 2012 Carbonell Theatre Scholarship recipient, alumni of the Broadway Theatre Alliance and Broadway Artist Project, and a 2017 BFA graduate of the University of Florida’s Theatre program. She is a classically trained vocalist and experienced actor with a passion for theatre and her students. Neena has directed and choreographed all of Franklin’s previous Kravis Center and Eissey Theatre musicals and is devoted to assuring that the school’s drama program provide students with a rigorous and professional musical theatre experience.  Neena’s motto is “Don’t practice until you get it right, practice until you can’t get it wrong.”  She firmly believes that a strong work ethic, with lots of encouragement and love, is the best way to teach students that hard work brings excellence and success.

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