New Roads Alumni Featured on Emmy-Nominated “Transparent"
New Roads alumni Julia Cowitt, Sofia Frohna and Mica Nafshun-Bone are currently featured on Season Two of the Amazon Series, Transparent. Julia, Sofia and Mica all played together in the New Roads Folk Band, which is starting its 4th year at the school. Sofia says, “At the beginning of our sophomore year, a group of committed musicians who all played acoustic instruments, including the banjo and the mandolin, wanted to be part of the New Roads' bands, but we didn’t fit that well into the Jazz tradition. So collectively we approached New Roads’ Music Director, Michael Abels, with a special request to start a folk-indie band. Within the week, he had hired our incredible teacher Noah Needleman." Michael says, “I have fond memories of each one of these very musical New Roads graduates! It's a delight to see this moment in their lives immortalized on such a ground-breaking show."
The opportunity to be featured on the show arose when Jim Frohna, Sofia’s father and a director/cinematographer on Transparent, noted that they would be filming an episode at an all-women’s music and arts festival. Tranparent’s creator had seen videos of the Folk Band and New Road’s Spring Musical, West Side Story, with Sofia playing Maria, and loved the idea of including a young women’s band in the episode. Since the featured musicians had to be women and over 18, a new band, Machine Gun Housewives, was formed. With just four hours of rehearsal time, the Machine Gun Housewives recorded their audition, which wowed Transparent’s producers, and they were booked to perform.
Mica, Julia and Sofia have put the band on hold for the season as they all attend college. This year, Julia attends Sarah Lawrence, Mica is in the Pop Program at USC, and Sofia is studying classical composition and humanities at Brown University. (Their 4th member, Jade Cook, is an opera student at UCLA).
New Roads School is a college preparatory K-12 private independent school in Santa Monica, CA, serving over 515 elementary school, middle school and high school children from the greater Los Angeles area. New Roads School provides an inspired educational program from which an authentically diverse student population, mirroring the rich diversity of Los Angeles, develops a personal dedication to learning, a respect for independent thinking, and an expanding curiosity about the world and its people.
NOTICE OF NONDISCRIMINATORY POLICY AS TO STUDENTS New Roads School admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered programs.