Around Town

Meet Luke ‘The Flying Fratt’ Frattaroli, New Canaan’s ‘Ninja Warrior’

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It’s not every day you see a New Canaan kid place fifth in a world championship, and even rarer when the contest in question is the Invitational World Finals for the World Ninja League. Yet that’s the case for Luke “The Flying Fratt” Frattaroli, a 14-year-old athlete who has dedicated the last four years of his life to a sport few have heard of. Based on the highly popular “American Ninja Warrior” TV show, Ninja is a form of obstacle course racing which sees athletes compete for the best time as they tackle a series of increasingly difficult obstacles, ranging from a series of steps which the athlete must jump across, to the infamous “bar hop.”
“We couldn’t find a sport that I really liked, that I really wanted to make a big commitment to,” Frattaroli, a Saxe Middle School eighth-grader, told the New Canaanite. “I never knew you could actually do it as a sport until a couple years ago when I found out this gym in Stamford had open classes, so I tried one out and I really liked it.”
Stamford Ninja Academy, Frattaroli’s main gym, is one of an increasing number of “ninja gyms” which provide practice courses and coaching to those interested in the emerging sport. Several coaches at SNA have also competed on “American Ninja Warrior.”

“You don’t really know it’s real,” Frattaroli said.

Around Town

NCHS Grad’s Documentary ‘Rising Hope’ To Premiere Tuesday at Playhouse [Q&A]

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New Canaan High School graduate and filmmaker Theo Avgerinos’s documentary, Rising Hope, will premiere Tuesday at the Playhouse on Elm Street (tickets here). 

Screenings at 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. will be followed by a Q&A with Avgerinos. 

“Rising Hope” has won multiple awards, including Best Documentary at the LightReel Film Festival in Washington, D.C., and both Audience Award and Best Mississippi Film at the Oxford Film Festival. It tells a powerful story of resilience and hope in the impoverished Mississippi Delta. Next week’s special screening is presented by Stand Together Against Racism (S.T.A.R). 

We put some questions to Avgerinos. Our exchange is below, followed by the official trailer:

New Canaanite: Congratulations on “Rising Hope,” Theo. How did this project come to you?

Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

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New Canaan Police at 5:59 p.m. on Oct. 18 received a complaint from Waveny from a woman saying a dog was being aggressive to her dog. ***

Caffeine & Carburetors, the car show that New Canaan’s Doug Zumbach launched in 1995 outside his eponymous coffee shop at Park and Pine Streets, on Sunday raised more than $24,000 for the Waveny Park Conservancy with its season closer. A C&C held downtown this past summer had raised $16,000 for the New Canaan Community Foundation. ***

Last call to see Kate Hamill’s “Dracula” at the Powerhouse Theatre in Waveny, presented by the Town Players of New Canaan.

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Podcast: One Year After Rescue, Local Man Honors New Canaan’s Emergency Responders

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This week on 0684-Radi0, our free podcast (subscribe here in the iTunes Store), we talk to New Canaan’s John P. Walsh. One year after emergency responders here helped save his life, Walsh is honoring police, firefighters and EMTs on National First Responders Day (Oct. 28). He also is planning to take the all-volunteer New Canaan Emergency Medical Services training (it’s being offered in January, details here) to become an EMT himself and pay it back. Here are recent episodes of 0684-Radi0:

Around Town

‘How Am I Going To Do This’: Local Man, 30, Seeks Kidney After Five Years of Dialysis

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Miles Casas, a 30-year-old man from New Canaan, has been battling kidney failure for the past five years. Diagnosed with Membranoproliferative Glomerulonephritis; a rare autoimmune disease, at the age of 12, Casas’ condition would only worsen with age. 

”It’s extremely rare, it typically happens in children,” Casas, who attended St. Aloysius School, told the New Canaanite. “A mutation happens in the DNA for unknown reasons, maybe caused by stress or an illness. It could be for various reasons, but basically it’s unknown and there’s not really a cure for it.”

As a result of this condition, Casas lost function in both kidneys in 2019, requiring him to undergo nine hours of dialysis every night in order to survive.