(Click here for larger version.)

3)  The Reunion Singalong

Reflection on the Reunion

Have you all been waking up smiling since last Saturday  I know I have. What a joy to see so many of you again. How special for all of us to be given that opportunity to go back in time and tell people how much they meant to us.

I was thinking how some of the woman spoke that night, about how they had to beg their parents to be able to go to Newark everyday. My story was different. My link to St. Benedict's goes back over 100 years to 1898, the year my grandfather graduated from there. My Dad in 1930, and my brother in 1966. Needless to say, my Dad was all for us sisters being a part of 'the hive'. My mother was in the Variety Night shows that Mr. Torok put on with the parents. She came back home from that experience saying to us -"You have got to work with this Mr. Torok" He is a genius.

How right she was. The experiences I had as a young child working with him have shaped my life. 

One moment I wanted to share with you all was during The Miracle Worker. We were rehearsing the famous breakfast scene, that had like 7 pages of blocking. It was a very physically demanding scene, in which I got slapped numerous times by Annie Sullivan, water dumped in my face, food grabbed out of my mouth, I got black and blue climbing all over the table and chairs (needed to wear knee pads under my costume.) So when we actually finished the scene for the first time, we all just stood there in silence. We were amazed, all of us. Mr. Torok came up to the stage and gave me a hug. I will never forget that moment.

My high school years gave me more wonderful Drama Guild memories, working under Kevin Hanily and Jan Kelik. I share the graduation year of 1972 with the boys from Benedict's for whom it was to be the last year of the school. Thank God it did not stay closed for long. Watching the current students perform on "our" stage last week was just such a good sign that the show must, and will go on!

Love, Michelle Deubel Roderick