In 1989 Christine McNamara, who grew up a
member of the St. Joe's parish, and her college friend John Ockerbloom thought it would be fun to do a show.  They approached Father Jim Haddad, who had been John's Priest in Winchester when he was a kid.  Father Jim green lighted the project and they set out to do "Godspell"  Christine called me and asked me if I would conduct the pit for the show.  I said sure and SJST was born.  Heading into the second year, John and Christine opted to move on, and left me with the option of taking it over, or letting it fold.  I decided to take it over.  I assembled a staff that carried the theatre through several years.  Amanda Massalam choreographed the next three shows with me (Joseph, Birdie, and Show Boat)  She seceded me as Producer (or whatever the title was.)  Tony Lechner, who still comes back to the parish to play trumpet for Christmas, music directed, and I both directed and ran the pit. Paul Rolante was the Stage Manager.  Cathi McParland worked with him.  Steve Carey ran the sound board, and  Bill McCarty co-produced with me that year.  We were clueless.  We had all done some theatre, but no one had run it.  We made schedules, had rehearsals, it was great.  We built extensions on the St. Joes stage to give ourselves more room.  The walls on the extensions eventually rotated to create different scenes.  The space was too hot, too small, lousy acoustics, with uncomfortable seats, but it was still great.  I worked three years as the head of the group.  For Brigadoon, I was tech director, and I played the lead in "Kiss Me Kate"  After that, I was pretty much done.  There was an advisory board put together that I was asked to serve on, but the new group of folks running the place wanted there chance to drive the car, and weren't too interested in us being around.  I don't blame them. I was 19 when I started working there, and 24 when I left.

The folks I worked with in the cast and on the staff were great.  Jeremy Sacco, who played the Pharoh in Joseph got married last September.  I was his best man, and Steve Carey was an usher.  Without SJST, we don't even know him.  We would finish rehearsal and hang in the parking lot chatting for an hour or more, until the man who lived in the house that got torn down for the extension to the middle school would yell at us to go home.  We were a tight group, and many of us are still close... For me, it was at St. Joes that I realized that directing plays and working with kids what what I wanted to do with my life.