Putting on the Finest Show Possible

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The Drama Guild winter production is in the second week of rehearsals and actors are still getting to know the characters. Director of Theatre Patricia Flynn H’95 watches the run-through of a scene from the comedy murder mystery, Drop Dead!, and gives Sanjay Garab ’25, who plays bossy theater producer P.G. “Piggy” Banks, some notes.

“Here’s the thing about producers, Sanjay,” Ms. Flynn tells the actor. “They want to be the actor. They want to be the director. They want to be creators. You have been dying to take over this show.” Sanjay nods and does it again. This time, he projects more authority. “Line notes are good,” Sanjay shared when rehearsal concluded. “You grow with the characters as you start to understand them better.”

The exchange between Ms. Flynn and Sanjay was a telling moment because it speaks volumes about the professionalism that has shaped Drama Guild since its founding. Treating students like professionals, whether they are actors, stage managers or technical crew, comes naturally to Ms. Flynn and Assistant Director Daniel Kane ’03, because it’s the way things have always been done. “I always thought of St. Benedict’s as ‘real theater,’” remembered Ms. Flynn, who acted in Drama Guild productions as a high schooler. “The difference in demands and expectations between my own school and here was radically different. The monks set the standard for what the performing arts would be.”

One monk in particular, Music Director Fr. Eugene Schwartz, O.S.B., occupies a huge role in Drama Guild lore, having advocated for a working theatre in 1959. Conlin Auditorium, and the arrival of Drama Guild Director Frank S. Torok in 1961, established a foundation of artistic excellence at St. Benedict’s Prep. It’s a legacy that lives on in this Drop Dead! rehearsal where actors and crew spent hours blocking two scenes.  

“I definitely feel more of a challenge here,” said Kayani Jegatheeswaran ’26, who plays Mona Monet in the play-within-a-play. Kayani joined Drama Guild as a Middle Division student having acted in The Lion King and other productions in elementary school. Her first big role at The Hive was Donna Lucia in Charley’s Aunt in 2022. “I had a main role in High School Musical at another school, but I didn’t feel as proud of it. You could do the bare minimum and be fine,” she shared. “I felt like I did my best work on Charley’s Aunt.”

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Talk to Stage Manager and Drama Guild President Keisna Garab ’24 and you quickly get the sense of commitment that’s required of every member. Keisna, the first of three Garab siblings to become deeply involved in Drama Guild, joined as an eighth grader, where he stated, “You had to prove yourself all semester, doing a super tiny job.”

He acted and later turned to the technical side. As Stage Manager, he’s in charge of the actors and production technicians. It’s Keisna who decides when the actors go off book (all lines memorized) and he’s chief troubleshooter when technicians come to him about issues with lighting or sound.

 

Show up on Time

In terms of expectations, the number one rule of Drama Guild is, show up on time.

“You need to be here because things depend on you,” said Keisna, who plans to study technical theater in college. “If I'm not here the light cues could be late, the sound effects happen in the wrong spot, or the curtain doesn't open the right way. Even a little job like putting out a chair for an actor, if you’re not here, the chair isn’t where it’s supposed to be, and the actor doesn’t have a place to sit.”  

“There is a big work ethic you have to put into it,” agreed Sanjay. “Not many people think that Drama Guild is at the level of varsity sports where they play hundreds of hours. We also put in hundreds of [rehearsal] hours, along with tech hours and tech Saturday where we might be here from 10am to midnight if it’s the week before the play.”

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Even though the hours are long and the commitment intense, members say belonging to a group that spends an insane amount of time together — working, creating and collaborating to put on the finest show possible — has enriched their lives immensely. “I’m happier here,” said Jaya Garab ’29, a seventh grader who acts and applies her visual talents to set design. She pointed to the Drop Dead! set still in progress. “The fact that this came together on one day of tech call, is amazing. It’s only going to get better from here.”