They’ll Gather To Stage A Reunion

Many of the students at Ridgewood’s Grover Cleveland High School who took part in its annual spring play during the 1970s developed an appreciation for the performing arts that began with the school’s SING program. They also credit faculty members such as Drama teacher Scott Martin (standing fourth from right in foreground) for making a difference in their lives. A reunion of Grover Cleveland’s SING participants will be held in Maspeth on Saturday evening, Oct. 17. Holding a school reunion means providing former classmates with the chance to swap memories, but for some Grover Cleveland High School (GCHS) graduates, there could be just as much show as tell.

That’s the way it is with people whose favorite school experiences in volved a stage.

Now, in a sense, they are getting ready to SING again.

“We want to have something that’s a bit different from the usual kind of reunion,” said Mary Moran (nee Mauceri), GCHS Class of ’74, regarding the Saturday, Oct. 17 event that will reunite participants in the Ridgewood high school’s SING pro gram.

In this Grover Cleveland SING production—called “Is This Any Way to Run an Airline?”—the female inhabitants of the planet Woman show their dancing moves before an encounter with a crew of astronauts who crash-land upon their world. Since being part of SING meant putting on a show, reunion attendees will be encouraged to perform once again, if not reprise past roles.

In speaking with Moran and oth ers, one quickly gets the impression that they shared something special.

As a program, SING fell silent at Grover Cleveland years ago. But like so many things in this life that were once and are no more, its days remain unforgettable to the people who were fortunate enough to have been in volved in the program.

The price was right for an orchestra seat to an evening of SING at Grover Cleveland High School in 1973. It was a time when the students would work together to craft a musi cal, using existing songs with rewrit ten lyrics for a production that otherwise was all their own.

Listening to a few of the former students who were active in SING at Grover Cleveland, it’s clear that there was no shortage of creativity and the shows were never boring.

“It was a great experience,” said Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan, a Cleveland grad and SING alumnus. “In some ways, it was even more fun than the school’s annual show, since you got the chance to write your own.”

The students cooked up such plots as having child star Shirley Temple kidnapped by gangsters so that she could coach the untalented daughter of the crime boss.

For another show, male astronauts found themselves in a fix after land ing on a planet inhabited strictly by women.

The audience never could be sure what to expect in a SING show. At any moment, a troop of Boy Scouts might suddenly appear and later reappear to tramp across the stage.

Over the course of two evenings, three shows representing the senior, junior and combined freshman/sophomore classes would be staged and judged, with trophies awarded and bragging rights earned.

According to Moran, the place for the October 17 reunion Connolly’s Corner on Grand Avenue in Maspeth was picked largely be cause the great majority of students came from Ridgewood or Maspeth.

“We want it to be a homecoming,” said Moran, who now lives on Staten Island, as does another organizer, Debbie Romano (nee Conlon).

They won’t be making the longest trip, distance wise, however.

Of the 50 to 60 people who plan on attending the reunion, there are plenty of out of staters.

In addition to New York and New Jersey, states represented on the guest list include California, Florida, Rhode Island and Utah.

Spreading the word How the word was spread stands as evidence of the impact made by computers on communication in today’s world.

Moran explained that through cer tain social networking websites most notably, Facebook and Classmates.com former SING members were finding each other.

Before long, the idea of organiz ing a reunion took hold. Once it did, Moran and Romano got to work on turning the idea into a real event with a date, time and place.

As plans developed, a page dedi cated to the reunion was created on Facebook, to facilitate the ongoing outreach.

It’s quite likely that by the time Oct. 17 rolls around, the guest list will be longer than it is right now.

Now in their blood

At Grover Cleveland, the SING program affected students in various ways. For many, it meant a social awakening of sorts. For some, it brought out an interest that would turn passionate regarding theater and the performing arts.

For those students, they found themselves on a career path that would lead them to places where they could continue to pursue their pas sion following graduation.

Julius LaRosa, the singer who be came a star on Arthur Godfrey’s TV show in the 1950s, may remain the best known Grover Cleveland alum nus to have entered show business.

But members of the SING crowd have done all right for themselves.

Frank Ingrasciotta, Class of ’76, would turn his experiences as a first generation Italian American growing up in Ridgewood he lived on Willoughby Avenue between Cypress and St. Nicholas avenues into a critically acclaimed play.

The one man show, Blood Type: Ragu, written and performed by In grasciotta, enjoyed a successful off Broadway run at the Actors Playhouse in Greenwich Village.

Regardless of one’s ethnicity or heritage, it’s a show for anyone with Ridgewood ties.

It features more than 20 recogniz able characters and even the scenary would look familiar.

As Ingrasciotta explained, slides projected behind him are used to help put the show in Ridgewood.

“At one point, I’m driving on the street and you’ll see that it’s Cypress Avenue,” he said.

The actor and director has kept busy in the theater since, as a teenager, he served as stage manager for the original off Broadway run of Godspell.

Played on soaps

In addition to his New York stage credits, he has had recurring TV roles on two soap operas, One Life to Live and The Guiding Light, as well as the prime time action drama The Equal izer. L

ongtime followers of doings in the fictional Llanview in One Life to Live should recall him as the maitre’d at the Palace Hotel, a part he played over five years.

“I was Renee Buchanan’s right hand man,” Ingrasciotta said.

It all goes back to being taken by his sister to see his first Broadway show Pippin, starring Ben Vereen at the age of 13 and getting involved in SING at Grover Cleve land, which provided him with his first opportunity to perform on stage.

He had been bitten by the theater bug and as would be the case with others in the SING program, the de sire was running through his sys tem regardless of blood type.

Joanne Giovannielli Callahan, Class of ’74, was the SING actress who played the part of Shirley Tem ple.

“I still remember when Herbie Dowdie just put me over shoulder and walked away,” she said.

Giovannielli Callahan studied music and dance, but she has had a successful and continuing career doing standup comedy. Signs of it come through in conversing with her.

In recalling how she got her stage name Joanne Genelle Giovan nielli Callahan credits her first agent.

“She was a hundred years old and told me I’d never be able to get work with a name like Giovannielli,” she said.

Considering the show business names that one runs across these days, that seems hard to believe.

As it is, Giovannielli Callahan played multiple roles in 2001 03 pro ductions of Paper Doll, a play about Valley of the Dolls author Jacqueline Susann and her husband, which starred Marlo Thomas and F. Murray Abraham in the main roles (later taken over by Dixie Carter and Robert Wuhl).

The former Maspeth resident, who also lists TV’s Law and Order among her credits, now lives with her husband in the Catskills area, where she will be doing her standup act on Sept. 19.

Currently, they live on 16 acres of land, but the property includes an ad ditional 145 acres.

They also have no shortage of an imals: eight dogs, 13 cats, two minia ture donkeys, four LaMancha goats, five hens and one rooster.

In addition to her standup work, she also books talent and is a Pilates instructor. Prior to relocating upstate, she had a dance studio for many years.

Some became teachers

Teaching is one of the things that seemed to appeal to some of the for mer SING graduates.

Gloria Piraino has been a teacher of English, Theater and Acting for about 25 years most of that time at Benjamin N. Cardozo High School in Bayside.

She noted that Cardozo is one of the few schools to still have a version of the SING program.

But it hardly resembles the one that she enjoyed at Grover Cleveland, where she not only performed but did writing of the shows and scene de sign.

Unlike some other students, she came to Grover Cleveland as some one who had already done some studying in the performing arts.

“I had heard about SING as an inter class competition, so I was looking for it,” Piraino said.

She was among the sampling of alumni from the 1970s who ex pressed appreciation for the teachers who gave of themselves to make the program memorable faculty mem bers such as Joanne Gentile, who served as SING coordinator, Philip Banyon, Howard Weiner and Bernadette Delphine.

While Scott Martin, Grover Cleveland’s drama teacher, was not involved in SING, the students who went on to perform in the school’s spring play productions such as L’il Abner and Anything Goes, under Martin’s direction speak of him in almost reverential tones.

Joanne Giovannielli Callahan re called that Martin had helped her in being part of a community theater group’s production.

But when he happened to see how casually she had treated her costume for the play, the teacher in him pro vided her with a lesson by hiding it.

“He had a way of teaching us about having respect for the theater,” she said. “And I’m still grateful for it.”

Gloria Piraino mentioned Martin along with Howard Weiner. “Every thing that I am and have become as a teacher, I owe to them.”

She is looking forward to attend ing the reunion, which she originally learned about in communicating with another SING alumni, Gary Traver son.

“He said that a reunion was being organized and I was happy to hear it.”

From one Ridgwood to another

Josephine Perrotta Peacock, Class of ’77, is a former Ridgewood, Queens resident who now lives with her family in Ridgewood but in New Jersey.

She has a sweetness in her voice that makes it unsurprising to learn that she had starred in SING produc tions and following graduation, pur sued a career as a vocalist. She toured throughout the East with the Ray Va lente New York Experience.

Around 1980, she left show busi ness to become a CPA, but has re turned to singing at her church in Bergen County.

She credits SING with giving her a confidence that she believes she would not have developed otherwise.

“It all started with SING,” she said, adding that she looks forward to attending the reunion.

Piraino mentioned that in learning of each other’s whereabouts, the for mer school friends found that at least three have passed on.

“As someone pointed out, those are three people with whom we won’t be able to share an evening and talk about the wonderful times we had to gether,” she said. “It shows the im portance of holding a reunion now.”

Any former participants in SING at Grover Cleveland High School who wish to attend the reunion on Oct. 17 should call Mary Moran at 1 718 605 9589 or contact her via e mail at mmoran22@si.rr.com