Alan Alda and his high school teacher (Great article)
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wait!
The Journal News
Actors Voight, Alda to honor teacher at Stepinac
By Peter D. Kramer
pkr...@LoHud.com • April 24, 2009
Alan Alda and Jon Voight have found success on screens big and small,
but tomorrow the award-winning actors will be back where it began for
them, at Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains, to honor
their drama teacher, the Rev. Bernard McMahon.
"It's important for me to give him a proper salute," said Voight, a
native of Yonkers who graduated from Stepinac in 1956 and won an Oscar
for "Coming Home."
"With any of my successes, there was a collaboration with the
director," Voight says. "And it goes back to the collaborative spirit
that came from my work with Bernie. He's as good as anyone I ever
worked with. Because of his taste, his enthusiasm and his talent."
Alda said McMahon "should be held up as a model for all teachers."
"I don't know if I ever had a teacher who quietly inspired me the way
he did," said Alda, a multiple Emmy winner and star of "M*A*S*H."
"His goodness as a person and his acute intelligence made him an
extremely good teacher and an exemplary mentor," he said.
Tomorrow's honor, the bestowing of the Major Bowes Theater Award, will
be followed by a performance of Stepinac's spring musical, "Curtains,"
written by Nyack native and Scarsdale resident Rupert Holmes. The
evening, a benefit for the school's theater program, begins with a
cocktail reception with Alda, Voight and their honoree.
McMahon taught dramatics and literature at Stepinac, a Catholic boys'
school in White Plains from 1951 to 1971. He moderated the Drama Club
and directed several of its productions, chaired the English
Department and oversaw the yearbook and the literary magazine.
When McMahon left Stepinac, it was to teach and serve as chaplain at
the College of New Rochelle, where he taught Mercedes Ruehl, who went
on to win a Tony for "Lost in Yonkers" in 1991 and an Oscar for "The
Fisher King" in 1992.
McMahon, now retired, lives in Manhattan, and will attend tomorrow's
festivities and reconnect with his former students.
Alda credits McMahon with nurturing his love of writing.
"He was constructively devious about the way he got me to develop my
writing skills," Alda said. "You could either do this boring book
report or you could write a 15-minute sketch for the Thanksgiving
show."
Which did Alda choose?
"I chose the one that was fun," he said with a laugh. "And that also
got me further along in my ability to write than the book report would
have. You can write something and stick it in a drawer for 50 years,
but it won't do you as much good as putting it in front of an audience
once."
At Stepinac, McMahon directed the original musical "Love's the
Ticket," for which Alda, a senior then, wrote the book and
collaborated on some of the songs.
"What we never knew until it was all over was that he had put up his
own money to get the show off," Alda said. "If the show didn't make
any money, he would be out. He did it because he had faith in us."
Alda said one of the great lessons he learned, the hard way, on
"Love's the Ticket" was that writers shouldn't write parts - leading
parts - for themselves.
"You don't always learn the lesson you think you're going to learn,"
he said with a laugh. "But I learned about the structure of a play by
doing it."
Voight recalled being enlisted to paint sets for McMahon's shows and,
eventually, being cast in plays at the school's Major Bowes Theater.
McMahon, he said, would sit in the theater and chat with him while
Voight painted. They would talk about the character Voight was to
play, and the young actor would bounce ideas off his director.
"He encouraged people to really go and they found a collaborative
spirit with him," Voight said. "There was a special glow in those
productions because of his personality and his talent."
Where: Archbishop Stepinac High School, 950 Mamaroneck Ave., White
Plains
When: 7:30 p.m. tomorrow
Tickets: $200 includes a pre-performance cocktail reception (at 6
p.m.), a personalized copy of Alan Alda's book or a DVD from Jon
Voight and premiere seating for "Curtains," performed by the Stepinac
Drama Club; $100 includes a personalized book or DVD and premiere
seating; $50 includes premiere seating.
Call: 914-946-4800, Ext. 245
Copyright ©2009 The Journal News, a Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper serving
Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties in New York.
Kirsten
> Sorry I'm a week and a half late posting this article. It's worth the
> wait!
>
> The Journal News
>
> Actors Voight, Alda to honor teacher at Stepinac
> By Peter D. Kramer
Thanks for sharing.