For most of the past 46 years, the casts of dramas and musicals at Columbus St. Charles Preparatory School have changed as students have come and gone. But through that period, there has been one constant – the presence of Doug Montgomery as director.
Montgomery estimated that he has directed 130 plays, including 10 productions of the musical Godspell, during that time. “Now I’m directing the children of students who were in plays here in the 1990s,” he said. “Three or four of them were in our 10th production of Godspell this past May.”
Montgomery, who also teaches sophomore English classes at the school, has been there since fall 1976, with the exception of the years 1983-88, when he earned his Actors’ Equity card and was a company member at the Great Lakes Theater Festival in Cleveland. He earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in acting in 1986 from Ohio University’s professional actors training program.
Montgomery received a Bachelor of Science degree in English and speech communication from Ohio State University in 1978 and began directing plays at St. Charles while still in college.
“In 1976, the priest who had been theater director at the school became principal, and that created an opening. I was assisting in directing plays at (the former Columbus) St. Joseph Academy and was asked if I could become director at St. Charles,” he said.
The first two plays he directed at the school were Dracula and My Fair Lady. “I remember Father Tim Hayes (pastor of parishes in Chillicothe and Waverly and Catholic Times Scripture columnist) had one of the key roles – not the lead – in Dracula,” he said. “He’s one of several priests of the Diocese of Columbus I’ve directed in St. Charles plays.”
Montgomery said he felt “rather intimidated” when he was asked to come to St. Charles because the school had an outstanding reputation for producing plays in its theater, which was built in 1941. “I remember coming here many times while in grade school to see shows, especially musicals,” he said.
St. Charles annually presents a drama in the fall and a musical in the spring and has produced about 20 central Ohio or American high school premieres of shows including Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Into the Woods and The Battle of Boat.
The most recent Godspell production was supposed to have taken place in spring 2020 to mark the 50th anniversary of what has become an annual tradition of spring musicals at St. Charles but was delayed for two years because of COVID.
“The kids really enjoy that play,” he said. “We’ve done it 10 times since 1980 – at least once every four years – to give members of every graduating class since then the chance to be in it. I’m 66 now and have renewed my teaching license for five years. I’ll probably retire after that, so this last production may have been my last Godspell here.”
Montgomery says that in choosing plays for presentation, he tries to find one each year that hasn’t been produced at another central Ohio high school but isn’t always successful in doing so.
“It’s getting harder to find new plays that are appropriate for a high school audience,” he said. “In addition to premieres, I try to find shows based on great literary works. One I particularly remember was an adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath in 1993, which included a rainstorm on the stage.
“Another memorable one was the American high school premiere in 1992 of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods,” a musical look at what might have happened to the characters of several fairy tales after their stories ended.
Montgomery said he learns about new plays available for high schools mostly through American Theatre magazine, as well as via word of mouth through contacts in the professional theater world.
He has several ideas about what plays he will direct next year but hasn’t made a final decision, in part because of the unique nature of his school. “We didn’t have too many graduates this year who had appeared in plays, in part because of COVID, and I hope all the underclassmen who were performers in plays will come back,” he said.
“In our school, it’s always a challenge to know what to pick because, since we’re an all-boys school, we know what young men are returning but can never be sure about the young women needed for the casts,” Montgomery said. He recruits female cast members by sending requests for help to all central Ohio high schools and through notices in parish bulletins.
“One of the attractions about theater for boys here, as it is in any school, is the chance to meet girls and get to know them better,” he said. “Acting also appeals to a lot of athletes in their off-seasons because of the chance to continue the hard work and commitment they learned in sports. Some of my best actors have been athletes.”
Montgomery said being an English teacher to 10th-graders also helps him find actors. “I look for the boys who don’t mind speaking up in class and handle themselves well and ask if they’ve ever thought about being in a play,” he said.
“The school has become much more diverse in the last five or six years, and that’s resulted in its own challenges. The model where the dad worked and the mom stayed home or worked and was relied on to haul kids from one place to another is a lot less common.”
Montgomery said the most successful participant in the St. Charles theater program is Steve Haggard, a 1998 graduate of the school who is appearing on Broadway as the title character in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. “Steve went to DePaul University in Chicago, then acted in regional theater in Chicago and the Midwest for many years.
“People who watched Monday Night Football saw him for a year but didn’t know it was him,” Montgomery said. “Steve played the team manager Brian Urlacher of the Chicago Bears tackled in the intro to the program each week. That was his best-known role until he got to Broadway. He was an example of the description of Actors’ Equity as the only union where 90 percent of the members are unemployed.”
After he returned to Columbus, Montgomery’s own acting career was limited because of the time he spent directing others. He has appeared in a few productions of Actors’ Theatre in Columbus’ Schiller Park, but that’s been the extent of it.
He met his wife, Nancy, while both were acting in Cleveland. They have two sons, both of whom graduated from St. Charles – Joseph, 26, who lives in Nashville; and John, 22, a recent Ohio State graduate. “Neither of them caught the acting bug. They played football, lacrosse and basketball,” he said.
Montgomery describes himself as “a voice major who couldn’t read music, so I switched to education” at Ohio State. He grew up as a member of Columbus Immaculate Conception Church and graduated from Columbus Bishop Watterson High School. His father was a singer with the Barney Rapp Orchestra of Cincinnati and other regional big bands that appeared at Columbus’ Valley Dale ballroom, but that career took a detour when he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps on Dec. 8, 1941, the day after the Pearl Harbor attack.
“Ever since I started at St. Charles, the drama program has received strong support from the school principals, including Jim Lower, the current principal, and his predecessor, Dominic Cavello, who was principal for 27 years. That’s been critical to its success,” Montgomery said.
“I’ve worked closely for many years with three people. Karrie Horton has been my musical director since 1992, when she worked for the diocesan Tribunal and was a soloist at St. Joseph Cathedral. She’s now music director at New Albany High School. Mike Lorr, St. Charles class of 1976, has assisted me for decades. Joe Mitchell, class of 1995, is my technical director. Without them, the St. Charles theater program wouldn’t be nearly as successful.
“I enjoy teaching, but I also look forward to when the school bell rings at 3:05 p.m. and I get the chance to do rehearsals with our play casts,” he said. “I enjoy everything about the theater, whether it’s reading plays, discovering new shows or finding new talent. Getting over here (to the campus theater) is what keeps me young.”