Retirement of an icon brings stage gathering

E-mails asking "Is there room for one more?" were still arriving Tuesday.

The question wasn't rhetorical, not with close to 80 Cherry Hill High School East alumni converging on the school's stage tomorrow night to honor their former mentor, drama teacher Robert D. Nation, who retired July 1.

The "theater kids" - expected from Hollywood, Broadway, Chicago, Seattle and Florida, as well as South Jersey - will reprise their high school musical roles in a revue drawn from productions directed by Nation over 38 years at East.

"Every show was a memorable show," said Cherry Hill Mayor Bernie Platt, whose four children worked with Nation at the school in the 1980s. "He's a true professional. It was equal or better than Broadway, as far as I was concerned."

Nation is Cherry Hill's Mr. Holland, and tomorrow's production is his opus.

His graduates have gone on to distinguished careers as singers and actors, such as the Class of 1984's James Barbour, who will star this fall in Broadway's

A Tale of Two Cities

, as well as directors, teachers, stage managers and technicians.

"Bob's love of theater is contagious, his standards incredibly high, and his work ethic impeccable," said Jill Garland, Class of 1979, director of development at Playwrights Horizons in New York.

Nation, 60, of Cherry Hill, began as a student teacher at East in 1969 after graduating from Glassboro State College with a theater degree. Inspired by his mother, Frances, a vaudevillian, Nation had hoped to act on Broadway.

"I only planned to stay a couple of years. I stayed because I loved it," Nation said. "Now it's time to do something for myself."

Nation's retirement was hastened, in part, by the sudden death in March of longtime friend and performing-arts supporter Leonard Terranova, the school's vice principal. Terranova was found dead in his office after returning from the senior class trip to Disney World.

"It was devastating," Nation said. "It reminded me life is short, and you have to make the most of it."

In his next act, Nation hopes to work in New York as a producer, director or actor. He has plenty of connections there - through former students he directed in more than 80 musicals and plays at East and in the Cherry Hill summer theater program.

Many graduates altered vacation plans to attend rehearsals and perform. Some (can't say who) say they'll call in sick to work. A 1991 alumna signed up in late May, eight months pregnant, and vowed to have her baby in time. (She did.) The cast will include two generations of the Cherry family of Cherry Hill - Mimi, Class of 1979, and her son Ian, Class of 2008.

Nation's son, Ryan, 32, a sound engineer, is in from Los Angeles to help backstage, and wife Janet, as always, will be in supportive role. (Another son, Brad, 28, is a news director in Charlotte, N.C.)

Nation is "like P.T. Barnum. He exudes energy and creativity. He motivates people," said longtime friend and colleague William Kovnat, East's photography teacher.

Ryan Wolfson, Class of 1994, is a union actor whose credits include roles in

Law & Order Criminal Intent

and

Eli Stone

. "I chose to make my hobby and my passion my career," said Wolfson, of New York, who will sing a solo from

Into the Woods

. Other participants graced only the high school stage and are back to rekindle friendships.

"We always thought - and Bob promoted - that we were performing on a greater level than high school, and you take that with you," said Michael Sable, Class of 1981, managing director of Mercury Sound Studios in Los Angeles. "We learned in a very safe, creative environment," he said.

Lisa Geis, of Westmont, who mostly worked on sets and costumes in the 1980s, uses her theater training at Rutgers-Camden law school, where she's a second-year student. Before her first oral arguments, Geis said, she calmed her nerves by imaging herself back on East's stage. "Thank you, Bob Nation," she said.

"Bob taught us there's going to be rejection in life," said Larry Wenger, Class of 1982, a self-employed businessman from Washington Township. "You can have confidence, even if you don't get that leading role."

Tomorrow's show will begin with excerpts from shows Nation produced in the last year -

Rent

,

The King and I

, and

Aladdin

- and progress, with solos and production numbers, back to the 1970s.

The cast will dress in black and use hats, feather boas, and other small props to assume character, said Tami Gordon-Brody of Cherry Hill, who is coordinating the show.

"I doubt I'd want to get into my costume now," said Gordon-Brody, 44, who at age 17 wore a sparkling gown as Glinda the good witch in

The Wizard of Oz

. She even had a bubble machine. ("The man knows how to make a moment," she said.)

David Rowell, Class of 1981, an assistant theater professor at Florida State University in Tallahassee, will be an emcee. "I couldn't sing then, and I can't sing now," he said. "And my knees won't let me dance anymore."

Nation will sing "Sunrise, Sunset" from

Fiddler on the Roof

to close the show. He also has taken a hand in directing the revue, similar to one done 18 years ago, though he said he tried to stay out of it.

"They're used to me being in control," he said. "I'm not real good at relinquishing it."

But alumni expect his input. Asked how a two-hour revue can come together in just a few days, with many participants not arriving until today or tomorrow, a half-dozen alumni answered confidently: "Bob will figure it out."

"If he sat there and just watched, I'd think something was wrong," Rowell said.

Sable, who performed under Nation's direction in eight large productions and four one-act plays, said alumni want not only to celebrate what Nation accomplished at East, but to "tap into the camaraderie that was associated with a chance to connect with an audience. After high school, those experiences are few and far between."

"This is about more than me," Nation agreed. No matter how old his junior thespians are now, their years at East gave them "the people and the relationships they value in life."

Sunrise, Sunset . . . 38 Years of High School Theatre

will be performed tomorrow at 8 p.m. at Cherry Hill High School East, 1750 Kresson Rd. Tickets: $15, for sale at the school box office from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. today and an hour before showtime. Proceeds go to the Leonard Terranova and Frances Nation Memorial Scholarship Fund for performing-arts students.