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A FEW MINUTES WITH MR. DENIS MURPHY When and how did you end up teaching at Kellenberg? I began teaching here in 1990. I taught seniors my first year and it was the first class that was a complete Kellenberg class. I had applied and interviewed with Brother Mark Ormond the prior year and unfortunately they didn’t have anything at that time. Then I was doing summer stock theatre on Nantucket when I got the call from my mother that they wanted to hire me. Somebody had left at the last minute so I was actually teaching history my first year until November. At that point, someone else left and they switched me to English. The Marianist connection runs deep for me. Brother Richard Hughes taught me freshman algebra, and his ability to excel in many different areas inspires me to this day. I had Brother Mark in high school at Chaminade as a moderator. My first year at Chaminade, Father Tom was still a Brother and it was Brother Kenneth’s first year as a Brother. Brother Kenneth’s first year at Kellenberg was also my first year at Kellenberg. What do you remember about the early years at Kellenberg? I remember my first day being at a new teacher meeting with Brother Mark Ormond and Brother Joe Bellizzi. They explained a lot of the methodology behind managing a classroom. I think sometimes when we think of teaching when we’re young, we think, “I can’t wait until I can teach Macbeth!” But your bosses are saying, “Do you know how many kids to have in a row and how to keep them quiet?” You don’t realize that there is all this protocol. It was all very enlightening. At the end of the meeting, Brother Joe said to everyone, “Oh, and you have to love the kids.” It was really, to me, a very important thing to realize. As you get older you find yourself saying things to the kids that are more paternal. At the time I started, I think I was five years older than the kids I was teaching, so you’re more focused on trying to make sure they are doing their tasks and so forth. Even in those days, Father Tom was always doing something innovative, and our school had a very strong sense of spirituality.
influence on me. At Fordham University, I was president of Mimes and Mummers, which is the college’s dramatic society, and was named the recipient of the Rev. Alfred Barrett, S.J. Memorial Award for theatre upon graduation. I also used to do summer theatre at my parish, St. Aidan’s in Williston Park.
I always felt that I wasn’t a teacher, but instead that I, “worked at Kellenberg.” I felt like I was part of the fabric. There wasn’t a hierarchy. You had administrators who actually taught, and it’s not always like that at other schools. And now, I can really see why. They want to teach; it’s what they do. They want to be accessible and know what the kids are going through, and then that makes them better administrators. What have you taught and moderated during your time here? I taught history very briefly, as well as music for a short period. Pretty much the rest of the time here I’ve been teaching senior English and involved with the Drama Club. I was the assistant of the Drama Club beginning in fall of 1991, and then in fall 2002 I became moderator. What are your roots in theatre? I began doing theatre in my junior year at Chaminade. My mother actually used to take me to Chaminade shows in the 70s when I wasn’t even in high school yet. Every Saturday night, we’d listen to a cast album on the radio. My uncle was an actor. My mother’s family is very much into the arts, and they were a big
What has been the most meaningful moment you’ve experienced thus far relating to the Drama Club? One thing that made a great impression on me was during Hurricane Sandy, we were doing Oklahoma, and the show is all about finding a new state, new beginnings. We were interrupted by the hurricane, so we only had about a month of rehearsals with a big break in between. When we got back to school, Brother Kenneth gave us the okay to go on with the show. I gave the kids the option, and they all wanted to still do it. It was really a study in perseverance. Brother Kenneth had invited some people who had lost their homes to stay at the school and I would greet them in the lobby on those dark November afternoons and listen to their stories. We had great success with the show, because after hearing these stories the kids just would not settle for anything else. That was a real metaphor for what it means to be here - you don’t give up, you persevere, you keep the faith. The prayer I always read to the kids at the show is from 2 Timothy, Chapter 4, “I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.” You can’t fail if you believe all that. I say to them, “You might not be the greatest actor in the world, but we want you to realize that when you are part of this program you are just as important as everybody else.” The lyrics in the last song of that Oklahoma are, “Oh, what a beautiful mornin', Oh, what a beautiful day.” Those words symbolize rebirth and what we all had to go through after the severity of that storm. What has been the best part about teaching at Kellenberg? It has to be the relationships with both the students and the faculty. Oftentimes, you see your colleagues’ children grown up, including continued on page 32
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HEART & MIND
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