Cindy King shares 45 years of experience as head of dramatics at Notre Dame Regional High School

Cindy King poses for a photo outside the newly named Cynthia R. King Performance Hall at Notre Dame Regional High School in Cape Girardeau on Thursday, Feb. 16.

Laura Simon

For a person in charge of stage productions at Notre Dame Regional High School for the past 45 years and a student of lighting, Cindy King does everything in her power to avoid the spotlight.

She does, however, perform a comical counter to Brother David Migliorino's boisterous, center-stage personality when he bestows accolades on the school's longest tenured teacher.

Her annual spring musicals can be traced to "Fiddler on the Roof" in 1973 in the old gymnasium at the school's former downtown location, and the program has added a fall production since moving to its current location off Route K on the outskirts of town in 1998, which coincided with Migliorino's arrival as principal.

Over the years, he's listened to King's countless predictions of the "worst show ever" and impending disaster the week before the curtains open to the public.

"You go opening night, and it's just magnificent," Migliorino says, closing his eyes and shaking his head from behind the desk in his office.

Cindy King directs students during rehearsal for "Into the Woods" at Notre Dame Regional High School.

Laura Simon

King, sitting across from Migliorino, also shakes her head, but in disagreement.

When he speaks of King having a golden touch with her ability to bring out the best in her students, her fingers fidget.

King describes her early involvement in theater, especially in college as a "tech" person, and she's been true to that low profile at Notre Dame.

She prefers for others to take the stage, and on this occasion it was Migliorino, a former theater performer in high school and college.

"She's ridiculously modest -- ridiculously modest," Migliorino says in animated fashion. "It's one of my biggest arguments with her. I say, 'Cindy, you're excellent, you need to praise yourself.'"

Cindy King directs Caleb Vetter, left, and Tyler Bruns during Rehearsal for "Into the Woods" at Notre Dame regional High School.

Laura Simon

But she's more comfortable praising others.

She tells about the talents of former students, numerous ones who have gone on to craft professional careers.

There's Bill Schlitt, who played the lead role in her first production.

She first saw Schlitt perform in "Camelot" during his junior year at Notre Dame. At the time, King was a student at Southeast Missouri State University, where she was involved more in the technical end of theater productions with her ultimate ambitions gravitating toward professional lighting. There was a switch in her future, but it involved her life course when the theater position at Notre Dame unexpectedly became available. She applied and accepted the job on the spot.

"I was excited and scared," King says. "I was going to go into professional theater. Teaching is not where I thought I was going."

Cindy King directs students during rehearsal for "Into the Woods" at Notre Dame Regional High School.

Laura Simon

One of the perks of the job was having a performer like Schlitt.

"I thought, 'Wow, I'd like to work with him,' because he was extremely talented," King says.

Even then, King had an eye and ear for talent. Schlitt has since made a career of music and acting, performing nationally and serving in numerous other capacities, including choral conductor and theatrical producer.

"That music was his gift, and I'm not the music teacher, but he's, oh my gosh, a phenomenal actor as well," King says.

She ticks off a list of other former students, like Matt Buttrey (Class of 1995), who spent 16 years with Disney on Ice -- 10 as a performer and six as a production director -- and recently obtained a master's degree in scenery design, and Roger Seyer (1985), who she watched perform in "Miss Saigon" on Broadway in New York.

Cindy King directs students during rehearsal for "Into the Woods" at Notre Dame Regional High School.

Laura Simon

"I remember his phone call when he said, 'I got it!'" King says about Seyer. "It's like, 'Whoa.' I'm sure it was surreal for him, too."

All three former students are in Notre Dame's Performing and Visual Arts Hall of Fame.

The Class of 2008 was particularly talented, producing the likes of Carly Schneider, currently performing with the Omaha Community Playhouse in Omaha, Nebraska; Blake Palmer, a set and costume designer in New York; and Tara Meyer, a costume designer for both theater and film in California.

The list goes on, and as a person attuned to detail, she does not like to overlook anyone in productions that normally involve about 100 students in one capacity or another.

In her book, there is no small role. She can give a soliloquy on the importance of an usher: the first person patrons encounter.

"You can be an usher, and you can be a darn good one," King says.

The impending "disasters" have entertained audiences over the years. "Fiddler on the Roof" and "Anything Goes" have been her most recurring productions at three times each.

If students remain involved in theater for four years, she wants to expose them to a variety, allowing them to experience a comedy, like "The Man Who Came to Dinner," to the dance and music of "The Sound of Music" and "My Fair Lady," to the ultra-serious, such as "And Then They Came for Me," which addresses the Holocaust.

There's often a bonus, the life lesson that "The show must go on," such as when an illness forced some students to flawlessly take on last-minute roles in "The Dining Room."

"If you're in the corporate world, you don't want people to know, 'Oh, we have a problem today,'" King says. "You want to present yourself, as if 'OK, we've got this under control.' And I think that's something theater can teach you.

"You have to be able to focus, and you have to be able to let go of yourself because the show is more important than you are. The whole is more important than the individual."

She's imparted that lesson to more than one generation.

This year's spring production of "Into the Woods" features Tyler Bruns, whose mother, Danna (Westrich) Bruns, was a student assistant director to King in the last production of the show in 1991.

"I still think he'd like us to do something his dad was in, too," King says. "Will that determine what we pick? No. But he is just ecstatic. They are ecstatic that there is that shared show."

At the age of 68, King has lightened her classroom load, which has included drama, stagecraft and literature over the years. But she's still fully engulfed in theater, patiently and passionately molding students into their character and imparting the nuances of presentation.

"I've often said to people, 'I teach more out of the classroom than I do in the classroom when it comes to theater,' at least I think I do," King says.

Which brings her back to praising some of her former students, who've joined her particular labor of love.

She applauds former students like Mike Sullivan (1975) and Kim (Westrich) Zustiak (1995), who have taken on teaching theater.

"Nobody talks about educators," King said. "... But if somebody doesn't go into high school and teach theater, where are the theater people coming from?"

King is not married and does not have children. She is devoted to her students, giving each the attention of a mother.

She is the matriarch of the theater program at Notre Dame, and if anyone questions that title, they need only to walk in the school's front entrance and immediately turn right.

Painted in script on the wall above the four-door entrance into a multi-purpose room, also the school's cafeteria, is: "Cynthia R. King Performance Hall."

Migliorino recalled the telephone call he made to King in August to inform her that the room was being named in her honor.

"We're very different," Migliorino says. "I wanted to do this big splash, but I knew I would get in trouble. I said to her, 'By the way, I'm going to make this announcement, and I want you to know that you have no choice. It's going to become the Cynthia King Performance Center,' and there was a big silence. And I said, 'Are you still there?' And she said, 'I am. ... You know I don't like this idea.'

"I said, 'I'm very well aware of that, but this is really not an option. This has to happen. You deserve this honor.'"

When Migliorino made the surprise announcement at a parents meeting at the beginning of the school year, she received a standing ovation from some 700 parents in attendance.

King, in his words, did "her little Queen Elizabeth wave" from the sound booth. He knew she was honored but hating every second of the attention.

"She's too darn modest," Migliorino says. "She won't take credit. That's her biggest gift. She never takes the bow. It's never about her, it's about them, and that's a real teacher. That's a real teacher. It's always about others. That symbolizes her life, I think."