The months of hard work and long hours for the staff, students and past graduates of Mount Saint Agnes (MSA) have finally paid off. Their production of `Bye Bye Birdie' was a smash hit.

Having seen several different productions of the story previously, I thought this was the most entertaining version of the Mike Stewart book, yet.

The idea to involve past graduates was rather an accident Producer and Musical Director Bruce Fox said.

"I wanted to involve the faculty in the show,'' he said. "Then I realised that many of the faculty were past graduates and that's how it started.'' So as not to give anyone's age away Mr. Fox would only say that the graduates go back as far as the sixties.

They took on the roles of the parents of screaming teenagers that all swooned at the name Conrad Birdie -- played by 17-year-old Cullin O'Hara.

The MSA graduates sang and danced and did a little swooning of their own during the `One Last Kiss' song.

Tuesday's opening night of the two-night sold-out show, held at the school's auditorium, kept the audience laughing and singing along to the enticing tunes with the musical score also being preformed by past MSA graduates turned professional musicians.

Added to their ranks were three outstanding current students, Jennifer McCall Daniels, 15, on flute and John Kershaw and Jenny Faries, both 17, on guitar, who were given the opportunity to play with professionals.

Jason Bento, 15, and Raquel Fagundo, 16, opened the show a bit tentatively but soon blossomed into their roles of Albert Peterson and Rose Alverez respectively.

Jason made the frantic Albert come alive and made a beautiful save when lines were slipped up. Raquel carried off Rose with all the suave sophistication the character needed.

Cullin, wearing silver shoes and Elvis-esk hair made Conrad Birdie the bad boy he was meant to be.

The supporting cast of teenagers filled the auditorium with screams when ever Conrad walked onto the stage and were marvellous during `The Telephone Hour' which spread the news of Kim MacAfee, played by Kelly DeSilva, being `pinned' -- going steady -- by Hugo Peabody, played by Joshua Harrison.

The show stealer by far was Danielle Taylor in the role of Mrs. Mae Peterson, who tormented Rose, controlled her son, Albert and attempted to seduce Conrad.

The cast members are too numerous for all to be mentioned, but it was a wonderful team effort by all students, both past and present.

The lights, sound and back stage crews all deserve their moment of glory as the technical side of the production was run entirely by students. They made the cast look and sound great.

While walking to their cars many of the audience members could be heard singing "We love you Conrad. Oh yes we do. We love you Conrad and we'll be true. When you're not near us, we're blue. Oh Conrad we love you.'' This is a sure sign that the staff, students and graduates of MSA did an extraordinary job with their production of `Bye Bye Birdie'.

TRISH RAGBIRSINGH We love you Conrad: Reporters, played by Maxwell Hassell, Sarah Lusher, and Jennifer Roberts, question Albert Peterson, played by Jason Bento, (center) about some of the controversy surrounding Conrad Birdie, played by Cullin O'Hara, while Rose Alvarez, played by Raquel Fagundo and the rest of the cast of Mount Saint Agnes' production of Bye Bye Birdie look on.

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