‘Curtain up, light the lights’ vocation for Mercy, San Francisco teacher

March 20, 2015
Tom Burke

Liz McAninch came to Mercy High School, San Francisco with the fog – or at least with a show about the staple haze – in 1976. She is the school’s drama director and also teaches English.

Her first show at Mercy was a musical she personally penned called “If the Fog Hadn’t Risen,” a program commemorating Mercy’s 25th anniversary.

Liz grew up in Texas, holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in English and education and had a stint in show business.

“I was a company member at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, traveled for a year with the New Shakespeare Company, and acted and directed in various theatres here in the city,” Liz told me in an email.

Liz directs two shows a year at Mercy, a play in the fall and a musical in the spring. The mix gives the young women at Mercy a varied experience of the stage, she said. Also on the marquee are a visual and performing arts festival featuring work done in acting, dance, art and music classes as well student directors, choreographers and filmmakers.

Liz has done the musical “Gypsy” twice and places it among her favorites. “Dead Man Walking” is among recent productions of plays at Mercy. “We got permission to adapt the script to change the role of the death row murderer to a woman,” Liz said. “The Dead Man Walking Project published my adaptation because of demand from other single-gender schools.”

Liz has also brought new scripts for students to read much as new shows are work-shopped in professional theater around the country. The shows stories “provided fodder for teaching moments about social justice, racial inequality, poverty, women’s roles and mental illness,” Liz said. Liz has also enjoyed directing murder mysteries and Shakespeare.

Liz’ favorite times at Mercy have included “intersession trips with students to the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland or traveling with students to Los Angeles cultural events. I also love being a part of the Senior Overnight Retreat. I have enjoyed an extraordinary collegiality with other teachers at Mercy and have never ceased to enjoy the unexpected and unlooked for joys of being in the classroom with our students.”

From the beginning Liz has been at home at Mercy. “I felt immediately embraced by the Sisters of Mercy and their dedication to social justice. At my first faculty meeting, the principal, Sister Marguerite Buchanan, said that teaching in a Catholic school should be a vocation not only for nuns but also for lay teachers and 39 years later I realize that I have found mine at Mercy high on 19th Avenue.

WORD PRO: Kate Martin, development and communications director for the Dominican Sisters of San Rafael, began a three-year term on the board of directors of the Communicators for Women Religious in January. Kate’s professional career has spanned several industries, always in the general area of marketing and communication. Kate is married with two adult daughters and spent many years volunteering in schools where she says she learned the most about fundraising. “The time has come for me to try to give back to an organization whose members have been so generous with their knowledge, skill, enthusiasm, humor, commitment, and openness to Spirit,” Kate said.

A professional organization of personnel responsible for communications within religious congregations of women, CWR is comprised of professional communicators serving nearly 200 religious congregations across the United States and in Canada, Australia, Ireland and Italy.

IN THE VICINITY: While my generation learned stuff mostly through memorization I understand schools are now having kids learn conceptually. Does that mean that now 2 + 2 = kinda’ 4?

ALMS TAKING: I have to admit that I’m not the biggest giver when it comes to my high school back in Jersey and fundraisers there have now found a new way to convince this old tightwad to send in a few bucks. Instead of asking for money, the school now says if I don’t give they’ll put my transcripts on the school website for public view. The check’s in the mail.

Email items and electronic pictures – jpegs at no less than 300 dpi to burket@sfarchdiocese.org or mail to Street, One Peter Yorke Way, San Francisco 94109. Include a follow-up phone number. Street is toll-free. My phone number is (415) 614-5634.