Mount alumna now a
Broadway touring star

by MEGAN WARD

When the cast members of Mount Saint Joseph Academy’s Les Misérables huddled before their November 14 performance, they had an especially encouraging face in the circle: Renee Veneziale, an ’86 graduate of the Mount, who had played the part of Eponine in the first national tour of “Les Mis.”

Veneziale, who grew up in Roxborough and currently resides in New York City, returned to the Mount to lend her support and enthusiasm to the “Les Mis” cast and crew, particularly Sarah Bonner ’04, who played Eponine in this year’s Mount production. “I enjoyed meeting the students,” Veneziale said. ”I was amazed at the talent and the heart. What a special experience for me, getting to look back on my foundation.”

Veneziale was 18 when she won the role of Eponine and toured with the road company to Boston, Washington, Chicago and Philadelphia. Playing Eponine was a thrilling experience for her. She jokes that her roommate would claim she practiced her character’s signature song, “On My Own,” on “an hourly basis.”

While a student at the Mount, Veneziale played Annie opposite Joey DiMarco (the current theater director at Mount Saint Joseph Academy) in Annie and Anna in The King and I, her favorite role of her high school career. “The rehearsal process at the Mount taught me a great deal,” she says. “How to really invest in a character; how to do the work and then to let it go and just be in the moment. The staff was most encouraging.”

More recently, she appeared in Cats and is currently at work on a pop music project with her husband, who is the associate musical director of Broadway’s Mamma Mia.

But she will always look fondly upon her days as a Mountie. “The Mount was such a big influence on my choice to stay active in the theater world,” she said. “I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to attend the school.” Returning to her alma mater for this year’s production of Les Misérables was something she reveled in doing. “To stand in the auditorium and have all the memories come back … looking at all the students’ faces and being a part of ‘the circle’ before ‘Les Mis’ at the Mount was an experience I will never forget.”